Rat - Ratero

Besieged this week, by invaders, me in my little home in the city.
Country girl, I leave my windows open because it is 95 degrees outside, and I opted out of an Air Conditioning system to be energy conscious.

A ratereo, (perfect Spanish word for "thief")  entered my home while I was spending the July 4 holiday with my family up on Chehalem Mountain. I returned home to an open door, swinging in the hot breeze. I live on the Springwater Trail which attracts many homeless people. I refuse to believe it was a purely homeless person. I think it was a drug addicted, heartless thief well practiced.

 My cabinets and drawers were ransacked, my little outdated Microsoft Notebook and speakers gone. That small bit represented four years of photos and my method for playing music when I care for my grand daughter so we can dance. She calls it "moosic". Today when I began to sing she asked for moosic. I tried to explain that is was gone, and that soon I hope to find it again.

I had thought my outward presentation to the world was of a person with nothing to steal, a person  with a simple life.
They took my cheap but essentially useful watches, earrings that are worth nothing, my wooden beaded peace bracelet... if you see someone on the street with that, you might think of me.

My passport and social security card are in the hands of this/these cretins. I have gone about the business of reporting and changing numbers. There is nothing to use, and I suspect it will mostly end up in the garbage somewhere I will never find it.

I spent this week trying a Zen attitude. I tried to forgive, and to move on. I have a good life, and I know it is better than the life of the heartless cretin thief who left the contents of my underwear drawer strewn across my bedroom. The person who by-passed my Dali Lama mantra :

"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain -
         May I, too, abide, to dispel the misery of the world."

then mercilessly dumped out my bags and files but, expediently, left my bicycle.

That and the photos of my baby grand daughter along with the obvious fact of simple furniture, sparse and well used makes me wonder how a person can do this. Ah, what do I know? Maybe it is exciting to be cold and angry, merciless, even as you steal ice cream from my freezer to cool you on a hot night.

My week progresses and by Thursday evening I have a neighbor come to my door to ask if I would like to help in  the project to paint our intersection in the style of City Repair, to slow traffic, build community and give the neighborhood cohesiveness.  Cosmically, her name is "Angel".  This makes me think of my Mom, who always recited the angel prayer before we went on a trip, even a little drive to the store. Despite icky slimey rateros, there are also Angels in this realm. This is the dichotomy of existence in a complicated world. Divine Mother sends me an Angel, after the heartless people world has sent a ratero.

Later in  the week, as I enjoyed a quiet dinner in the fresh evening air, a rat walked through my yard, plain as day. It has been rummaging through my compost. I go the next day to buy a trap. During my babysitting day with my nieta, the rat found its way to my trap.

On this Friday evening I buried the intruding rat with ceremony, as I bury my fears and uncertainties that humans are a crummy lot who mimick the most dirty of animals, the worst of whom are very rich and live a life infinitely far removed from my modest home and little fenced yard. I read again the mantra of The Dalai Lama, and vow, even as I secure my windows and doors, to not be closed of heart.