Oh, it was the funniest thing this morning! I wish I had had the camera in my hands, but
I was too busy laughing and calling Bob to come see.
I got a gift at Christmas that came in a box with an elastic cord wrapped from corner
to corner, like you sometimes see on candy boxes. This one was larger than that, though--the
cord was probably about 16" in diameter, something like that. Dinah adores rubber bands
and other stretchy things; we don't let her have rubber bands, of course, because she eats
them, but the elastic seemed fairly safe.
She throws it up in the air and tries to catch it, and she stands on one end and pulls
the other end up with her teeth, then lets it snap back. Hours of fun!
This morning I was in the kitchen making my lunch when she walked in, wearing it around
her middle like a belt.
She didn't seem to be aware of it at all, or maybe she was just acting nonchalant. "Hey,
what do you think? Cool, huh?"
Bob was awake, fortunately, and I called up to him to come down, between gusts of
laughter. By the time he got
downstairs, she had left the kitchen and was sitting in the dining room, and he couldn't
see anything weird about her. I peered at her: "Isn't it still there?" and she stood
up, and it was. He gently pulled it off over her tail and back feet, and I put it away
in the server drawer, one that she can't open. I told her that we were only going to
let her play with it when we were there to supervise, in case she got it around herself
and then got it caught on something.
I just really wish I'd been there to see her put it on.
Let not the fruit of action be your motive to action. Your business is with action
alone, not with the fruit of action.
~ Bhagavad Gita
I got a little desktop daily calendar at one of the bookstores after Christmas, when
all of the calendars went on sale. I really only bought this one because it was so
unique--it's like the page a day ones in construction, but it's tiny--the pages are something
like 2" x 3." Also, it has Chinese calligraphy on it. I don't know whether the
calligraphy is a translation of the quote or not, but they're all different. Could be
nothing, for all I know, just random squiggles . . .
I can't remember what the title of it was, and that page is long gone, but it seems
to be mostly Buddhist axioms and quotes. The one above, from the Bhagavad Gita, was
the one for last Thursday, and I pulled off the page and saved it. That--remembering
that sometimes the end doesn't matter, that it's the journey that is important--is a
hard thing for me to remember.
There doesn't always have to be a reason for everything. Goals are good, it's good
to have something to work toward, but it's also nice sometimes to just learn something
for the sake of learning, or read something just for entertainment, or take a walk with
no destination in mind. Not that I do that very often, but I should. Or, wait, no.
Not that I should. That's the point.
The actual point of the Bhagavad Gita quote is probably more like you should do good
for other people without thinking of what good they may do for you, or thinking of
what benefit you may gain from it. Not thinking, "Why should I?" or "What's in it
for me?" but doing good just for the sake of doing good.
And not talking about it.
