we are clearly the three musketeers together…20, d and me.
our discussions range from ridiculous kidding to profound artistic center to current events. we cook together and spoil dogdog together. he has been a constant – for thirty years – and our friendship is cherished. he is my brother; after my own big brother was on the other side, he chose 20 to be so.
he has a thing about faces. and so, because he sees them everywhere, so do we. happy faces, silly faces, sad faces, worried faces, upside down faces. i have stopped in my tracks to snap a photo of a face – regardless of the place – just to send to him.
and then, at the coffeehouse in madison, there was this face on the door. 😐 d was engrossed in something else, but 20 and i went off into fits of laughter – talking as if we were the face on the door. it doesn’t take much to entertain us.
it’s a good learning.
because – really – isn’t that the point? to see the tiniest thing with someone you care about and laugh the biggest guffawing-snorting-tears-running laugh. to admire the tiniest thing with someone you care about and be awestruck with the biggest swelling heart. to share the tiniest things – and the biggest things – with someone you care about and know – deep in your soul – they are standing there with you, every fiber.
younger and he would have already figured out how to get his pride bandana off. but he’s ten today and he’s slowing down a bit, taking things in stride a little bit more, tolerantly allowing for message-filled bandanas and goofy headbands.
our dogga – today – will pretty much dictate what we do on this noisy holiday. he – like so many other pooches – does not appreciate fireworks and it hurts us to see him confused and so bothered by them. we will likely spend time in the basement or succumb to putting the old air conditioner units in the windows – the first time in three years – and turning them on so there is less outside noise coming inside.
i’m not really sure why everyone has to have their own fireworks in their own yards. there are stunningly beautiful displays on the lakefront – up and down lake michigan. sitting on the rocks or at the park you can see them north and south. nevertheless, a whole bunch of neighbors and people in the ‘hood will insist on their own well before the fourth and well after, and a whole bunch of pets will be frightened.
dogdog at ten is different from our dogdog at two or four or six. these days, his wise eyes help us center, steer us away from disagreement, prevent us from a snarky word here or there. we try not to upset the dog. these days, he gets up a little slower, jumps down a little more tentatively, lets us love on him a little longer. we try not to forget we are aging with him.
it is possible that this – the undeniable love we have for our dogs and the desire we have for them to be happy – is a good reason to have them. the simplest pleasures, the slightest touches, a little bit of attention – lessons in relationship. ingredients for a happy dogga.
it’s our second fourth of july without our babycat. it’s the second fourth tripper has had without his babycat. although disturbed by the noise, they would buddy up. somehow, one would reassure the other, telepathically relaying words of comfort, soothing, “we got this”. we know he really misses b-cat. every morning he goes into the kitchen to lay with him – our angel-cat now – in their early-morning-after-breakfast tradition. he’s kept up the ritual. it tugs at us to see him there, in the exact place they would always nap together.
and so – on this holiday – this very noisy holiday – it is to the needs of our beloved dog we will turn. we’ll skip the hoopla, we’ll skip the bedlam at the lakefront, we’ll skip the jockeying for a spot on the grass in the park, we’ll skip the rocks where people set off crackers, we’ll skip the fireworks display.
because what really matters today is celebrating this aussie-dog’s birthday, his unconditional love and care for us, and what we can do to make his day a better day.
i opened my laptop to the facebook tab this morning and this picture was waiting. in the way that facebook picks and chooses memories for you to zip back to, days of throwback, this photo was labeled as “8 years ago” and immediately i was there. it was a celebratory post for the “world premier” performance of the ukulele band. a rainbow of color and delight and what an arc it had.
the best parts of a director’s job as a conductor are to see the coming-together of community, the coming-together of practice, the coming-together of confidence, the coming-together in ensemble. those moments when it all syncs into a piece of music, a song, into utter joy expressed by melody and strummed chords. these are defining moments, moments in the groove, moments when everything jibes, moments when all is in alignment. these ukuleles were a gift both to people who had played or sang before and people who had never experienced the camaraderie of music performance. these ukuleles were a gift to people who watched. i was happy to see this ‘memory’ in my facebook feed early today.
scrolling further, coffee next to me, and facebook was full of the olympics and stories of great athleticism, stories of winning, stories of not-winning.
in the last couple days simone biles withdrew from olympic events. she got a case of the “twisties” she said. in simple terms, as i am not an athlete, this is a dangerous and precarious situation when an athlete mid-air has a time of blankness and is forced to rely on muscle memory so as not to get hurt. her vault suffered and she, aware of the sheer importance of this body she had trained and relied on, turned to her trainers and coaches and stopped. they respected her decision. they respected her physical health, the importance of every appendage as an athlete. they respected that her decision to withdraw was protecting her athletic ability in the future. they did not ask her to place her physical form at risk. they did not label her decision to withdraw and rest that which gave her her life’s work – her body and her mind – as not working for them, as a demerit costing her payroll or esteem. instead, to their credit, those in power trusted and honored her decision and supported her in it, no doubt encouraging her. she placed her physical and mental health over her aspiration to win more metal and, in those decisions, has probably made more impact on the world than maybe anything else she’s done (even while recognizing that she has leaped and vaulted and hand-springed her way into most-outstanding-gymnast-ever-dom). respecting her decision and respecting her mental and physical health, not questioning but relying on her professionalism, her wisdom, her intuition, her knowledge and experience and – this biggie – upholding the value of keeping her safe and thereby keeping her future as an athlete wide open – this is vastly important and profoundly absolute.
scrolling further down facebook i came across a post about kerri strug. after a 1996 olympic vault during which she drastically injured herself, her coach insisted she go back and do it again. despite her best intuition, despite the long-lasting injury she would sustain as a result of not resting after her fall, she was pushed to go on. in some not-honoring-her-but-placing-importance-on-power moment, she pushed on. 1996. 2021. reading posts comparing these, it’s evident there has been some growth. it’s also evident there hasn’t.
i scrolled back up to the top of my feed. i stared at the circle of ukuleles. in these moments post ukulele-band-rainbow-arc, in these moments as covid continues to wreak its wreckage and its wearying challenges, i hope that those people who were in the band still take out their ukuleles. i miss them and our music-making. i hope that muscle memory reminds them how to play. i hope they sing. i hope they remember all those stunning moments of cohesion – making music.
it’s interesting the juxtaposition of what you see on facebook on any given morning.
reverse threading 