Lost & Found

Found eleven pennies last week -  the good omen made my day

found a twenty dollar bill today - I am worried!

For real, I found a twenty dollar bill on my walk with dogs with no one near. Only one lovely appearance in a white flowing gown, long tresses down her back, little white dog on lead walking down alongside the train tracks. Maybe the bill fell out of her pocket when she was fishing for a poop bag as I so often do? Raised to be an honest and a good girl, I followed that lovely woman and learned that no, she lost no bills, that she is from Burundi, from where the best drumming with the best of drummers come from, and that her dog's name has the same name as my dog, Isabella. This most lovely lady with her copper-toned skin and copper-toned tresses suggested I simply accept the find as a gift from the universe.

What may be viewed as a gift by one, may be experienced as a misfortune by another. I feel no guilt picking up pennies, which I find fairly frequently and which tend to make my day when I bring them home and place them in my Tibetan singing bowl. Same goes for dollar bills, but with 5 bucks I start to worry that someone may really miss that bill. I found a twenty dollar bill a while back in the park, my dogs led me straight up to it. I assumed a drunken guy may have slept off his buzz in those bushes. Long gone, his scent may still have lingered when we approached. No one was in sight then too and I was worried that those 20 bucks may have meant a whole lot more to my imaginary guy that lost them than to an average person. 

I don't think of myself as being average. I once got really upset with a friend who picked up a $5 bill at the entrance of Trader Joe's grocery store to quickly and gleefully pocket it without even glancing around as to who may have lost the bill. There were a lot of people coming and going out of that popular grocery store. A twenty dollar bill in pocket or lost may make a huge difference for a street person. It may determine, I imagine, an ability to buy the kibble for their dog. Which reminds me that yesterday we received the unexpected gift of a bag of primo, organic dog kibble from a neighbor who only has one cat to feed. She had bought the wrong kind of kibble, a mistake I have made too. I was, and I still am grateful, even though I have been avoiding brown rice in kibble for the last 5 years. Since my furry friends have been on a grain-free diet.

Back to the idea that one man's gift may be another man's misfortune, or not. It does not hurt to try and double check one's assumptions and extend our compassion to others in times of plenty as well as during hard times.