On the Fourth Day of Christmas

....which was two days ago, but who's counting....

We arrived here, rather late in the evening, with our baggage.

In the morning, we finished laundry and packing.  We shoveled a little more snow.  Odds and ends. 

At noon, we dropped Scout off at the sitter.  Gave her the vet's number, just in case.  On Tuesday, though, when we left her, Scout did not look lethargic or sick in the least.  In fact, she looked like her usual happy self, despite having eating a whole bunch of cookies, some of them with raisins.  Let's all hope this comes out okay...

In the afternoon, we set out.  My husband said that the best thing about the plane ride is that the person in front of him did not spend the whole flight trying to make their seat recline.  She tried it once, realized that the seat wouldn't go back, and lived with it. 

My husband is a tall person, and his knees usually come right up to the seat in front of him.  Sometimes (more often than not, truth be told), he has to endure someone in front of him who tries, off and on for the whole flight, to try to put their seat back.  The person seems never to make the connection that the immovable force behind him is someone else's knees.

It makes me consider how this is such a small thing, but part of a larger thing:  how we seldom see a picture larger than ourselves.  The person on the plane doesn't think about anything bigger than their desire to recline.  We see our own situation, our own seat, but not the people our lives affect, or who affect us.  Why is that? 

On the fourth day of Christmas I think about my own spot, and how I don't live in isolation.  When I push, I might hit someone's knees.  Or not.  Maybe when I push someone else gets the right to sit down on the bus.  When I push, I make things better or worse for people around me.  It might be good to look around, acknowledge that I'm a part of other people, and they're a part of me.