white and black offers

When it’s clear I go out to look at the stars – after sitting meditation and before coffee and reading and my Morning Pages. But, let me back up to yesterday. Following all those morning things I just mentioned, when I left for my walk just before 6am, the fragrance of skunk was prominent. My eyes were open. Turning the first corner I saw ahead a skunk in all it’s white and blackness trotting down the sidewalk to my left, towards me, and I tread carefully in the middle of the street until it passed – warning lights clicking on in neighborhood yards. Two more turns and a straight shot to the Spruce Street Bridge, still in the middle of the road, I saw a skunk, likewise sharing middle space, coming quickly directly toward me. I swung over to the right, and the skunk swung over to its left – directly toward me. I crossed the other way, and the skunk did likewise. So I said something in a warning (wicked chickenshit) voice, and the skunk took that hint and ran to the sidewalk and hurried up past me.

Back to this morning, and after meditation and before the other stuff, I walked out into the 3:45am street to look at Orion and the Big Dipper. I was staring up at the latter when I realized I was hearing the softest sound of feet behind me on the tar. I turned around and approaching, maybe 10 feet to the west, was a skunk, looking directly at me. Once again (oh Great Chief Chickenshit) I said something – “No” – and the skunk turned and ran back to a sewer drain below the sidewalk.

The Carole King song “Going Back” has a line, “A little bit of courage is all we lack.” This became the point for me when back in the apartment, literally flying from the middle of the street, up the steps, and inside the screen door (Bruce Springsteen – “The screen door slams.”) Ann said, “The skunks are coming to you for something.”

On my knees, each morning, I ask – among other things – to be wide open to all of the offers from the day. I can do better.