Of Fathers, Coyotes and Roadrunners

I remember watching as a child, and then again with my children when they were young, the roadrunner cartoons. There was always one part where the coyote, in his ever-failing attempts to catch the roadrunner, would put up a brick wall across the road. He would then, in an extremely impressive, instantaneous artistic display, paint the wall so that it looked exactly like the road and surrounding area. His plan was to have the roadrunner come barreling down the road, as usual, and plow into the wall at full speed, rendering him helpless so that the coyote could then catch him.

As usual though, miracles happened around the roadrunner, for he would simply continue to run, not into the wall, but down the road that was painted on the wall without missing a beat. The coyote, at first perplexed by this sudden suspension of reality as he knew it, would gather his wits and try to follow the roadrunner, only to smash into the very wall he himself had put up. Then as he is stunned, trying to figure out what happened, a Mack truck would come barreling down the painted wall road and run him over, which only added to his confusion.

Well, I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to dealing with our own ‘stuff’ sometimes we are the roadrunner and sometimes we are the coyote.

A case in point for me was when my father moved in for a few months to recuperate from his accident. Now, I love my father dearly and we have a wonderful relationship, but there are times when he can really push my buttons. You know, that expression ‘push my buttons’ has always struck me as a very odd expression, as if we are walking vending machines. But I digress.

So as I was preparing to have my father move in, I was conscious of how we sometimes interact and I thought, “Hey, no problem. I am an old hand at recognizing and dealing with my stuff. I can surrender, take responsibility for my reactions, ask Spirit for guidance, do a burning bowl ceremony of releasing, speak my truth, journal my feelings along with the best of them.” It’s as if I raised my arms and voice to the heavens and proclaimed, “For I AM ROADRUNNER!!”

Well, somewhere along the line of actually moving him in and taking him to doctors’ appointments and such I, unbeknownst to me, metamorphosed from the roadrunner into the coyote. I changed from a 47-year old writer, teacher, spirituality-based bookstore owner into a 7-year old boy looking for validation. I hit the wall and I hit it hard. (Interestingly enough, one of the characteristics of coyote medicine is that of the trickster. Coyote will always make you confront your stuff by tricking you into it. Very clever, that coyote.)

My father is now back in his own home; having received the okay from all the doctors that he has fully recovered. In retrospect, it is easy to berate ourselves into thinking that we shouldn’t let old patterns repeat themselves. That we should be ‘further along the path’ and no longer prone to be affected by things we may have worked on for years. I believe we do ourselves a disservice to think that way. As one of my teachers used to say, “Never ‘should’ on yourself!”

My father has bestowed many wonderful things onto me in my lifetime. He has always been there when I needed him. This past experience is yet another gift, although he probably is not aware of it, nor does he need to be. It has given me an opportunity to explore more deeply my own humanity and develop compassion for myself, to explore old beliefs about myself and how others ’should’ be, to appreciate the time we have together now, and to send love to others who may be grabbling with similar issues.

It is an indeed, a wonderful gift.

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