It is quiet in the house this morning.  The sun sparkling against new leaves is casting soft shadows against the oaks outside my bedroom window.  The cat will not negotiate her choice of spot to nap and so I compromise and sit farther from the lamp than I had wanted to.  

It seems I looked up from the comfort of my winter coat to find spring arrived and earth was erupting with green and pink. White blossoms, purple and yellow smiling at the rain, laughing in the sun.  I was just getting comfortable with my winter wardrobe.  It seems reckless to leave the house in a short-sleeved shirt.  The sun reminds me that it is time to face the truth.  I will obey.

This week I figured out what is really bothering me.  There is at the root of all my worries about people and circumstances a single theme.  Have you ever had a moment when a flash of insight opens up your heart?  Do you know that feeling when the burden you were not even aware you were carrying is gone and relief settles in?  The situations are not altered but you have found a perspective that changes everything.  I discovered an inner sorrow for the loss of innate human potential for compassion and happiness.  My frustrations and disappointments about a conflict or situation are acknowledgement that someone has missed an opportunity.

Altruism and respect for humanity seem to succumb to and be buried in the rubble of life events.  My solution is simple.  I can choose to be kind in the encounters of each day.  What I have, by way of compassion and happiness, I can share.  It is a basic thing, kindness, usually well received.  There is nothing to conjure up, no dogma to deploy.  Life is difficult for everyone at times.  Faces wear the story, bodies take the aftermath.  Kindness is like a cool drink on a hot day, or a warm coat in winter.

She stirs, the cat, and reaches for the pen as I write.  No thumbs, so for her, no satisfaction of grasping with those knobby toes and claws and creating a mark, or symbols or words.  I am grateful I am not her.