…and now, quite near the very tippy top of our tree branch out on the deck – the one with happy lights and a peace sign – the one where tiny birds perch to rest (and our branch smiles) – the one that was broken off our sturdy old tree in the front yard – now, there are blue lights.
because.
and so, the last two nights – wednesday and thursday – when we have looked out of our sunroom windows a shiver has passed through me.
it is a shiver of gratitude. it is a shiver of some relief. it is a shiver of pride. it is a shiver of anticipation.
there are no guarantees, but we – as a nation – from sea to shining sea – have spoken up.
we have clung to ideals of morality and decency and democracy. with our vote, we have lit up hope.
today is friday again and – for the first time in a long time – it has been a good week for the united states of america.
when the fog lifts, we are hoping that our beloved dogga will be more himself.
it happened the beginning of this week. suddenly, for no apparent reason whatsoever, dogga collapsed. he was unable to stand, to walk, his eyes were jerking back and forth (nygastum) and he was dizzy and, clearly, terribly nauseous. it was pretty terrifying to witness this strong, vibrant dog suddenly incapable of movement, confused and scared.
vestibular disease (IVD) affects the balance system and comes on without warning. with symptoms that look horribly like a stroke, between reading dogcare sites, joining an online group and calls to veterinarians, we became aware of this syndrome (actually, a group of symptoms) we had never heard of before.
our world reduced to the sunroom.
we padded the floor with more non-skid rugs and cleared the room of extraneous stuff.
then we sat on the floor with our dogga and gently petted him, trying to ground him and keep him reassured.
we sat. and we sat. and we still sit…on the floor with him.
we moved an air mattress into the dining room (right next to the sunroom) and slept right next to him, waking multiple times during the night to help him move or to clean up from his extreme nausea.
for days now, we have not ventured further than the sunroom, though david carries dogga outside while i bring the big beach towel that serves as a sling to help hold him up.
we are learning presence and patience. we are leaning into hope.
when the fog lifts – and they say that sometime after 72 hours things should improve – we hope that he is able to be the dogga he knows he is, for we can see in his eyes he has no idea what has happened.
he’s been drinking water on and off when we hold it directly under him and on wednesday he ate the tiniest bit when i hand-fed him some chicken and rice. it is a very slow process and everything seems to be in slow motion here.
in a time when people are so divisive and angry and mean-spirited, i have found that there is a community of generous people whose dogs have experienced this who are out there, ready to help with reassurance and wisdom that comes from being through it. politics do not enter into the equation, not one little bit. instead, the opposite – compassion.
as i write this (on thursday) i remember late last night – also sitting at our little bistro table in the sunroom with dogga resting. last night we watched the milwaukee brewers win the world series and the fireworks went off in our neighborhood all around us. probably one of the worst days for dogga to hear fireworks, we both jumped back down to the floor to help shield him from the noise that frightens him. we tried to explain to him why people were so excited that they were shooting off fireworks. i could see what looked like a literal fancy firework display coming from just around the corner. it was an exciting night for milwaukee and wisconsin and it just took a few minutes to calm dogga back down while the fireworks eased up.
when the fog lifts – and dogga is past these crucial hours of this disease – we hope he returns to us as the dogga who jumps on the bed with his candy cane, who races in circles around the yard when the dachshunds are out next door, who noisily demands treats and happily follows us around the house. we hope the zillion words and expressions he knows are still present with him and that his confusion in the blurry world he is in right now begins to quickly wane. we hope that he feels better.
the thing we are sure of? when the fog lifts we will have spent every moment in the fog with him. and we wouldn’t have it any other way. we will walk with him out of the fog into whatever comes his way and will deal with it all one day at a time. dogga will still be dogga, regardless.
all things are possible – as long as he knows he is loved and we are right here with him.
and, geesh, isn’t that something we might all take into the rest of our lives?
in the middle of the guided imagery, she says the words, “like a lake with no ripples.” even now – really, anytime – i can hear the rise and fall of her voice, the rhythm of these words, the feeling of them as they fall upon my mind’s eye.
guided imagery is a form of meditation that seems to work better for me than silent meditation – which is a field day for my mind to wander. i know i need more practice, for i do not have a quiet mind. instead, i am list-making, worrying, fretting over details. guided imagery takes me on specific paths and i try to steer away from distraction accordingly.
in these times we have found that – at the end of our daily exercise regimen – listening to an evocative piece of music helps us. the cinematic painting the music creates flushes out some of the other stuff – the stuff that’s nagging us. following the music we turn on the guided imagery. i mean, eighteen minutes on a yoga mat just laying and listening is not to be underestimated.
if i have any trouble with the “like a lake with no ripples” my mind conjures up our lake – on days like this.
glassy-like – ever so gently – i hold this tenderly – the sky low on the horizon the color of mango sorbet, the aquamarine and navy blue water seemingly waiting for the slightest pin-drop, the tiniest movement, with the softest waves rolling into the shoreline.
my sweet momma and poppo – in their last years together – lived on a little lake. they would sit for hours and watch the lake, the waterfowl, rain on the surface, any rippling result of wind passing over the body of water.
neither of them did any sort of meditation. but this was – indeed – their form of seeking peace, seeking quieted minds. i have no doubt that their little lake was a panacea for them in many ways…for contemplation, musing, reflection. though mindfulness may not have been an active or conscious pursuit, they – unknowingly – pursued it nonetheless.
with everything that is happening around us these days – in these times, in our life, in this country, in this world – we find we must proactively and intentionally set about finding ways to quiet our minds and bodies.
i am still working at it, but – i must say – finding my way to that place of mind-body balance feels like one of the most important things. it’s called a practice for a reason, i suppose. there is always a place to reach for that stills the wandering of your mind and brings focus back to your breath.
there is always a place where my mind might reflect this beautiful lake with no ripples and where my body might breathe as gently as the waves that lap on this shoreline.
when d’s sweet dad died a few years ago now, i told him that the grief he would feel was hard to explain. grief is not tidy nor is it linear. it has prevailing winds that sometimes are at your back and sometimes are right in your face, pummeling you. i told him that it will take him by surprise – moments when, all of sudden, grief – in all its glory – arrives and slams you, taking your breath away.
and there are other times. when grief kind of sails along with you. it oddly softens the blows of other hurtful things – for, grief asks, what it is that could be more hurtful than the loss of someone you love. and so, by sheer comparison, grief puts all in perspective.
i told d that, though he may be pounded by grief on certain days, they will not be the predictable ones – not the birthdays, not the anniversaries of hardships that befell columbus (or another beloved), not the hallmark-card days.
instead, they will be the regular days, the days in which you are just living and doing and suddenly the light will line up and the sounds will echo and the scents will waft by and you will be – figuratively – or not – on your knees.
tomorrow – merely 83 years ago – my parents married. to say that i am grateful for that day would be an understatement. where – on this earth – would i be without that day, i wonder.
i can feel them around me. some days most definitely more than others, but always, always, there is a presence that informs me somehow.
in these times – absolutely dreadful days when our democracy is being assaulted by our very own government – i can feel their horror, the kick-some-ass my dad-the-ex-mia-ex-pow is pissed enough to wish for, my mom’s be-kind philosophy railing against this vile establishment.
and i totally miss them. i wish to have a conversation with them. i wish they could tell me that everything will be all right. and, with the schisms in their own family thanks to this heinousness, i wish they could be here to comfort me the way only families can comfort each other.
no matter what, the grief of missing them – even after fourteen and eleven years – is sometimes kicking my butt.
but love prevails.
despite any perceived boundaries that different existential planes may present.
most of the people we know – or hang around with – have like 40 or more. 11 is way different than 40. in some ways, it is like we are still newlyweds, not quite catching up to the tenure our friends have had in their relationships or marriages.
i wonder – sometimes – if we will have 40 someday. we’d be well into our nineties. considerably different than 40 in your sixties. i guess we’ll find out. i hope so.
in the meanwhile, we will be rambling on – traveling what is now the daisy path – trying to attend to the littlest details of this thing that is love, trying not to miss stuff, trying not to be lax or in any way aloof. because – no matter what – we will have less. less time, less experiences, less of a life arc together. so every thing counts.
we had different plans for this 11th anniversary. plans to be away on this day, plans to hike under high mountain sun, plans to renew our vows. but you know the story. our dogga needs us to stick around here right now. and so here we are. cause that’s what love is.
the daisy path is not etched in stone. this tender path is fluid and the dirt under our feet creates stardust as we walk along it.
when i dip, he raises me up. when he dips, i lift him. when my frustration gets the best of me, he helps reorganize how i am thinking. when his frustration gets the best of him, i help him cut to the core of what’s actually important. when a tear falls on my face, he can feel it. when a tear falls on his face, i weep along with him.
it’s the same with laughter and simple stuff and beauty and anticipation and moments of adventure and moments of glory.
we don’t have as much time as our friends. so the time we have seems amplified. and every day is liminal space between where we have been together and where we are going.
sometime in the two-thousand-aughts my girl and my boy gifted me with a tall bamboo vessel filled with feathery ochre and barn red reeds. it immediately found its way into a special spot – any gifts they give me are so very cherished – and it has moved around from time to time.
its last long-term place of residence was in our sitting room, but we did some rearranging a couple years back and it found its way into our bedroom, right between the gingham wingback recliner and the windows. the east windows. and there it has stayed – this place where it welcomes the sun each day and holds steady as light streams over it. from our perch on the pillows, it is a beautiful fluff of color and light and shadow. i can’t imagine it in a better place.
on a morning recently, the sun was coming up at just the right angle to tiger-ize these dried plumes. stunning. the things you notice when you are in notice-wonder-mode.
on a walk recently we talked about our life together. things are pretty simple these days – as we hold vigil for our dogga – not venturing out too far for too long. some days are better than others for him. some days he has puppy-face on and he is strong and vibrant and enthusiastic. some days he has old-man-face on and he is slow and tired and his stomach is upset and it is clear that he is uncomfortable. the difference in these days is striking and there is no way to predict which day it will be when the sun is rising.
dogga wakes us around 4:30. he is hungry from the overnight fast and so he recognizes that his sensitive belly needs breakfast. after he eats, we sleep for maybe another hour – maybe – but then he wakes us because, well, we think he wants us up, he wants our company, he wants to start what he knows is the morning ritual – “put the coffee on,” he urges.
like people with sensitive bellies or dietary concerns or various other health reasons, he eats little bits every few hours. it seems to really help him. we make special meals for him and try to read him best as we can.
we were invited to go away with friends recently. not only was the weather going to be perfect but we love our adventures with these friends and so getting away with them would have been perfect as well.
we struggled with leaving dogga.
and ultimately decided we couldn’t go.
we don’t know what will happen to our old dogga as these days go by. we know we are very lucky to still have him with us. no matter what, our commitment to him has to outweigh anything we are doing just for ourselves, outweigh any fomo, outweigh any uncertainty. this sweet aussie has given his whole life to us – he has ridden the roller coaster of the last thirteen plus years with us – he has been steadfast and sensitive and intuitive and our rock. we stand in all these moments now with him, without knowing the course that things will take.
and so, we will be in notice-wonder-mode. the moon rising over the lake, the last cherry tomatoes and a bit of remaining basil, the edges of the aspen leaves changing, an exchanged glance yoga-mat-to-yoga-mat as we exercise in the living room, the bazillion blooms on the black cherry mum, the taste of an oven-baked baked potato with just salt and pepper, the crunch of homemade salsa on a chip, first morning coffee, the coze of our new sweatshirts, dogga grinning at us during a belly-belly, an unsolicited text from the kids, the first jeans day of fall, and, yes, the golden light on the plumes by the window.
every day now the mourning dove shows up. all by itself, it sits on the wire. not cooing or preening at all, it appears to be waiting, waiting.
something about this lone dove tugs at me every time i witness its silent vigil. it feels as if it has lost its life partner and its perch – high above the backyards it can see – gives it a place from which to search or from which to be quiet and pine. though i know that it could be acting as a sentinel for a nest or simply resting with an eye to predators, there is something else i can feel.
i’ve whispered up to this mourning dove – that i see it, that i am privy to its vigil and that i honor its steadfastness, its constancy. i tell it that i am witness to what seems like its sadness. i hardly know if it helps – or if the dove can hear me or understand me. but being here and watching and aware, it feels like i am honoring its story.
it is not unlike that which we could do for each other. all each others, regardless. if only we were to sit on metaphoric high wires quietly and listen to each other, honor each others’ stories, be witness to joy or pain, hold one another tenderly. if only.
it looked sickly hanging in the garden section of the home improvement store. there it was – all dry and twisted – a boston fern with no one to love it.
our sweet potato vine had given it up on the old vintage ladder that leans against the house on the deck. it was not handling life well there. we moved it to the top of barney and it came back to life, its lime green trailing around barney’s keyboard, its heart leaves offering company to all the birds and squirrels that frequent the top of barney’s upright-piano-ness.
we were sort of looking for something else for the ladder, though it was not with fervor – it’s only an old ladder on a deck leaning against the house – it is not necessarily a priority as summer wanes.
the sickly fern was in and amongst lots of other sickly ferns. this one, however, made it into our hands. “‘it’s $7.50,” i complained, “that’s a lot for a fern that looks like it’s not going to make it.” plus it felt like so many plants there needed people to care for them. i felt a little overwrought looking at all the dried-up herbs and annuals, perennials outgrowing their pots, the potted canna lilies and small ornamental trees fallen, laying on the concrete.
we pondered it – like we do most purchases – and decided to adopt the fern, bring it home, nurture it and hope for the best.
when we checked out, it rang up at $3.75 – half-price – making it a bit more palatable.
we placed it carefully in the backseat of big red and told it we were bringing it to a new home. we told it we would take care of it and not to worry – the first item of business was to get it some fresh water and sprinkle its crunchy-dry fronds.
it doesn’t really take much to take care of a fern. “ferny” as we dubbed it (because we are clever like that) perked up as soon as it started drinking in much-needed water.
devising a way to hang it from the ladder (three old shower curtain hooks did the trick!) we placed it in its new home. it immediately looked proud and we decided that next year we would go straight to the ferns for the ladder-on-the-deck.
now, as summer continues to wane, we are watching our tomatoes and mint start to lose their exuberance. the jalapeños are still trying to make new little baby peppers and the chives are pretty much going strong. our licorice plants all seem happy and so do the vines growing from the actual sweet potatoes we planted in dirt. but the other flowers are showing signs of fall coming, the ornamental grass plumes are changing color, the day lily flower shoots have browned and are ready for pulling. we are gearing up to enter a new season.
i wonder how ferny will do as time goes on – and september becomes october. i wonder if it will survive moving indoors as we are not necessarily intuitive green-thumbers.
no matter what, we will do the best we can. and if calling it by name (along with all the other named plants in our home) and cheering it on – best-guessing its care with the help of our horticultural friend google – will keep it nurtured and thriving, then we have set our course.
i am convinced of the direct relation between nurturing and flourishing. and that – nurturing – we can do.
early in the morning that day i was supposed to get on a flight south. i didn’t. it didn’t fly as scheduled. nothing was as scheduled.
way before the sun set that day everything was different. terror had reared its hideously ugly head and nothing was as it had been.
it is hard to believe it has been twenty-five years. it is way too easy to conjure up the emotion and grief of that day and the days that followed.
it is hard to believe the destruction that happened that day, the profound loss of human life, the dismantling of safety and trust. but the images stay in our minds, clear as the day it happened.
it is hard to believe the incredibly unifying moments – moments when people helped other people regardless of any social or cultural or economic or religious difference between them, moments when people reached out in love and earnest compassion, moments when rescue, when keeping each other safe and restoring some sort of sanity was paramount.
it is hard to believe that the magnanimity, the unselfish generosity, the steadfast dedication shown by emergency personnel and regular people has not been the irrefutable north star of all the populace since.
but here we are. in a country with an administration where goodwill has fallen to hatred and revenge, inhumane treatment of the people of this land.
and here we are – instead of taking – for the long term, the long haul – the lessons of interdependency, of humanitarian aid, of selflessness in a time of disaster, of caring about every each other, of respecting life, this administration has successfully shed any idea of goodness or kindness, thrust aside any efforts at unity, promoted hatred and divisiveness leading to the dismantling of families and friendships, communities and workplaces. and we – as a country – have been unable to carry forward those very unifying moments of that day and the days that followed, resorting instead to discord and schisms of pronounced chasmic size.
and here we are – with the official white house website hosting gameware that indoctrinates the children of this nation to heinous cruelty and bigotry and xenophobia, promoting the extremist “policies” of an administration bent on destroying democracy. not to mention all the other psychotic, narcissistic, pathologically-lying social media posts.
and here we are – a country with an administration that is absolutely ignoring any inconvenient legislation of the nation’s constitution, intent upon all things harmful and hurtful – to its people, the land, the resources, the water, the food, the health, the education, living conditions, safety and security. intent on all things ruinous.
“what we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.” (warren buffett)
it was extremist mindset that besieged this country on september 11, 2001.
it is extremist mindset now.
it is hard to believe.
but here we are.
let us not forget that we are still capable of choosing to be those people – the ones who hold space for grief and loss, who actually learn from history and who opt for unity and the greater good.
when i was sixteen and seventeen and eighteen i spent a lot of time hanging out with crunch. he and i worked together at the dive center and were close pals. his fiancée lived a bit of a distance away so she left me to “keep an eye on him”. crunch didn’t need any eye kept on him – he was a straight-up good person. nevertheless, he became a part of the family and we had grand adventures together, most of them out on the water somewhere.
in the way that people stay with you through the decades of your life, there are certain things – expressions – behaviors – you take from them. there are several i cannot even begin to describe that i learned from crunch. one, though, came from spending a lot of time with him and our constant companions: our cameras.
because of crunch i am obsessive-compulsive about my horizon line. i can hear him in my head – keep your horizon straight, straight, straight. it has haunted me for the last almost fifty years. that’s a long time to hear someone in your head. but it never fails – every single time i take a photograph – whether it’s on water or high in the mountains, canyonlands or a wildflower meadow adjacent to a hiking trail – i can hear crunch’s voice: keep it straight.
there are worse things. things that have stood the test of time that i hear other people saying, things that are deflating or hurtful. so keep-the-horizon-straight is harmless and, actually, good advice…even over and over and over.
we are fortunate to be able to walk along lake michigan any time of day or night. a few steps and we are on the path that takes us past the rocky shoreline to the beach and the marina. every day we try to walk at least a 3.5 mile loop – and every day one of us comments about how lucky we are.
i have only been out on lake michigan’s waters once. on a sailboat a long time ago. i don’t remember much about it – it was an extraordinarily busy time of life and i think my sail got lost in the shuffle of other memories to remember. i’m fairly certain it was lovely – to set sail and be adrift in this lake-that-looks-like-an-ocean, this lake with so many personalities and moods, this big lake whose very energy we can feel at our house.
i always thought i would grow up to live on the shores of long island sound…somewhere along the rocky cliffs that fall to the beach, sunrises and sunsets over the horizon of water a part of my every day.
it didn’t turn out that way. i left long island prematurely, fleeing trauma and fear.
in recent days i have been back there – restoring my relationship with what was my beloved home, the water that grounded me for all those earlier years.
i still don’t think i will end up living on the shores of long island sound now. but here i am, mere steps away from a beautiful great lake – with access to it for day’s beginning or day’s end.
and as i stand on the rocks alongside the water’s edge, the sailboat – adrift – is lit by the west-sinking sun. i snap photos of it as it glows and i hear crunch – ever-present – “keep the horizon straight!”
