Days Dog Gone

What happens to time? A minute can last forever if we are waiting for it to pass. A week can jet by where we wonder what we did. Being in my sixties I've been trying with fear, desperation, and,ultimately, futility, to lasso and account for each of my days. The hour glass is running out, I tell myself, as my anxiety levels rise. This isn't the healthiest way to live, and what I often end up doing is wasting even more of my precious hours escaping with trivial pursuits.

But let's back up. Time appears to run in circles and I know I am circling around what I'm trying to talk about. It all started with my dog, Lacey. She's getting old, nearly fourteen and a half in people years. We got her when my daughter was eight because when she was little and begged us for a dog we thought becoming eight years old sounded like it was in some distant land. We also thought in time she might forget her wish. But time is tricky. It's the outside, long shot, racing from the starting gate and rounding the track faster than anyone imagined. Eight came and the dog question was still strongly there and Lacey almost magically appeared to us.

Lacey has been a saint of a dog. She bonded more with my husband than my daughter or myself, even though he was the one who least wanted her. During my daughter's childhood she became the family member who led us on hikes, protected us from harm, and made sure both outdoors and at home we were all accounted for. The grown up daughter is on her own path now, and the continuing-to-grow-up parents are trying to create a new path without her, but with the old ties of a dog and several remaining cats.

I'm circling around to days spent and a dog aging. I'm sixty-four and though I've had a hard time with this empty nest phase, there's now a huge part of me that wants to be free to roam, free to create, free to tuck my days into my back pocket to do with as I wish. My sixties have begun to feel like my twenties when I sought out traveling and intellectual adventures, choosing to study and eventually to live abroad. But this time I want to do many of my undertakings with my husband. And I want to be ready for spur of the moment, day and weekend getaways.

Lacey goes through her ups and downs, just as aging people do. She's been fairly healthy for her age. But she has had trouble walking, trouble doing her business in the back garden rather than in the house, trouble with nervous comings and goings and early morning barking. I've woken up ready to have a creative day and before I can even adjust to the light, there's a mess to clean up. Or I've stayed up late and the dog wants to wake up super early. Sometimes Lacey needs help to stand up on all fours and my husband and I both gladly try to assist her. We have mostly been rewarded with relief, but we have also been rewarded with growls and snarls.

I know I'm sounding like a whiny ingrate. I know the value of a dog's loyalty and companionship. And Lacey gets gold stars all around. It's difficult because though we constantly talk with her, she doesn't necessarily understand why she can't be the younger, agile animal she once was. My husband tells me I am very caring and patient with Lacey. But I know this isn't continually so. Inside I've raged about my days being dictated by dog care...as I'm picking up back yard or indoor poop or because of these frequent accidents, letting Lacey outside as often as her heart desires. I kept thinking my dog days were holding me back, keeping me city bound and unable to risk breaking my staid, routine mold of living. My young old age is flying by, I'd tell my husband, and we can't take off on a moment's notice.

We've had dog/house sitters, but this requires planning. I suppose what I'm after is the less planned days of a youth gone by. I'm like my dog. I simply don't comprehend or believe in my aging process. But wait. I had a sudden revelation. This goes back to a minute seeming like an hour and a twenty-four hour period seeming like a minute. My dear Lacey is smarter than I give her credit for. I've written about my slower walks with my dog and this is where the revelation began. Lacey can't go far and she loves to meander and stop a thousand times on each block. Naturally I was frustrated at first. But then a light glowed. Lacey was telling me to slow down, smell the roses, be present to each sidewalk crack, each green leaf, each part of my day.

A dog knows time is dictated by the mind. And for a dog, his or her mind only works moment to moment. Lacey doesn't understand past or future. If she is mad at me one day, she has forgotten about it the next. Dogs forgive and forget. My mind makes me anxious about my slipping away days. I can lasso these days by erasing the rage, erasing the frustrations, erasing the burdens. What I realize is that dear Lacey isn't holding me back from my desires and hopes, I am. We humans are a dumb species as compared to the other parts of the animal kingdom.

Days lengthen when I patiently and lovingly take care of my duties while also putting in time for self-expression, self-love and family/friend communications. Worry, with its unmindful mutterings, filter the sands quicker through the hour glass. I know these things. I've known these things. To travel abroad is a legitimate dream; to live spontaneously in whatever time and place I happen to be is a legitimate possibility. More extensive travel doesn't fit with my current circumstances: an aging dog is actually at the bottom of my list; my daughter may only be living in Portland for the next three years; my husband's retirement will be official in two years; I will have finally worked out the emotional kinks of the empty nest phase and my relationship to time will become creative, flowing. So thank you Lacey, I need these dog gone days!

© 2011

The Meaning of Life

Most children love animals, and my daughter was no exception. Once the basic life skills of walking and talking were finely tuned, her curiosity about birth and living beings increased. Her godmother's young cats became teen mothers several times during my daughter's summer stays, and through these witnessed, miraculous, and slimy beginnings, we inherited a number of our cats. A baby bunny conceived at her preschool arrived, years later a puppy, even an unasked-for goldfish. There were nature camps with bug and butterfly chasing, rat care taking duties during school vacation, and a 5th grade veterinarian mentorship. As an only child, the animal kingdom was where my daughter found her siblings, and it was where she began to learn about the meaning of life.

A few weeks ago, I took an “Insight Seminar” at our local university titled “The Meaning of Life.” When I mention I took a class on “The Meaning of Life,” most people roll their eyes. In fact, the professor began by explaining to us that of course the topic is an impossible, dare he say absurd notion of study. But as I sat there among the sea of predominantly mature, eager learners, I did not find the theme humorous at all. I have always been a rather serious human being. Once I learned to talk, that was it. I've been a talker and a wordy philosopher ever since. So the seminar merely gave me more thought tangents to follow, and a strong desire to capture those thoughts on paper.

Days blended into weeks, and I just could not face the blank page. Then I awoke one morning filled with the memories of my daughter's love of animals, and especially our visits to our County Fair. At this fair she could barely reach up to the animals she wanted to pet, but her small hands lovingly caressed each creature she met. We introduced ourselves to hens and roosters, rabbits, sheep, goats, sows and baby piglets, and even took a turn at milking a cow. What held the most fascination, however, was this clear glass, box-shaped incubator full of soon-to-hatch eggs. We noticed cracks in a few and stood staring as a tiny tip of a beak appeared. My normally antsy-to-roam preschooler's eyes never wavered from this birthing experience. Time slowed to a snail's pace as we stood in front of this transparent world. The information sign said it could take hours for a baby chick to hatch. We waited and watched. We watched and waited. I suggested we veer off to the sheep barn and then come back.

Over the next several hours, we wandered through the fair's animal kingdom, periodically returning to the incubator. The crack was enlarging, the beak was lengthening. Other cracks were appearing on other eggs, but my daughter only saw “her egg.” This birthing process, this simple lesson on life's beginning, entranced both my new awakening daughter and my older, more experienced self. We both had an insurmountable measure of curiosity and patience as we marveled at the struggle these little chicks were enduring to be born.

By now, two tiny eyes and a fuzzy head appeared. On a later return one wing poked through the shell's opening and then another. During our final visit, the chick insecurely wobbled onto the hay-strewn bottom of the enclosure. My daughter and I excitedly and quietly jumped up and down while waving our arms and doing a sort of welcome-to-the-world dance. There was our chick, our creature of the universe, beginning a new life.

The daughter is grown now, and the mother is in her sixties. If asked about the meaning of life, I would zero in on the exhilaration we felt at witnessing the completion of our chick's birth. Life's meanings, for I believe there are more than one, come from opening our eyes to the simple “acts of being” happening around us every day. At the fairgrounds that mild August day, our eager willingness to learn something new, our ability to enjoy the slower moments of time, allowed us to experience the wonderment of living. If we each take the gifts of our “seeing” opportunities plus our “life-lesson” understandings and share these with other humans, then the meaningfulness of life can expand and evolve.

During my daughter's later growing up years, she would shed tears over her beloved dying cat, Blackberry, feel the biting sting of her outdoor rabbit Licorice's tragic, violent death, and sit with our aged, suffering cat, Luna, as we gently put her to sleep. This cycle of living and death gave us the additional gift of realizing that the meaning of life is sweeter for its impermanence.

For me, Emily Dickinson sums up my thoughts on baby chicks hatching, curious children learning, and meditative adults philosophizing on the meaning of life: “I find ecstasy in living – the mere sense of living is joy enough.”

© 2011

From My Journal: Heavy Heart

October 10, 2011: These past days I have had a sad and heavy heart. We found out that Randall, Naomi's partner died about a week and a half ago. I sat down this morning to send a card from all of us and the tears finally started to come. It was Aspen's phrase, “Randall was such a good man” that choked me up. I know death awaits us all whether good or bad, rich or poor, young or old. But Randall was indeed one of the saints and he died much too young. I cry for Naomi and her daughters. I find I have this permeable, sensitive nature that crawls inside other people's emotions. So there I am with Naomi and her family, feeling all her feelings of losing the man she loved for nearly forty years. I don't really know Naomi well. I see her as a compassionate human, grounded in civic and neighborhood giving, reason and practicality. But whether we are emotional or practical, grief is grief, loss is loss. I find the older I become the more I see how difficult and tremendously sad our living can be.

Words are not flowing through my fingers. I am struggling to express myself. What I feel over Randall's death is so much more than the loss of a good man. I selfishly see that he is my age and I cry because life is too short and I can't seem to grab it by the tail and swing it down and capture it. Even if I try to close my hands around my days, the minutes, the hours, sift through them at tremendous unstoppable speed. I am frantic. I want to grow old. For I now see that my sixties are but the child of my older age. I want to have at least thirty more years and I feel so greedy for wanting more life when a friend has died.

I don't want to waste my days though I know I do. I want to give myself over to my passions without allowing my fears to block the way. At least I'm here trying to write. I'm here trying to carve out my feelings. What I know is love is my main passion: giving love, lessening the hate, lessening the differences, spreading an appreciation of diversity and our connections as mortal human beings. After writing Naomi a note, I also sent Oksana's nine year old daughter, Anna, a card. I want her to know how beautiful and special she is. There is death but there continues to be life.

Last night at our full moon, I came to Lilly's with my weighty heart. I thought I didn't want to be there. I was a huge lump in a chair, waiting for our potluck to begin. Why am I in such a hurry? Why do I think “being on time” has any relevance? Why do I think my time is wasted when I wait for others to “be on time”? I want desperately to let go of prediction, judgment, categorizing time. I want to melt into each moment, be surprised, be present to what is given, let go of expectations. Once I ate, once I relaxed, once I told myself that in grief can also be joy and gratitude for simply standing on the earth's abundant ground, I discovered I could laugh and lighten my load. The nearly full moon broke through the clouds with our sound and music making. The energy was as bright as the moon. Last night I literally felt the moon's presence embrace me and the blessings of nature caress me. I knew then it was OK to enjoy the evening. Randall would want everyone to love what they were doing. I sensed for a few moments Randall was all right in the spirit world. He appreciated his life. He had more love and fulfillment than most and wisely knew what being truly human means.

My sadness continues but writing about brings me some comfort. My words are my stepping stones to understanding. We had the perfect, mostly clear sky evening last night. It was as if the sky held the tears behind the clouds so we could dance and sing and connect with each other. This morning the rain has returned with an intense vengeance. The darkness is there at the peripheral edge of my vision. I want to shake my brain and tell myself I know what's important and everything else doesn't matter. I'm here now at this kitchen table in the warmth of my cozy home writing these cherished words. I am alive!

© 2011