One day, while getting my teeth cleaned, my dental hygienist told me a story that has stuck with me and made me smile each time I think about it.  She told me about a couple of squirrels that live in her neighborhood.  One in particular, Chip, comes each day to eat nuts and to hang out with her three cats.  In fact, he’s made special friends with a particular cat, and these two regularly sleep next to one another in the sun on a small rug on the back patio.  There are times when birds swoop down to take some of Chip’s nuts, at which time one of the other cats races out and chases the birds away.  Chip has become so comfortable that, one day, the hygienist was cooking in her kitchen when she looked caught, out of the corner of her eye, four critters coming into the house, rather than the usual three. 

She was surprised to discover that Chip had come into the house along with the cats.  After she screamed loudly because she was so surprised, and after Chip’s hasty retreat, his coming and going in the house has become an occasional, quieter, occurrence.  One afternoon, her husband found Chip on a kitchen counter happily eating nuts he had found in a container.

There’s a second squirrel, Duane, who visits only on weekends.  He’s black and very handsome, from what I hear.  The cats seem all right with him, as well.  Everyone’s a little worried, though, as Duane hasn’t come back for about a month, after regular visits over the course of more than a year.

The stories of Chip and Duane touched a place in me that is constantly delighted with the unlikely, wonderful moments and events that emerge all around us all the time, if we pay attention and allow ourselves to engage them.  I’m reminded of a time when I visited a friend’s house in the country and, one morning, went to the window to see a chipmunk curled up, sound asleep, on the head of a garden statue of a Buddha, looking for all the world like a fur hat. 

These experiences bring home to me the wonder and delicious magic that’s all around us and that pops out at unexpected moments to offer us a glimpse into something more than what’s usual in our everyday lives.  They also remind me to pay attention and be willing to be surprised.  So often, what we see is what we expect to see, and we forget that delightful surprises are happening all around us all the time.  For example, I might ordinarily expect cats to chase squirrels, not to befriend them.  And, I probably wouldn’t expect a wild squirrel to become so comfortable with a bunch of cats and people that he’d hang out at a backyard party of 30 people, or feel free to walk in and out of the house.  That may be happening lots of places, but it was a new piece of information and awareness in my world.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to be open to the unexpected – to discover, or learn, or bump into something you haven’t experienced before, or something you hadn’t imagined was possible.  We all walk around with preconceptions about how we think the world is, or ought to be, and hearing a story that doesn’t fit into the usual scheme of things can be a wonderful gift of opening – of expanding our range of expectation.

As with many of the experiments, allow yourself to have fun with this one.  It’s about finding delight or surprise that nourishes you, or expands your understanding of your world, or offers you an experience you wouldn’t have expected would be possible.