My 24-year-old son lives in Chicago, working as a musician. One night after a gig, a woman drove up to him on the street, got out of the car and tearfully handed him a small bundle.
“I can’t take care of him,” said the woman, trembling. “Can you take him?”
My son looked at the bundle in his hands and saw two twitching ears, whiskers, and a pink nose. They belonged to a tiny kitten, mostly white with some orange striping on his tail and back.
The woman drove off and left him standing there. He wasn’t looking to adopt a kitten. In fact, he was hoping to adopt a dog at some point, but definitely not a kitten. Not knowing exactly what to do at the late hour, he took the kitten home.
The thing about unexpected things: they muck up our carefully laid plans and throw off our schedule.
We keep our lives on strictly adhered-to schedules, calendars, and lists.
We all know people who don’t want to be caught off guard. You might be one of those people. “Don’t throw me a surprise party,” they’ll say. “I don’t like surprises.”
Maybe the woman in the nighttime driving around with a kitten was some type of celestial being. What started as a burden — my son was researching no-kill shelters and frantically asking friends if they would adopt the kitten — slowly morphed into a new reality as little Roy, as he is named, melted his heart. Being handed a tiny cat by a stranger in the nighttime has been an unexpected joy for both my son and his roommate. They are happily learning what he likes to eat, to play with, and where he likes to sleep. They have become a patchwork family of sorts.
“We’re keeping him,” my son told me. “I feel like I’ve been on a bender of happiness the past few days.”
A bender of happiness? Huh. My son was always a poet.
I live by calendars and lists and plans. I try avoiding surprises at all costs because I don’t like my tightly scheduled life to get thrown off course. I started to wonder if I would be able to slow down and accept the joy if someone handed me a hypothetical kitten — it could come in so many forms like a job opportunity, or a new friend, or a chance to travel somewhere new. Would I open the door and allow it to interrupt my lists and schedules? My yearning for a nice, predictable life might be the thing that obstructs the possibility of fun and chaos.
Ahh, chaos. I often forget that some chaos can be exhilarating. Somewhere along the line, I got fooled into believing that surprises are unwelcome, a puzzle to be figured out, to be avoided.
Kitty cat Roy seemingly came from the sky, but he reminded me this week that not all surprises are bad. Something that interrupts our routine can dislodge us from boredom or a rut — we may not even realize we’re in it until suddenly, we find ourselves on a dark street holding a kitten.
Now that all my children are launched into adulthood, my life is the least chaotic as it’s ever been. I’m taking instruction from an adorable fluffball to leave some room for chaotic surprises, for things my heart doesn’t yet know that it wants — or needs. I need to leave my arms outstretched, ready to go on a happiness bender as soon as my imaginary kitten wrapped in a joyful ball of chaos gets delivered to my open heart.
