Seeing Myself

I was on a backroad of sorts. It was a highway but not traveled that often. I passed a run down, rusted out , falling apart home place and there was a puppy about to leave the driveway and get on the highway. Thin would be an uderstatement. He was very clearly a puppy but to old to be counting on mother for food. He was black and filthy. He was the sort of dog that would be given bad odds at the dog shelter because he wasn't "cute".

I felt my heart breaking as I passed. The clear thought when my eyes went back to the road was. "I hope he finds someone to love. I hope he finds someone to love who can feel how good it is to have the unflappable love a dog can offer. Someone to see all the wonder and funny quirks he was born with.

It wasn't my own dog I was seeing on the roadside in my mind. It was myself I saw. It was me, with battle wounds and scars and knowing no stretch of the imagination would I be considered pretty enough to go in the front part of the dog pound.

Sometimes, when I get an extremely strong and moving example of what is capable for us to experience as humans and we don't, it really feels like a punch in the stomach. I have a full body, spirit and mind encounter with humanity about 6 or 7 times a year. They are very profound when they happen. When without trying I can experience the way things are for someone else from their point of view it is really overwhelming. When I see the now/truth without filter it scares me. I've done my best not to let feelings overwhelm me in my life because I thought they made you weak. Feelings give us humanity. I really do like "feeling" like I am part of the human race because for so long I thought I was denied at birth.

Even though I am a dirty, skinny puppy on the side of a backroad in front of a shack, I have had a taste of what is possible and that gives me hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. Sometimes the least likley to leave the pound is the first to get a home. So I stay open, don't make things worse, and look for as many new ideas as possible.

My January goal for 2009 was living bigger. Bigger ideas and bigger possibilities, because trying to stay small and inconspicuous hurt alot and nearly killed me.

ClintonUnplugged.