01/26/2015
I like surprises. They are like unexpected bubbles of joy that amaze and delight. Maybe they are delightful because a surprise is really rare. And to surprise yourself, well, that is even less common. I drift over things that have occurred in my life over the last many years. I find I am not really surprised by myself.
I think of the time that my son’s gecko escaped. It had been a rough few weeks of middle school for him and he was on the brink of a meltdown of major proportions. I had to go home from work for some reason and when I did I noticed the door of the gecko habitat was open. He had just gotten this lizard a few weeks before with his birthday money. I agreed on the strict understanding that under no circumstances was this lizard to get out of his cage. So I am staring at this open container, knowing that the gecko is not in there. I start praying that I will find it, because my son is going to be so devastated that he left the door open and Henry (the gecko) has disappeared. Not to mention that he had left the habitat in the living room, which means that Henry is somewhere. Hiding. I move a candelabra sitting on the hearth and as I do, my fingers brush something…not metal. I scream and Henry leaps from the candelabra and lands on the hearth. (No fire, fortunately this isn’t that kind of story). I grab things, a piece of paper, a folder, whatever I can quickly put my hands on and sort of make a fence for him. Then I head for the kitchen for some gloves. My hands are sweating so bad that I can’t get them on my hands. I get back to the lizard and sink down on my heels, staring at it. I try to force myself to grab it, but I can’t. It scrambles away and I scream. Again. I am not a screamer. During scary movies when the monster is just about to grab the girl and she stands there screaming, I want to yell, “Shut up and run, you idiot!”
This isn’t a scary monster. It’s tiny and kind of cute in an alien sort of way. But I just can’t do it. I cannot pick it up in my hand. This surprises me, because I am a pretty practical, pull-up-your-big-girl-pants and get the job done kind of girl. The circumstances in my life at the time were in a complete uproar, yet I was handling them with peace and calm. At the time, Henry was not really much longer than my finger. In addition, the bricks of the fireplace were cold, which meant Henry was moving slow. (Cold-blooded you know.) How was it that I couldn’t do this? I gave myself a stern talking to. It didn’t help. Try as I might, I could not force myself to grab it. I guess that did surprise me. That I found something I wanted to do and couldn’t. Yet, not doing it was completely out of the question. I couldn’t let my son down when it was in my power to do something about it. Henry was making a very slow climb up the bricks. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a vase. A long one, the kind that you get from the florist with flowers in it. I held it by the base and carefully, slowly put it over Henry. The last thing I wanted was to accidently nip off part of his tail. Now I was holding this lizard under glass. My heart was beating like I had just caged a komodo dragon instead of a tiny harmless gecko. I gently slid a card up under Henry’s feet and slid him into the vase. Relief. I slid him gently back into his cage and latched the door. Safe.
So while I was surprised by my inability to do something as simple as pick up a tiny, harmless gecko (it’s not like it was a snake lizard), in the end, I wasn’t surprised. I found a solution to the problem. That’s what I do. I keep looking until I figure out a way. I know this about myself. And it doesn’t surprise me.
