There’s a cat in my neighborhood, a beautiful Russian Blue that my wee dog and I avoided on our walks. He looked intense…maybe even a little mean. Until one day, when he followed us down the street, like he wanted to say hello. We stopped, and as I knelt down, he came up for a pet…pushed his pretty round head into my hand. And I thought, how could I assume this guy was mean? I was reminded that assumptions limit the potential of an experience, and vowed to do better.
A few days later, I was taking a picture of my new feline friend for this blog, and a neighbor said, “So you met Blue.” She went on to tell me that he was a beautiful bully, and regularly picked on all of the neighborhood cats.
As I walked away I had to laugh at how funny and ironic life is…and how an assumption might sometimes be intuition. Being present most certainly helps us discern. That being said, Mendhi is still not interested in getting to know Blue. Her intuition has spoken, and she’s sticking to it. I, on the other hand, appreciate irony and surprise…so I’ll stop when I get the chance to say hello to my paradoxical furry friend.