Ray

My dog, Ray, bit me last night.  He was asleep on my bed next to me like always except that he was upside down with his feet near my chest and his head near my hips.  I was falling asleep curled around him but was uncomfortable so I turned to face the other direction.  I'm not sure what happened.  Perhaps my sudden movement scared him.  Perhaps he was having a doggy nightmare and thought I was the perpetrator of his dream, like a combat vet suddenly woken in the night who suddenly tries to strangle his partner lying next to him, my Ray reached out and clamped down twice on the knuckles of my left hand as it passed over his body.  I screamed and he scrambled under the bed.  I felt the familiar swelling of the crushing blow and got up to evaluate the damage.  Had I not pulled my hand away, I might have gotten away with just a crushing injury but one of his teeth left a half inch slice between two knuckles.  It was deep but had not yet begun to bleed.  I knew from experience that this would follow.  I grew light headed and sat down on the ground and began to cry.  Not again, I thought.  I can't keep doing this and, it'll be another 3-4 weeks before I can entertain kayaking.  

Since Ray came into my life 9 months before, my kayaking plans had been affected three or four times by such incidents.  Last May I registered for an incident management class, a two day clinic at Deception Pass in Washington.  A week or two earlier Ray had chomped on my hand three times before releasing it when I was toweling him off following a walk in the drizzle. The wounds were no longer open but the hand was still yellow-green, tender and swollen .  I was unable to don my tight fitting NRS Maverick glove needed to protect my fingers from the cold water near the Pass where we'd be spending most of the day submerged, practicing rescues.

In September I was registered for a two day Navigation class. We would be spending the first day in the classroom and the second on the water.  The night before the first day of class, Ray had been sleeping near my feet.  This was unusual but we'd never had an incident during the night so it took me by surprise when he bit my foot as I rolled over.  With the padding of my comforter and sock for protection, the skin was not broken.  However by day two, my foot was too swollen and tender to fit into my neoprene boot or to tolerate the pressure I'd have to place on it to push against the kayak's foot peg during the forward stroke and I had to pull out of the day's activities.

In December, Ray was in bed with me before lights out when my son appeared in the doorway.  Ray began to growl.  "Looming behavior", approaching Ray on the bed or couch, is one of his triggers for aggression.  In this case, my son was a good 6 feet away and in no immediate danger.  Instead of asking him to walk away, I was hoping to calm Ray without removing the triggering stimulus.  I had no treats at the bedside so I talked to Ray reassuringly, "It's okay Ray.  You're okay."  Then I did something one might do to reassure a distressed child which, I learned, is the last thing you should do to a threatening dog, even when he is not threatening you.  I stroked his back.  This would prove to be the worst of all my injuries.  Ray struck my hand hard and fast though I must have seen it coming because he bit me as I was removing my hand.  This caused one of his teeth to slice through the tissue on the underside of my ring finger.  There were also two puncture wounds on the topside of the finger and a bleeding and bruised nail bed which today remains as a purple line marking the bottom 1/3 of my nail.  This was the only time I cried due to pain.  Without the aid of stitches, it took a good 4 weeks to to heal.  It has been healed a week or two now and I've begun to think about paddling again.  I've been checking the NOAA marine point forecast waiting for a break in the predicted high wind, small craft advisories to plan a day trip but now, another open wound. 

There have been other incidents as well, and I have cried each and every time.  My roommate has also been bitten.  She never cries.  Around my 3rd bite she asked me why I was crying.  Was it because of pain?  Like my electrifying scream, the tears were automatic but they were not because of pain.  Her question, lingered in my mind for several seconds before I answered, "No.  It's more like my feelings were hurt." 

It reminded me of the times when someone I loved did or said something so hurtful, something that someone who loves you never should, and you realize that they aren't capable of caring for you in the way that you want and deserve.  You are faced with two choices, both painful.  Do you stay, continuing to love and care for them knowing that they will continue hurting you, or do you walk away and mourn the loss?  When does the cost of caring outweigh the moments of joy?   This is the dilemma I face with each injury.  This is the reason I cry.

Unfair

Winding stone steps
Short yellow lights
A gnome's delight.

Tall grass with tassle blooms
Ground cover in periwinkle
Perrenials in yellow and royal blue.

A creek to my left,  heard but unseen, grows silent beneath my feet.
To my right it rushes downhill then under another street.

Atop the hill the view is bright and clear. I stop to take a photo of Mt Rainier. I'd pay a million dollars if I had it, to live in a house up here.

Then again,  I walk this street nearly each and every day. It seems unfair that they've paid so much for the view I see for free.

Words in My Mouth

Words on a page.  Words in my mouth.  Why did I speak those words?  Were they even mine to speak?  If not mine, then whose?  Yours?  His?  Hers?

What's in a word?  What meaning does it have to you?  Does it bring forth memory, a feeling, a vision, a reminder of the last time you heard that word uttered from your mother's mouth?  She said it in disgust, didn't she?  Now it has a negative connotation in your mind, though you hadn't realized it before.  In fact the word incites anger in you as though it accused you as your mother once had.  You become argumentative (though your boss had not used it to make an accusation).  Your pulse races.  You're irrational, can't see straight.  Your boss tells you to take it easy - just as your dad had when we walked in on you and your mom arguing.

"You always take her side," you'd said to your dad before raising your fist.

Your mom tried to pull you off.  She grabbed your wrist before you could throw a punch.  Instead he got a punch in first and you ended up hunched over - end of fight.  You never forgave her for that - not really.  You didn't speak to her for a week.  Then, bit by bit, it was swept under the rug and never spoken of again.

What Makes a Place Special

A year ago I had never written any pieces of substantial length and so I set out to do just that.  Now it seems, I am unable to write anything with brevity.  No matter what idea I set out to put down on paper, one thought leads to another and another.  The conclusion is always just out of reach.  

It is with this in mind, the desire to bring brevity to the palm of my hand and the ability to use it at will, that I have returned to the blog.  There is something of value in short and sweet even something rough and imperfect.  With limited time to write however I find that I do not pick up pen and paper to write about whatever in the same way that I used to. I feel that I must sit down to work on the larger piece and not get sidetracked with the smaller. However, just as we need a break from work, time to give our souls a rest, time to fill our experiences with something out of the ordinary, so too I must do this when it comes to my writing. 

I have recently been on holiday.  I use the term holiday as I have been recently watching Happy Valley, a Netflix series which takes place in Ireland.  After immersing myself in the language and culture of other lands in this way, I find that the language seeps into my vernacular and into my thoughts.  'Bullocks', 'bloke', 'sod' and 'holiday' are in the current mix.  After watching Narcos, another Netflix series about Pablo Escobar, the words, 'Nunca, nunca', 'presidente','plano o platos',  'puta madre' and the like populated my thought stream.   The holiday had been to Austin, TX.  When I was planning the trip, there were just a few people I was intent on seeing but after touch down and going to the find a bit to eat something happened.  I was sitting at an outdoor picnic table at the Yellow Jacket Social Club in the middle of December, no gas fired heater required, underneath a string of round globe lighted oak trees and a herd of motorcycles in the parking lot when I suddenly thought of all the people I knew in Austin, and I wished to reunite with them all.  It was like the environment of the place was seeping into my pores and I wanted to soak up as much of it as possible.  I wanted to blanket myself in the experience that is Austin.  What makes a place what it is if it isn't the people you know and love?

Getting a leg up

I am dictating this as I am in my car currently and I do not anticipate having ample time before my work shift begins to get in the amount of writing <comma> to lay my thoughts down on paper <comma> as I would like. I'm trying as best I can to speak in the same way that I would if I was writing but I'm finding it very difficult to find that same flow of thought <comma> the same ease of stringing words together one after the other as I would if I were writing.

Now I am experimenting with speaking more slowly as though I were writing. This seems to be one of the main differences between the spoken word and the written <comma> that being the speed at which the words come out.

I have never been an eloquent speaker. I stumble over my words.  I stutter. I have word-finding difficulties. These are problems I do not have when I am writing. Of course in writing you can edit and a fair amount of editing does occur. Still there is a flow, a meditative quality to writing. This is not something I experience when I speak. It is as though the words <comma> the concept that I want to convey is present inside of me like a cloud with the words floating randomly inside like gas molecules inside a container. I have difficulty picking the best words and in the best order.  This is less difficult when I am writing.

My experiment has turned up interesting results. The words are coming more easily. I feel less need to go back and remove periods and add conjunctions. The sentences are forming more easily <comma> in a more pleasing manner. Perhaps this is something I can implement in my daily life <comma> at work <comma> in situations where conveying ideas <comma> thoughts and concepts are important. However listeners might think it odd <comma> the way I am speaking. It is robotic <comma> the slow thoughtful speech. I find it odd listening to myself. Because I have been speaking this SA, it is not the essay I thought it was going to be when I sat down to speak it. I am not certain that I had much to gain from trying to speak my thoughts. As I sit here in the parking lot of the hospital finishing these thoughts I realize that it is taking time away from the writing.

47

At 47 I no longer think of myself as 40-something but rather 50ish.  Time no longer stretches out in front of me like train tracks with the infinity sign up ahead.  Being 60 used to be beyond infinity somewhere out there, in a land far away.  In the land of my 30’s, I was mired in an unhappy marriage with small children to care for and though each day was busy, they were also interminable.  Overcome with the trials and tribulations of parenthood, I didn’t think concretely about what lay ahead.  I lived with the "someday" mentality.  "Someday I'll do this."  "Someday I'll do that.”  That someday was always somewhere out there down the road, waiting for me to catch up to it and I believed I would one day happen upon it like a child finding a penny in the road.

Perhaps it is a natural part of maturing or maybe it is because I have more time on my hands to contemplate these things now that my children are out of the wicked woods of adolescence that I began thinking more concretely about my goals and what it would take to achieve them.   Let’s face it, the amount of time I have left on Earth to do the things I want to do, to go to the places I want to go and to own the things I'd like to own, is finite.  I expect that the last decade or two of my life will not be spent hiking mountains, taking adventurous travels or rowing sea kayaks, right?  I mean,  the end point of my life is nearer at hand than my start point.   The things I dreamed about two decades ago seem like folly to me now.  I want to create new dreams and in so doing, I have to ask myself, what is important to me?  What do I want to achieve, see, experience and what do I need to do to make those things happen?  In asking the questions, I realize that the power to do those things lies within me, and it always has.

************

It was somewhere after 40 when I came to terms with the fact that "someday" was in sight but the things I had dreamed of were not.  I wanted to beat myself up for having not made plans for “someday”.  I was stupid and naive.  If only I’d planned ahead!  I didn’t think these things consciously but there they were, riding the rails of my subconscious and following along in the caboose was the belief that I had my children too young.  I had not lived enough or worked enough.  I had not figured out who I was or what I wanted.  Now that I have allowed them to become conscious in the process of writing them down, I think that it was just as well to have had my children when I did.  Besides the usual health related arguments supporting childbearing during early adulthood, I’ve decided that early adulthood is also preferable because during that time we lack the wisdom, insight or foresight necessary to make meaningful long term plans.  Hell, 50% of us who are married with small children will no longer be married in another decade and we didn’t see that coming when we said, “I do”.  All the better I say, to be self-absorbed, frantic and frazzled in the pursuit of surviving the trials and tribulations of child rearing, parenthood, marriage and the balancing act of our multiple selves - self as mother or father, self as wife or husband, self as athlete, friend, child, employee, artist, member of CHADD, MADD or AA.  Is there still time to soak in the tub? Calgon, take me away!  Yes, what better time is there to be anxious, self-doubting, and to dream frivolously of touring the Canary Islands via yacht than in our childbearing years?  What is the dreaming of someday if not a form of a “Calgon, take me away” moment?  I say, the dreaming of frivolity served its purpose.  Those were dreams never meant to be fulfilled.

**********

When I was a teenager I knew without a doubt what it was I wanted to do and there was nothing my school teachers or my parents or any other naysayers could say or do to convince me that it was a fool’s errand.  I wanted to be a ballet dancer and I wanted to prove them wrong.  I pursued dance with single minded purpose throughout my youth and the dream of proving everyone wrong was realized.   Yet, I wanted more than that.   I wanted to be a soloist one day.  I can’t say that I gave it conscious thought.  This seems to be a trend.  I knew I was not principal ballerina material.  I did not have that extra something, the umami, that makes one stand out above all others.  I was okay with that, but I did want to rise out of the herd of the corps de ballet.  Perhaps my lack of daring to give form to this inchoate dream was part of the obstacle in making it so, but I’d proven the doubters wrong.  I was good enough to make it.  If only  “good enough” had been the only ingredient necessary to endure the pressures of the calling.  A tough skinned psychological makeup was what I lacked and I left dance in the nascence of my career.  

There were many things I loved about ballet such that even in my most downtrodden states, when I thought myself fat and ugly, someone doomed to be past over again and again, I still looked forward to the daily routine, the work in the studio, the progressive perfecting of the body’s positions, the movement through the toes, the building of strength, holding the leg higher and longer, and the control required in the air, on pointe or during adagio.  I looked forward to picking out my leotard in the morning and matching my eyeshadow and earrings to complement it.  I liked the excuse the cold drafty theatre provided to bundle up in leg warmers, sweaters and down booties and I liked the way whistling both echoed and got lost in the rafters.  I observed how the older girls in the company had applied their liquid eyeliner to make their eyes look larger and how they used white to highlight or browns to shade their features.  I’d come in the next day and try to replicate what I’d seen.   Like Pavlov’s dog, I became physiologically responsive to the sound of the orchestra warming up in the pit which was piped into the dressing room through the intercom.  It energized and excited me for the performance ahead.  The ringing, toots and strums of the various instruments was a cue.  It was  time to put the last bobby pin into my hairpiece and to step into costume.  I looked at myself in the mirror as the dresser, standing behind me, connected the hooks and eyes running up the bodice.  I felt beautiful and oh, so privileged.   Though the sum of these things equalled an enormous loss when I left, it was losing certainty of purpose which pained me most.

********************

I have few distinct memories of the following few years.  That period of time exists as a fresh painting wiped through with a wet rag. One snippet of conversation from that time has stayed with me.  I had gone to meet with my teacher of English composition.  It was the end of the quarter.  I sat in a chair facing his desk and he handed me my final assignment.  We discussed my writing and he asked me how it was that I still considered myself an artist now that I no longer was dancing.  I said that I still believed I was an artist.  I just hadn’t found my next vehicle for artistic expression.  The question highlighted for me the fact that I was adrift, searching, but I didn’t know what for.  Even without knowing the object of my calling, I still felt its tug.  

****************

Last August I took a short road trip to Whidbey Island.  I stayed at this wonderful place with gardens and bird fountains.  My routine was simple.  I woke, dressed, made my bed, joined my hosts for breakfast, and then I gathered my laptop and my water and made my way to the Adirondack chairs on the back lawn overlooking the gardens where bunnies roamed in and out of the landscape, bees gathered pollen from the lilies and birds splashed in the fountain.  As the shade moved during the day, so did my chair.  I inched myself farther and farther under a tree until my chair could move no farther lest I wind up sitting in the gardens themselves.  Every hour and a half I’d get up to stretch my legs.  If it was lunchtime I’d make myself a tuna fish sandwich and eat it while I strolled around the gardens listening to an audiobook on my phone.  On other breaks I might venture down to the neighboring dirt road which was closed off to through traffic by a chain which crossed the road at midway.  Large blackberries grew on the bushes across the road from a well kempt property with a large rolling lawn and scattered apple trees.   A broad woman stood on the front lawn raking debris.  Her hair was long and gray.  It was neither pulled up nor arranged in any particular fashion but rather hung there over the back of her dress.  It was the type of dress difficult to differentiate from a nightgown, a muumuu, white with large red flowers on it.  I wondered if she had adult children who would be lucky enough to inherit the property when she died.  She looked like she bought it years ago along with her husband who was now deceased as evidenced by her being the one doing the yard work.  She was capable and loved that home.  Why shouldn’t she stay on after his passing?  She took pleasure in the upkeep even if she was slower than she used to be.  I hoped she didn’t mind my stopping to pick blackberries.  The blackberry bushes were not on her property, still they seemed more hers than anybody’s.  They were on unimproved land across from her house.  Hers were the only eyes which gazed upon the bushes day after day while she tended the lawn or looked up from the kitchen window while she washed dishes.  That seemed enough reason for the bushes to be hers.  Indeed, I felt like a trespasser as I walked up and down that dirt road passing her house again and again during my 2 days on the Island but it was such a good road to stretch my legs on and to prepare myself for another sitting in the Adirondack chairs.  

When I took my break at 5pm, I kept thinking that I’d get one more writing session in before calling it a day but that never happened.  I’d go out in search of supper then take it to the water’s edge to eat where I sometimes watched the people and their small children walk past and remember what it was like to have my own small children.  It made me smile to remember.  I began reading a book from the shelf of the cabin I was staying in and when I returned from dinner I did not want to put it down just yet.  Before I knew it, the sun was setting and it was nearly 9pm.   There was a rhythm and structure in those two days.   I slept well and I exercised my body.  Life was balanced and I, at ease.

************  

Writing is many things to me.  It is  how I tease apart, sort and organize my mess of mixed up thoughts and feelings.  It is where I make meaning of things.  It is a way to know and to be known.  It is intimate in a way that conversations rarely are.  It is something that I look forward to, something that doesn’t have to wait for someday.  It doesn’t require a whole lot of planning or foresight and when my pen hits the page, there is certainty of purpose.       It is a way to connect to the universal.  It is a way to heal.

Sending hello to the electrosphere

That I've just published my first new entry in 6 months may have made you wonder where I've been and have I still been writing?  My latest post was an excerpt from an email exchange I had with a good ole friend whom I haven't had much contact with the last couple of years though she has been on my mind often.  I finally picked up my pen, so to speak, earlier this week and made contact.  I suppose I could say that in doing so I was choosing to power up my space suit, making an active choice to nurture a connection rather than to passively let it fade away.  In doing so, I have reaped the reward of not only a rekindled relationship but also the reward of prose.  So thank you to my Longhorn friend, Jenny, who has doubly blessed my life this week.  My absence from the online page does not mean that I am not still around, nor that I am not writing.  To the contrary, I've been writing.  Oh, I've been writing.  I've been writing something longer, with more grit at this point than gratitude though I think in the end product we will find that gratitude is the glue that holds the narrative together.

While I know that no one has been holding their breath wondering about why I'm not posting or if this  blogging was just a passing phase, something I wonder frequently, I felt the desire to wave out to my friends in the "electrosphere" and say, "Hello!  I'm still here and having fun.  I hope you are too and I hope you will continue to follow me as a commit myself to this journey of the writing life.  I can't imagine my life being well lived without it.  Where ever I am, whatever I do, never doubt that I am writing, too."