Christe eleison.

Today was a long day. After work this evening I went to a meeting. The meeting itself was okay, though I am still not entirely sure how my being there helps anything. Afterwards while in the midst of trying to a good deed and be an advocate for someone I care deeply about, I instead found out something that shocked me so much that I started crying a little bit as it sunk in. It was really upsetting, but hey I did what I could, already feeling like a big moron, just did my best to get it together and get out of there.

Immediately when I came home, I jumped onto the bike and rode about two miles as fast as I could stand it to a favorite park in the woods. I listened to Van Morrison on on the ride, which to me is healing spiritual music. Then I jumped onto a swing and just starting swinging and swinging. I listened to the music and closed my eyes remembering how my feet used to seem like they were touching the sky when I was in kindergarten. I love that memory. I thought about all the kids at school, all the really good beautiful things in my life, and I was genuinely thankful.

So I started to feel better. I tried to take deep breaths and exhaust all the tension out of my being, and I started to feel full of love and good energy.

The sun was already down but there was still a little light. So I turned my bike toward the inlet for a short ride around the water. The tide was out. It was so gorgeous.

Then I saw it. The otter. At first it seemed like it was still moving around, even breathing. Then I realized that I was the one breathing so hard from riding the bike and that I was seeing my own pulse in the otter, literally. My eyes had a pulse. The otter didn't. It wasn't moving or breathing. It was laying with its snout pointed toward the low water. I don't know how it died.

Maybe it seems like a travesty to be grieved about an otter with all the other suffering in the world. Well let it be a travesty. I was sad about the otter.

But it wasn't just the otter.