The smell of a dead critter

and the moral of the story...

Hello beloved reader,

I’ve been reflecting on making a choice to consistently show up for creativity — which, in my experience, is inextricably interconnected with spirituality — and I’m now choosing to surrender to the enjoyment of writing consistently here on Substack, in addition to writing this book that’s flowing through me. As such, here’s a little story.

Something stank in our bathroom — and it wasn’t after one of us had used the toilet. It smelled like the rotting corpse of an animal, and I only smelled it when I opened the door to the cupboard under the sink. So I told Jamie I was going to cut out the bottom of the cupboard to look underneath.

This log cabin where we live, was built in the 1970s. Jamie’s parents bought it in 1982, and over the years, it has endured periods of no human inhabitants, at which point many different critters took up residence.

TreeTops, our decades-old log cabin in Southern New Hampshire, USA

When we bought the cabin (as a vacation home while we lived in New York City) from Jamie’s parents in 2004, there were signs of animal inhabitants. We hired a guy whose company was called, “Critter Control” and when he looked in our basement we were amused that he was so excited to see a particular kind of critter poop. He told us that it came from an animal not normally seen in these parts, although I can’t remember now what it was. But suffice it to say that he had his work cut out for him to “critter proof” this house.

Back to present day: I was determined to find out where this new disgusting smell came from, but Jamie thought it would be better to pull the boards away from the section of the basement ceiling right below the bathroom, and to examine it from there. Being willful is a prominent aspect of my character, and I’ve learned it does not always serve me or my relationships well. So in the heat and intensity of my conviction, I took a breath, and agreed to let him investigate from the basement downstairs. He did actually find a very old dried-up carcass of a mouse under there, but that could not have been the cause of the stink as it was too old to smell anymore.

Jamie and I continued to negotiate. I said we needed to pull away more ceiling planks to get a better look at the whole area. It still smelled. Jamie said he was going to spray the area with commercial grade Hydrogen Peroxide. I’m ashamed to admit I was having a bit of a ‘tanty’ — this is the Aussie word for temper tantrum😁

The thing that was driving me nuts was that the smell in the bathroom would come and go. And every time I tried to get Jamie to smell it, it had miraculously disappeared. He finally said to me, “Just because I can’t smell it, I’m not saying it’s not there.”

And I observed how grateful I felt to hear that.

So often, all we want is someone else to validate our own reality.

Which can be tricky, as I’ve come to understand we all have different realities.

For example, many writers will have heard the story that you put seven writers in a boat and send them down the river, and then at the end, when each of them writes the truth of their own experience, each story will be different.

We all have our own experience of the same situation, and we all have our own perspectives.

So how do we all co-exist in harmony when our realities are so different?

One thing I’m so grateful I get to experience with Jamie: he recognizes the importance of kindness, generosity of spirit, and compassion.

So I put on my big girl panties😝 agreed with Jamie and said that we could give it some time to see if the commercial grade Hydrogen Peroxide would neutralize the smell.

We went out for the rest of the day, but when we got home and I used the bathroom, I smelled the stink once again. I was convinced there was a rotting corpse of some dead animal somewhere. Then I opened the swinging lid of the garbage bin in the bathroom, and I nearly puked.

What was so weird was that Jamie had actually cleaned out that bin before we left. But he later told me that he had not actually disposed of the whole plastic liner — he’d only tipped the contents into another garbage bag, hence he left the old lining in the bin.

So there it was in the trash bin: the stinking, bloated body of a recently dead mouse. Ach the poor wee thing. Perhaps it fell in through the swinging lid and was not able to get out. But how bizarre that Jamie had emptied the trash, he didn’t smell it, and it still remained.

It felt like a lesson from the Universe in the importance of not denying someone else’s reality, and yet another opportunity for me to observe my own willfulness and take a deep breath and not be too attached to my own perspective. ‘I May Be Wrong’ is a beautiful book I wrote about here.

So many aspects of life remain a mystery, but there are many human qualities and spiritual principles that contribute to making one’s human experience so much better.

May we all continue to cultivate those spiritual principles that help to ease both our own suffering and the suffering of others. And may we shine out love outwards towards others too.

Thanks for reading.