Swirl, Destruction, and the Comfort of Chance

While I was starting this post, Swirl took a bunch of old photographs out of a box in the hallway, strewed them about, and then settled down on his new bed to chew on a grandchild’s ancient artwork. I heard rustling outside my office door but let it slide. He’s now been banished to his throne on the back porch.

One might ask – why would you leave a box of photographs in the hallway? It’s a legitimate question.

The answer is that if I’d move the box to a protected place, Swirl might have gone after the stack of clean t-shirts on our bed or one of the knobs on the dresser. There is no predicting. He doesn’t just like things that are dear or unique, mundane or pedestrian. Sometimes he likes nothing, chews nothing, licks nothing, just curls up on his bed like a sled dog waiting for the wake-up call.

It’s impossible to take enough precautions. I just try to keep the fried chicken and my good jewelry out of his reach.

I also think there’s something to the notion of chance. Good chance and bad chance. Not luck. Randomness. Swirl’s destruction is a function of chance. A drunk driver rear-ending a loved one and fracturing five of his ribs is a function of chance. Being healthy and suddenly being diagnosed with dementia is a function of chance.

Buying into the notion of chance – whether for Swirl’s chewing or car wrecks – means relinquishing the narcotic of control. It means giving up if/then thinking. If I put the photographs in my office where Swirl can’t reach them, he won’t destroy anything. If I eat a Mediterranean diet, I won’t get heart disease or lose my marbles. Nope.

Things get chewed and righteous people get felled by accidents and disease right and left. We have to sink into that, let the pillows of surrender cradle our nervous selves, and learn how to not care what happens next. It sounds like a tall order but it’s not.

I don’t know where Swirl will strike next. It’s all a matter of chance.