John Chappelear - Changing The Focus

Here in Florida we have a back porch that is different than anything I have ever had before. It’s called a lanai. While it is a little like a porch it is screened on three sides and across the top as well. It really creates a wonderful sense of connection between the inside and the outside of the house. Over the last year or so I have noticed that every so often a stone would show up on the screened roof. Each year when I would power wash the screen I would wonder how the stones managed to get up on the roof since the closest small stones are at least 50 feet away and the roof is 15 feet up from the ground. The stones seemed too heavy for a bird and any animal carrying one across the roof would have no reason to leave it there, or so I assumed. Well this morning my mystery was solved. I watched as a squirrel raced up the side wall of the lanai and out onto the roof with just such a stone in its mouth. As the squirrel got about half way across the roof it stopped. It seemed to realize that the “nut” it had hauled up and over my screen roof was not a nut at all. Pausing for a moment and chattering a few "choice words" the squirrel dropped the stone on the roof and started back in the opposite direction. Even the squirrel had enough sense to drop the rock and stop wasting time on behavior that accomplishes nothing positive. In the past, my kinds of "rocks" have been resentments, judgments, angers and fears. I have carried them around and around until I was exhausted. Letting go of those negative behaviors has been an energizing and positive life changing experience.