manifestations of the desire to tame

ONE
A beautiful, sunny, spring day. Elsie and I sit outside to listen to the breeding birds and the big bumblebees buzzing. Then ROAR. Our neighbour's lawn mower. Elsie cries at the intrusion.

TWO
"Is she good?" Countless, countless times I'm asked this question about Elsie. They mean does she cry. Yes, she expresses herself. We have managed to avoid teaching her to stuff her feelings down. We want her to know that we know that the only way she has of expressing herself (the difficult feelings) is through crying. And that is fine and good. She may cry due to hunger (although I try to feed her before she resorts to crying), but mainly she cries due to pent-up tensions relating to learning new things, seeing new places and people, becoming frustrated by her powerlessness and inability to do everything she wants to do. We get frustrated by those things too but instead of having a good cry about it, we tend to push our feelings down in a myriad of ways: eating, sleeping, smoking, drinking, TV, Internet, bitterness, cynicism, hurting others ... and more!

So, yes, she is very good. She was born that way. You are very good too. You just behave in not-so-good ways (as I do) because you've been hurt (as I have been) and these are your coping mechanisms (and mine).

Comments

[Mu]

Beautiful!!!

And BOY do I know what you mean about these lawnmowers...add burgler alarms going off when homeowner aint at home, and DIY nuts. We are surrounded

[Maya St.Clair]

BEAUTIFULLY put.