This week there was one of those days. A day full of contrast depending on who you are, where you stand. It was a great day for the coyote. It was a bad day for the chicken. I felt sad, and mad at myself, and also felt joy in the morning when I listened to the song birds in the yard who now have that space, while I pet the cat who now lives inside. It was a day of many things like most days are.

We have been taught somewhere along the way to expect to arrive at happiness. Study diligently, work hard, acquire this or that, achieve this or that and then you will be…fulfilled? happy? complete? These things are not destinations, they are stops along the way that include a lot of different kinds of scenery. I once heard someone say that we begin this journey breathed into life by the exhalation of God, we end this life on that divine inhalation, bringing us back into an existence of unity. In between we move along experiencing the world, the macro seasons of our ages, the natural seasons of the earth movement, the micro-season of a day. Good and bad happen all together, all at once, all the time. How to not get stuck believing that one place is where you are meant to live, or clinging to a moment that is just a moment, or pining for a picture of what it should be, this is the work of our days.

I don’t mean to suggest that we should not love deeply, or work for the things that matter, or that we should not care when there is pain. It does all pass away and yet it is also what makes us and moves us. I don’t treat the chickens as pets, and I also see that they like to be out, laying in a sun spot, jumping on the gate ledge. I want them to have their moment of happiness. I know we live in coyote country, I even know the coyote has come over the fence before. I took a chance. It worked for a few months. Was the pain worth the moments of joy? That is the question for our days.

There will always be something lost when you give yourself to this life. A moment listening to the bird song or contemplating the magnolia bud is a moment of not something else. Saying yes to a love of decades is an experience you can have no other way, and you have to say no to a certain kind of selfishness to have it. But perhaps it is the perspective that we need. It is not about what I don’t have, it is what I do have, even in the moments of loss. And it isn’t just what I have, it is what you have too, and how can I experience joy in seeing the joy that you feel?

The chicken had a good life. A warm coop, ample food, a big garden to roam in. The coyote has a full belly and land that is getting smaller and smaller. I am sorry for the chicken. I accept the consequences of my choice. It was a good day and a bad day, all together, all the time, like every day for someone.