Friday, November 23, 2012

New relationships, new gifts

It is interesting how love inspires us to love more, and loss heightens the sense of love mixed with longing, propelling us forward--eventually--into the possibility of loving again.

Recently my youngest son Cameron brought his new guinea pig home for me to meet and babysit for two weeks. She is the calmest, sweetest guinea pig I have ever known. Her name is Penelope. She is still a baby, likes to be held, and joyfully jumped her way through an obstacle course we constructed in the spare bedroom. When Cameron took her back to school (it was one of his roommate's turn to take her home), we missed her. And two days ago, I decided (with my daughter, grandson, and my daughter's friend) to stop by a pet store to take a look at their guinea pigs.

But none of them were Penelope. They were all grown and pretty ordinary. None seemed to have her spirit--or her coloring. She is a pretty mix of orange and white, with lots of orange with big blots of white and a hundred cowlicks. None of these ho-hum shorthairs held a candle to her.

But then we walked back through the store, and met this different-specied guinea pig:

Hi. I'm Olive.
And after holding her and playing with her, we knew we had to bring her home.

Ever since, I've been discovering that from that moment of love joyfully overflowing, lots of results emanate. This means life changes for my two older dogs, Georgie (a very senior citizen) and Pearl, who is two-and-a-half and a true pacifist (and not used to a puppy biting her feet and hanging on to her tail). For me, this also means back to puppy potty training, puppy proofing wires and such, and learning once again (and once again and once again), how to let love guide me through days that turn out differently than I plan.

Love brings incredible blessings, and it also asks us to expand and open and be more flexible and trust that Love really is the Answer. This is sometimes asking a lot, especially when we were happy with our settled, known, controllable lives and are being stretched and expanded to welcome more, and more, and more love into our lives. :)