Category: Dogs

Things that can’t be seen

20190730_151733There are things that can’t be seen, but can be smelled. There are things that can’t be seen, but can be heard. There are things that can’t be seen, but can be felt.

20190730_151710Of things that can’t be seen, but can be smelled, I give you this: the place beside the porch where, last night, when cornered and harassed by our clearly not-that-bright dog, a skunk sprayed said dog and surrounding area. I don’t blame the skunk. In a way, I don’t blame the dog either. There’s no one and nothing to blame. It’s just that this is not the text a person wants to receive from her son, while driving back-country roads at around 11:30PM, returning home from a late out-of-town soccer game which one has spent standing, soaked to the skin, in intermittent pelting rain, beside a soccer field: I think Rose got skunked.

Yes, the evidence would have it. (Luckily for you, dear reader, this is not a scratch-and-sniff post.)

20190730_151654Of things that can’t be seen, but can be heard, I give you this: our refrigerator, roaring like a jet engine, despite having been “repaired” yesterday morning. We await the return of the repairman, who tightened the compressor and gave us a 90-day guarantee. I’m wearing ear plugs. They’re not working. The jet engine that now resides inside our refrigerator persists. (Click on photo below to play video of fridge-as-jet-engine.)

20190730_115947Of things that can’t be seen, only felt, I give you this (not pictured, naturally): the inside of my brain and body, exhausted from lack of sleep. It’s been hot, and I love love love the heat, but our house hasn’t been cooling down at night, and our sleep, even before the skunk and the fridge, has been restless. And so, I give you my stuporous mind. I give you my determined aching limbs, which rise every morning and run through the park, because they are certain, as am I, that the day will be better having done so, and worse having not done so.

I give you this: it’s smelly, noisy, sticky, messy in here; house and mind.

2019-07-30_07-24-19But this too, I give to you, and it’s no small thing, this thing that can’t be seen, only known: twenty years ago today, I got married, and twenty years later, we’re still married. There’s no way to see exactly what that means, but it’s plenty to live off of. It’s carried us through all the things. It’s carrying us even now.

xo, Carrie

I turn toward the sun

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Weekends, I’ve been spending quite blissfully, drawing and writing in preparation for the creativity course I’m teaching at UW this term. I’d planned to blog more often and in more detail about this course, but it feels like a fragile and unique undertaking that needs to be protected from scrutiny, the way that creative projects need to be protected from scrutiny, lest they crumble beneath the weight of judgement, of what they’re supposed to become.

A creative undertaking can’t really be expected to become anything at all. It just needs room to grow, the way a baby can’t be expected to become anything in particular, though we might imagine in the infant’s freshness a future filled with everything we would want for our beloved. But it isn’t up to us to fill the infant’s future for it; only to give the child room to grow, and food and light and attention and care and love.

This is beautiful moment in my life. I can’t describe it better than that, but I would like to remember it, somehow, to remember the sense of purpose and calm I’m feeling as I move through the hours of my days. There are specifics to grab on to, to help explain what is happening (early morning exercise, reading books for pleasure, writing days, vegetarian suppers, family meals, biking in snow, productive & inspiring meetings, bringing The Shoe Project to fruition here in KW, meditation, yoga, music, cartooning), but beneath these specifics is something deeper, and I think it’s forgiveness — that I’m recognizing that my imperfections and errors are not shameful, but merely human, and as I would forgive others for their imperfections and errors, so I remember to forgive myself. Life feels both serious and light; not something I can put my hands around, but whose mysteries I’ll feel compelled to track for as long as I’m able.

I feel at peace with my calling, such as it is, to collect and record.

I feel at peace, and determined. At peace and resolute. There isn’t much time to do what we’re called to do. There is and there isn’t. So I’m doing it while I can.CCI26012019xo, Carrie

 

I want to write about clearing space

 

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I would like to write more here. But it has to come naturally. I’ve been writing in other places; in my notebook, mostly while teaching but sometimes at other quiet moments during the day; on screen, too. There aren’t so many quiet moments. Most of the moments are more like the ones pictured above.

I want to write about heartache and discontent and anxiety and bruising effort. I want to write about not giving up. I want to write about my dishevelled house, and how it reflects my dishevelled life; neither feels under my control. I’m wandering through the chaos, trying to keep track of the bare minimum, whatever that might be. Meeting deadlines? Providing the occasional meal? Showing up on time? Showing up at all — while spreading in all directions are needs unmet, leaves and sticks dragged in and chewed to shreds by Rose the puppy, dirty dishes on every surface, dirty laundry on every floor, dog beds, dog toys, shoes to trip over, and as far as the eye can see, stacks of books and papers and bills and the parts of a homemade car being crafted for a physics project, glue gun, twisted wires, discarded wheels.

I want to write about the quiet moments, so that I remember that they exist. That I can conjure them into being. I want to write about clearing space. What is space? What is this desire to fill it? Is it inertia that fills space? (It’s so hard to keep space uncluttered. I don’t know how to do it.) What would it feel like to walk through this house and not see anything that needs doing? What would I do with more space, more quiet? Would my dreams expand? The breath in my lungs? Would I feel more settled or less settled?

xo, Carrie

Where joy is

This post is about two separate but related events in our family’s life. I’m going to tell them backward, out of order.
20181019_204647.jpgThe second event that happened: We got a puppy. On Friday evening. This is Rose.

20181006_123043.jpgThe first event that happened: We said goodbye to Suzi. Just a week ago, last Sunday, our family gathered to say a difficult goodbye to a dog we knew was sick and only getting sicker, but such a tenacious present soul. The house felt so empty when she was gone. We’d been wanting a puppy for a long time, but we knew that Suzi wouldn’t have been able to tolerate sharing our attention, and we didn’t want the end of her life to be plagued by anxiety, jealousy, stress.

Still, I think we all felt a little guilty about so quickly wanting to get a puppy. But here’s how I’m thinking about it: we aren’t replacing Suzi, we’re recognizing how much she (and her departed sister DJ) meant to us, and we’re filling the house with the presence of another little creature to hold, to love, to care for. Once you’ve become accustomed to sharing your space with a dog, your space without a dog feels empty (even with six people living in said space).

If I ever had to live alone, I would get a puppy. It seems like that would solve everything; or at least one very big thing — loneliness.

I would get a puppy, and I would zip it into my coat, like I did yesterday afternoon when Rose got shivery and cold on our outing. I would get a puppy, and I would watch it tumble over itself in the wet grass, picking up leaves, hopping like a bunny, sitting down suddenly and just as suddenly darting sideways. I would get a puppy, and I would hold it close and feel its body go calm and relaxed. Time would slow down.

Puppy time/baby time/small child time isn’t like adult time. I’ve been reflecting on the capacity for play that exists and expresses itself almost constantly in the newest arrivals on our planet. Puppies, babies, young children — their whole existence revolves around play. Play is how we learn, yes, and explore, and discover: it’s necessary for survival, no doubt. But play also contains a dimension of joy. (Is joy necessary for survival?) Joy is readily accessible to the pups of the world. Joy seems to emanate from existence itself.

I wonder at it.

Do we have to work for joy when we’re older? When experience has returned to us too many signs and signals of joylessness, grief, broken trust, the weight of responsibility? When we’ve become analytical, accustomed to living our lives from outside ourselves as well as inside ourselves?

Is joy even something you can work for? Or is its essence spontaneous, intuitive, magical?

I wonder.

My guess is that we can draw joy nearer, draw its possibility nearer, through conscious effort; but we can’t command it, no more than we can command grace, or trust, or love. To witness its vivid, effortless expression is such a gift.

I miss Suzi. I mourn that she was never able to relax fully, except when asleep, that although her trust in humans grew during the 6+ years she spent with us, her experiences before we knew her had done intractable damage. I’m glad to have a puppy upon whom only love will be poured; even while I mourn for all the Suzis of the world who have had their joy blotted and extinguished by cruelty and abuse. It was a hard task looking after two rescued dogs; I wasn’t up to the task again, so soon. So we start again with a puppy instead.

Give/receive. Maybe my spirit needs to receive joy, witness joy, in order to be able to give joy/give with joy.

xo, Carrie

I need this time to reflect

Cartoon project, Day 1Today is my birthday. It’s the first day I’ve had time to reflect, active reflection, since we waded into the Christmas season, and when I sat down before my notebook such a whirl of disconnected thoughts poured out. I am thinking of starting an autobiographical cartooning project, as shown above. I’ve developed a relatively efficient way of making a 4-panel cartoon: I write for 3 minutes using the prompt “What’s on your mind?”; then I use a timer to draw four cartoons, scenes from the past 24 hours of my day, each completed in exactly 2 minutes; and finally I pair ideas or phrases from “What’s on your mind?” with the cartoons, creating captions that aren’t directly related, and yet, combined, tell a little story. I’ve been making these half-hapzardly, often while waiting at piano lessons, squeezed into a tiny amount of time. I love creating a visual artifact. I love creating something to keep.

fullsizeoutput_aI have sad news. On the morning of December 23, we said goodbye to DJ. Above is the cartoon I drew that morning, while she lay on the floor beside me, still very much alive. We were fortunate to have a vet come to our house, and the whole family was present in the room as DJ passed out of this world in the most peaceful way possible, with loving hands on her, truly surrounded by love, so I can’t be sad about that. And although I miss her goofy presence underfoot, I also can’t be sad that her suffering has been relieved. The end felt like a surprise, even though we were preparing for it for a long time, and even though signs had been accumulating that the time was coming. But really, DJ was fine right up until she wasn’t, and thankfully, we were able to respond quickly. As we made the decision, and prepared to say goodbye that morning, one of the kids wept, “I don’t want DJ to be a body!” That struck a chord deep within me. Yes. Oh, yes, I know what you mean.

I didn’t want DJ to be anything but what she was: alive, breathing, present, animated, here with us. But when I look at the photo, below, taken on her last walk that morning, I see her distress. And I know we can’t keep what isn’t ours to keep.

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It is hard to say goodbye. I am struck over and over this holiday season by how hard it is to say goodbye. Even a welcome change can create a hole, nostalgia for what was. I’m thinking of the new parkland across the street, created by knocking down the houses that were there before, none of them very pretty, and yet, I found myself in the days immediately after they were gone irrationally missing them. Absence is absence. It’s why we keep telling ourselves stories that may not be serving us. It’s why we hang on to old pain and shame. It’s why we are afraid of making space for something new. Instinctively, we know that any absence, any loss, any goodbye will reshape us in ways impossible to predict.

20171222_112557.jpgToday has been a great day, a good birthday, and I’ve been doing exactly as I please and wish, which is my definition of the perfect birthday. I woke early to go for a walk with a friend. Kevin made me breakfast. I went out for coffee with two of my brothers. I treated myself at the bookstore. I hugged my mom, and my dad. I worked on the logistics for this new cartooning project, figuring out how to scan and edit images. I listened to music while drawing and writing. Oh, yes, and I blogged. Tonight, Kevin is taking me out for dinner.

Every year that comes around is a blessing. This past year has been full. Full of the unexpected, the hard, the surprising, and the miraculous. I learned how to draw this year! How unexpected is that? Never saw it coming. I also wrote a book by a hand, something that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been concussed. I’ve been kinder to myself in many ways, this year, accepting aging (I’m wearing new reading glasses, for example), deepening relationships, sending roots down into the earth, humbled by my work, demanding time to exercise and also to write. Many tears. Much warmth. Quiet, too. I can’t guess what will come in this new year. I have ideas, plans, stories to write, poems to memorize, kids to snuggle, friends to embrace, a new word to play with, songs to learn, habits and rituals to nurture.

Cartoons to create.

Below, from December 15: “I didn’t leave room for a caption.” Hey, lots of learning to do, too.

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xo, Carrie

PS Soundtrack for this post: Lullaby, by the Dixie Chicks.

Two little dogs

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Today has not been the kind of day that I would call productive.

I’m sitting here with a marked-up manuscript at my elbow that is calling out for revision, for new scenes to be written, for work and attention and focus. I’m at the point in this project where I keep thinking, Don’t let me die before it’s done! Which makes me reflect on the courageous creativity of people who know their time is limited, like Gord Downie, who, in his final year-and-a-bit, wrote and sang the songs he knew he needed to share with those he loved. There is a real terror that the end will come before you’ve finished the work you intended to do. That terror is real.

And yet, I’m sitting here and have not dug in. On Saturday I spent nine hours glued to my desk, working on this book. Total luxury. Today, I’ve been unable to manufacture focus.

My mind is elsewhere …

As some of you may know, we have two dogs. They came to us as a mismatched pair, rescue dogs who were found, abandoned, wearing matching pink sweaters in the middle of freezing February in an industrial Ohio town. How they survived even a few hours in the “wild” I’ll never know, as they are almost entirely lacking in good sense. They were then impounded and doomed, only to be rescued by a Canadian group, who subsequently struggled to adopt them out as a pair … until we came along. We’ve had this motley pair in our home for more than five years. It took the dogs at least two years to settle in and fully trust us. Suzi still wakes up and begins howling around 5AM every morning. One of the challenges of caring for rescued animals is that their histories are unknown; even their ages are unknown. What we do know is heartbreaking: they were abandoned.

More than a year ago, DJ was diagnosed with cancer. Luckily, it’s slow-growing and she continues to enjoy life, eating well, going for walks, even while there are signs of her illness’s progression in her body. Today, we received news that it is highly probable that Suzi has cancer too, but hers appears more aggressive.

Truth is, I’m pretty broken up.

This is what I’m thinking about as my book waits by my elbow. Two little dogs.

I’m thinking about how a dog doesn’t have a mission in life, or not an articulated mission, not a mission in the sense that we invent such things; a dog doesn’t need a mission to enjoy its time here on earth, from what I’ve observed. A dog thrives on routine, loves food, and is highly attuned to the humans with whom it interacts. A dog can greet you at the door better than anyone. A dog is also reliant on the kindness of those who care for it; and therefore like all innocent creatures a dog is vulnerable to mistreatment and abandonment. It breaks the heart, as I’ve said. We’ve tried to imagine our dogs’ lives before they came into ours; we’ve tried to imagine them as adorable puppies; we wonder when they first met, and why they got along (two female dogs usually don’t bond like this). We’ve also fictionalized them in our imaginations, turning them into doggie detectives (more lucky than bright), and, most recently, cartoon super heroes (DJ’s superpower is her terrible breath, Suzi’s is her ear-piercing whine). Maybe I’ll write them into a book, someday, who knows. If there’s time.

This post feels too close to eulogy. The dogs are sleeping under the table, near my feet. They’re still here. Today is today. Pet your doggies while you may.

xo, Carrie