The Assiduity of an Iguana

 

assiduity - noun - close attention to what one is doing (Google)

I am always quite amazed at what one can learn from creatures great and small. At the start of this week, I found myself trying to recover from the flu (round two for me inside of six months: shoulda, woulda, coulda gotten the flu shot) in Aruba of all places. As I lay on a chaise lounge chair in my five-dollar Primark black bikini, trying to escape a sunburn under the fronds of a palmetto adjacent to the waterfalls of the hotel's pool, an iguana that couldn't have cared less about me was attempting to climb the trunk of the palm tree. His assiduity was impressive. Although distrustful he would occasionally look over at me to ensure I wasn't up to something egregious, his focus was on getting to the top of the tree. Unfortunately, just when he thought he'd made progress, he would slip down to the starting point. At one point, he gave up altogether and headed for the falls so that at one point all that could be seen of him was his long tail, painted with green and black scales. But since he kept coming back and trying again and again, I figured that there must have been a reason. I looked up into the tree and saw his motivation: his Iguana mate dangling precariously, seductively from one of the palm fronds. Sex sells. I figured Mr. Iguana would keep making repeated tries to reach his goal, so I decided to give him and her some privacy and made a beeline to my room. 

What can be learned from this modern-day parable, starring his and her iguanas is that the world functions well on tenacity. All creatures are motivated to behave one way or the other, and many of us in the human and animal kingdoms have the same wants and needs that we are willing to work for patiently or impatiently. Ultimately, we all do what we do to survive and to maintain a

balance between pleasure and pain.

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The Tintinnabulation of Interesting People

 

tintinnabulation - noun - a ringing or tinkling sound.

I discovered the word tintinnabulation while reading a novel featuring a magician protagonist that a friend of mine had authored and self-published. During a recent trip to L.A., his home for the past forty years, he gave me a copy. It acted as a corporeal manifestation of good tidings since before that luncheon we had not seen one another since college, some 45 years ago. After hearing about what he had accomplished in the interim (an advanced degree in astrophysics, careers in space science, acting, and magic), I could hear the tintinnabulation of amazement as it was hard to believe that one person could achieve so much in such a relatively brief time period. 

And he was not the only friend in L.A. who had managed to become proficient at doing interesting things. My other friend, who had also been involved in the same university theater program as the astrophysicist and me, has been a successful, professional storyteller for years. And I bet you never thought that weaving stories orally in front of audiences could be lucrative. She told me that her occupation has defined her over the years and that she could not imagine life sans it. Of course, she could only live in either New York or L.A. to keep her passion alive, but those are the only two places she would want to exist in anyway. On the flight home, the tintinnabulation I heard was either the sound of the jet engine or my inner voice concluding that L.A. attracts interesting people. Maybe it was both?

If you have ever looked in the mirror and asked yourself why you are bored with your life, why everything that you do is part of a routine that boils down to cacophony rather than tintinnabulation, it is probably because you lack passion for what you do and are afraid to throw a wrench in the banality and make a change because it just may take some effort. Allow me to give you a few words of advice. FIND PASSION. Or FIND A PASSION. Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. The road from Point A to Point B is not as circuitous or stressful as you may think. It could just involve a small risk, like going down to the local community college and signing up for a class on something you have always wanted to pursue but could never find the time to do so. If you are over sixty (in my box), many course offerings could just be free. You never know. You might just find that you have a hidden talent, which will propel you from dull to fascinating in just a few months. 

As always, everything in life involves choice. Of course, if you are content living an ordinary life, then disregard all of the above. If you need some spice in that taco of existence, it is easily obtainable. It could be on the table right in front of you.

Life is short. Make the choice to live passionately.

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To Be Sanguine

 

sanguine - adjective - optimistic or positive in a particularly difficult situation

I have a favorite saying that of late has become a bit of a mantra or at least, a refrain for me: "Everything works out in the end." To be sanguine in any situation isn't easy, but sometimes, to keep one's sanity, it is essential. It also may give way to a self-fulfilling prophecy if Fate is in your corner. 

Last Monday, I looked at my adult daughter's twenty-five-year-old, free-standing basketball set-up leaning precariously in the direction of the garage and decided to sell it on Facebook Marketplace. Within a day after posting the ad, a polite yuppy who had just bought a house in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in an adjacent, upper-middle-class town messaged me to say he would buy it. Although I forewarned him that he would need a large truck and a few friends to lift it, he drove into my driveway in his shiny new Ford pick-up alone, armed with minimal tools, and the desire to perform miracles. After working unsuccessfully for an hour, he pretty much threw up his hands in defeat, gave up on the project, leaving me with payment and a fallen basketball set-up, the body of which lay disabled, prostrate on the macadam. The next day, I called several junk removers who speculated that it would cost me $200 to remove the mess. Armed with my optimistic mantra (and a brief prayer), I kept the faith that someone else on FB might just be interested in it for free. I was right. 

A man, ironically named Jesus and just as authentically Christian as his namesake, arrived from the wrong side of the tracks with all of the right tools, a big enough truck and a precocious, teenaged son (named Lucas, close enough to Luke), who had all of the right questions and answers both in Spanish and in English. Between the two, they were able to eliminate the unnecessary weight in the base of the stand so that they had the remains of the set-up in the truck within minutes. Jesus handed me a twenty that I didn't want to take, but he insisted. The whole ordeal I chalked up to serendipity as I watched them drive off  with smiles on their faces and a lot of metal in the way back. If you are thinking what I am thinking (this woman is under the protection of angels), both of us are probably correct.  

The moral of the story is binary: 1. Sanguine individuals who put positive vibes out into the Universe (particularly around high holy days) are rarely disappointed. 2. "Everything works out in the end." 

Rest assured that everything does work out, one way or the other, in the end. 

Happy Easter! Happy Passover! 

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