Pigs in Paradise

I am perched on a ravine over a river that is truly astoundingly, breathtakingly, alive and beautiful.  I sit here some mornings almost literally with my jaw dropped, tears welling up, unable to grasp how beautiful it is, and how teeming with life it is.  And then, juuuuuust as I think I can’t take any more beauty, the pig from next door starts screaming and squealing bloody murder, and a waft of its’ shit blows right through my kitchen. Ahhhh, life. Shit.  

The funny thing is, at first this screaming and shit was so upsetting to me that I was literally UNABLE TO SEE the beauty that lay before me (I had been able to see the beauty when I rented the place, but the pig wasn’t squealing and the shit wasn’t wafting). And so I obsessed for the first couple of days about moving out, getting OUT. I’m in paradise, for christ’s sake! If it’s paradise, it shouldn’t include these moments of screaming and shit!  … should it? Hm. That’s a question. I breathed into it. I mean really breathed in the shit air (I mean I have the time for pete’s sake - why not?). And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like my paradise being “ruined” by the pig. But, I made a commitment in that moment to stay anyway. To not run from the shit and screaming of life, but to stay and explore it. Get friendly with it, see how the shit and screaming interfaces with beauty, and what it has to teach me. 

This is a big deal for me. Would it be for you too?

I see about myself that there is a way in which I have been slightly removed from life because I don’t like the shit and the screaming. And it has begun to feel like something I am missing - about being human, about being alive. I don’t like being uncomfortable. I even pejoratively call myself a princess sometimes because I have such a strong preference for beauty and comfort.  (And hellz YES to beauty and comfort!) And being as fortunate as I am, I am able to stay away from unpleasantries a good part of the time (though that doesn’t stop me from complaining on the daily). And this has been nice. Pleasant. But what I’m learning as I stay here with the variety of smells and sounds (there is also a rooster RIGHT next to my bedroom) and discomforts, is that I feel more attuned, more alive, more integrated with Life itself. More …I think it’s intimate. Yes, intimate with life and with myself. And I believe this intimacy is also what is making my surroundings feel so astonishingly beautiful to me. What I could not see at first, because of my preference for distance from life, has now become intensely clear, intensely alive and beautiful. Haha!  Oh my god you guys! Life.

And so I have come to love the pig.  And the rooster (in fact I sometimes meditate on what must be going on in that rooster’s mind - but that’s another blog). And even the shit.  It’s very organic.