Watching the Seedling Grow

A few times in this space, I have written about my father’s letters home during World War II.  My sisters and I are lucky enough to have hundreds of letters beginning with the night before our father left college to report for duty and ending with the day, over two years later, that he surprised his family by walking into the house during Sunday dinner.  In that time, the boy from a small town in Pennsylvania traveled to the American South, to Texas, to England, France, Belgium, and Germany.  He met everyone from hicks to English country gentlemen, exotic and beautiful women of Brussels, bereft mothers of Austria.  His mind broadened, his perspectives changed, he settled on a career.  In short, he grew up.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It’s an extraordinary thing to be able to watch your father develop from boyhood to manhood.  There’s a flavor of time travel in the experience.

What this story doesn’t have is suspense.  After all, we knew he’d been to Germany and back.  We had the souvenir collection of shrapnel chunks, German army helmet, bayonet and sundry other items to prove it.  We knew he’d survived physically unscathed; he lived to go to medical school, marry our mother, father us girls, send us to school, take us on vacations, laugh, argue, and finally die much too young at the age of fifty-two.  Knowing how the story ends in no way detracts from the pleasure of the journey that his letters describe.

This has all been keenly brought home to me in the last few weeks. 

 On August 1^st, my step-son Jackson flew to Great Lakes, Illinois to report for basic training.  He is a Sailor Recruit in the United States Navy.  Every Sunday, he is allowed six hours of “holiday” time to write letters which will be sent via snail mail.  He had to leave his computer, his iPod, even his cell phone behind as he gave his body and mind over to the military.  During holiday time, he writes to us (this I know for sure), to his girlfriend (he remarks as much and she confirms it), to his mother (I imagine) and to his sister (I hope).  His letters home are uncannily like the ones sent by another young man in 1943.  “I’m still liking the Army,” writes one from Fort Eustis.  “I’m having fun here,” writes the other from Great Lakes.  There are the same chatty details about physical training, inspections, tests taken that show intellectual prowess, hopes for future possibilities.  The chow is detailed and praised, though for both it falls short of home cooking.  Each chafes under the leadership of nincompoops and incompetents.  Both exclaim over the truth of the “hurry up and wait” cliché.  The boy from Pennsylvania remarks on the hillbillies and the mountain talk that he is trying to get used to.  The boy from California celebrates, “It’s wild how diverse the people are here,” but adds, “Our weapons PO is from Louisiana and I can’t understand a word he says.”

When I first read my father’s letters, there was a precious sense of getting to know the young man he had been, of being able to trace the arc of becoming as he developed into the man we knew.  Now as I read Jackson’s letters, I can’t help thinking of my grandparents, waiting hungrily for the next installment, worrying and wondering about how their child was faring, aware that he would hate to be called a child, knowing that, in fact, he wasn’t a child any longer.  When we read our father’s letters, we have the advantage of knowing how it all turned out.  His parents didn’t have the eyes of history with which to read his words of frustration, sadness, willful optimism.  I think of them when John and I worry about our boy, ache for his unspoken loneliness, revel in his new experiences, celebrate his successes, and ponder the possibilities of the unknown future.  We share with them the balance of anxiety and indescribable pride in our son.

Needless to say we are saving Jackson’s letters.  When he wrote to his parents, my father frequently reiterated his request that they keep his letters, asserting that he knew he would want to read them after he got back.  He never did.  His experiences were not ones he wanted to relive.  Whether Jackson chooses to read his letters or not, we are saving them.  His children will want them.  And they deserve a chance to know the boy who became the grown man they loved. 

My father, the animal lover, often made reference to missing the pets back home.  My son, the animal lover, ends his most recent letter with the P.S., “Pat the animals for me!”  The road with Jackson has not always been smooth, and god knows it hasn’t been easy.  But a heart and a mind are being forged in this experience, and a heart and a mind that can give a shout out to two scrappy cats and a loving dog are some fine materials to be setting out with.

Perchance to Dream

Years ago, I read an article written by a behavioral scientist who, after considerable research, had determined that dogs don’t dream.  I couldn’t imagine how anyone who had spent any time at all with a dog could have come to such a ridiculous conclusion.  One needn’t be around dogs for long to witness the twitching paws, wagging tail, clacking teeth, smacking lips or half-whimpers of a sound asleep dog in the REM stage.  Obviously, dogs don’t dream in the same way that humans do.  Being non-verbal creatures, it’s unlikely that there are many conversations in their dreams.  Would Freud, Jung or Adler, given the opportunity, have been able to find unconscious or symbolic meaning in canine dreams?  Probably not.  I bet that there’s a lot less talk and a lot more action in doggie night-pictures, though.  And the sensaround must be awesome!

Of course, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know the exact form of dog dreams, but we can imagine.  Am I projecting to think that dogs have a sense of “I,” “you” and “we”?  I don’t believe so.  Cleo, seeing her reflection for the first several times, reacted pretty strongly to the other puppy who insisted on doing everything she was doing.  Before long, not only did she come to recognize herself, but she began to use the reflective properties of surfaces at her eye-level to watch me without having to go to the trouble of turning around.  In the PDD (pre-dog-door) days, she would sit in front of the sliding glass door and stare meaningfully at my reflection until I got the message and opened it up for her.  Right there that seems to indicate an “I”-“you” awareness.  “If I do this action, you will do that action.”  The canine connection to the “we,” to family, has long been established. 

When I watch Cleo dreaming, I imagine a lot of playing with kids, chasing of ground squirrels, occasionally some running away from other dogs.  Most of the time she’s happy in her dreams, her tail wagging drumbeats against the couch or bed.

And there’s an essential concept: This behaviorist argued that dogs do not dream because they cannot imagine.  Are you kidding me?  Okay, maybe not all dogs have imaginations, but I know Cleo does.  My great uncle Harold was a game inventor, and he was good at it.  Compared to Cleo, he was an amateur.  In the case of her favorite game, Keep-Away, it’s not so much the game itself but the variations on her escape routes that show her imagination.  Up onto the couch, leap to the chaise, down onto the floor, a lap around the coffee table, back up onto the couch, leap to the chaise, vault over the back of the chaise and slide under the piano, around the leg, along the side then it’s a dash to the kitchen for a turn around the island, slip between the island and the counter stools, then tear back into the living room to start the combination again.  Win or lose, it doesn’t matter to her.  If she gets away and keeps the toy, she’s happy she has made you chase her all over the place.  If you get the ball, or the moose, or the antler, she’s just as happy in the expectation that you will do something exciting with it, like throw it or hide it so she has to search it out.

It’s when she plays by herself that her imagination is exercised the most.  She’ll perch her ball on the very edge of a high spot, a step or a chair, and wait until it rolls off, then fling herself after it.  Doesn’t it take not only imagination but intelligence to conceive of a way to “throw” a ball so it can be chased?  My favorite moments, though, are when she positions a toy a few feet from herself, then backs away and stares at it intently.  Her tail extends straight out and her rear end wiggles as she waits for the toy to effect its escape.  Suddenly, she pounces on it, grabs it in her jaws, gives it a shake to break its back and prances in a joyful, laughing victory lap, ready to start the routine all over again.

Her latest favorite, albeit ephemeral, toy is an ice cube.  At the first hint of a whirr from the refrigerator ice dispenser, Cleo races from any part of the house and stands, legs straight, tail up, ears forward, staring at the little ice chute.  Hum, grind, plop, the ice cube lands in my hand and I bowl it across the kitchen floor and into the living room.  Cleo bounds, like a leaping deer, to catch it, kicks it, sends it flying off in a new direction.  She catches it up in her teeth, then storms around the living room until it is just too cold to hold any longer.  She spits it out and puts a paw on it so that it squirts off crazily across the rug, and the chase can begin all over again.  When it has melted down to about half its original size, she rolls over onto it, biting at it and pretending she can’t quite reach it.  Sometimes she loses track of it and has to jump up and find it before flopping over onto it once more.

I may be projecting.  Goodness knows I’d never deny that I’m biased.  But it seems to me that all of this takes a strong imagination.  Maybe the bottom line is that I don’t believe we can learn all there is to know about an animal by studying it in a lab.  To truly understand someone, even to want to truly understand, we have to love them.  When we love them, their smallest gesture or act takes on significance.  The accumulation of small acts creates a pattern, the pattern takes on meaning, the meaning deepens our love, and we understand a fraction more.  Words are as unnecessary for the flowering of love as they are for the experience of a dream.  

The Start of Something New

The game’s afoot!  The school year is underway for Cleo and me. 

What a difference just a couple months has made to her maturity level!  It’s very much like seeing last year’s pint-sized, squirrely ninth grader striding across the quad in his new sophomore form, a head taller, mustache sprouting, confidence brimming over.  Cleo, though still ready to wrestle, chase, bound, leap and play at the smallest hint of an invitation, has come to understand that she also serves who only stands and waits.  Or lies down and chews. 

On Tuesday, she came with me to school for a day of faculty meetings.  I had left her home on Monday because I thought she would be too bored and fidgety, but John told me that she moped around the house all day long.  It’s true that when I got home Monday night after several hours of meetings and an orientation for new students and their parents, Cleo greeted me as if I’d just returned from the wars.  A seventeen pound, squeaking projectile with a very wet tongue packs a surprising amount of force.  So I decided the next day that six hours of meetings might be more enjoyable for her than house arrest; at least we’d be together.  It was something of a gamble, though, because if she proved too much of a distraction at the meeting, I’d have to lock her in my office by herself.  Then only I would be distracted, worrying about her being bored and lonely.

All of our colleagues were glad to see her, and she had to greet most of them, giving special attention to her favorites: Jennifer who stayed with her when we were away this summer, Charlotte whose grandmother had Bedlingtons and who always makes a big fuss over her, Kim who roughhouses and wears jangly bracelets, Cammy who is the only playmate fast enough to nab a toy right out of Cleo’s mouth, and Chuck who, as the head of school, often takes a central position which always fascinates and impresses her.  I laid her blanket down at my feet and deposited her favorite chew toy, an antler, on top of it.  I told her “Down” and “Stay,” then sat poised to corral her back into place should she move.  Only a couple of times when speakers changed positions, some returning to their seats while others moved to stand up front, did Cleo jump up, thinking it was break time. 

During lunch, she went on an extended explore of the campus perimeter, never going out of ear shot, but having a marvelous time hunting lizards and ground squirrels.  For the afternoon session, she sacked out contentedly on her blanket, occasionally sitting up for presentations and discussions that caught her interest.  Her favorite was a video of one of our students speaking at a TED-x conference.  Maybe the laughter and clapping coming from the screen reminded her of The Colbert Report.  We know how she feels about him.

It's not easy waking up early
after sleeping in all summer.

So after this good-as-gold performance, I was excited to see what she would do with all the students on campus Wednesday morning.  For a while, she stood and stared at them, but then she saw Betsy, her pal of last year.  The night before, I had gotten an email the complete text of which was, “Will Cleo be at school tomorrow?”  No salutation.  No sign off.  It was good I recognized her email address.  It was obvious from the exuberance of the greeting that they had missed each other.  I made one big mistake by taking Cleo into the opening of school assembly.  I had hoped to introduce her to the new students, but I had forgotten how boisterous the student body always is, letting out a huge cheer and clapping when the head of school says, “Welcome to the new school year!”  We may be only 225 students and 40 adults, but we pack a roar when we want to.  And before you accuse me of indulging in fantasy, it’s really true—the kids cheer about being back at school.  Loudly enough that I made the hasty decision to take Cleo back to my office for that part of the morning.

One great treat about this school year so far has been our experiment.  We have been leaving the baby gate off the office door.  While one of us works at her desk, the other sometimes naps on the couch, plays with a student or occasionally makes a circuit of the library, never going far and never (knock on wood) trying to leave the building.  When I have to leave her behind, she follows me to the outside door, looking after me reproachfully as I tell her to “Hold the fort.”  When I return, she is always back on her blanket on the couch in our office.  It would be so wonderful if we could maintain the gate-free door, so much more inviting for the students to come in and out, so much healthier for Cleo to have the chance to visit—politely—with folks in the library.

I’ve also been taking her to my classes, blanket and antler in hand.  She chews or sleeps or observes and has been a perfect gem.  The first time I walked into class with her, my students actually gasped.  I teach the youngest students in the school, the unique grade eight in a high school.  They are innocent, earnest, curious kids who for the first few days are confused and vulnerable and awestruck.  After a couple of Ohs and Ahs, as Cleo settled down on her blanket to gnaw on her antler, one of the students quaveringly asked, as if it were too good to be true, “Do we get to have Cleo in class?”  By Friday afternoon when I dismissed them, half of them clustered around Cleo to pat her and rub her tummy.  One boy put his forehead against her side, then rubbed his cheek against her.  “She’s so soft!” he exclaimed.  “Let me feel,” said a girl.  She rubbed her cheek in the downy hair.  “Oh, she is!” she agreed.  One after another, six or seven more students knelt down to rub a forehead or cheek on Cleo’s side.  She sprawled contentedly, not the least bit concerned by being completely surrounded, nearly smothered by, half of the eighth grade class.  Up she popped when it was time to go and pranced her way back to our office.

This is her territory.  These are her people.  She doesn’t care about what grade they’ve gotten, their GPA, SAT or AP scores.  She cares about the important qualities, the lasting qualities.  Is this someone who will get down on the floor and rub his cheek in your fur?  Is this someone who will stop on her way across campus to pat your tummy and rub your ears?  Is this someone ready to play with you?

Let the games begin!

It is a Far, Far Better Thing

I think it’s one of the nobler aspects of human kind that we, without so much as a begrudging thought, make sacrifices for our pets. 

I know of a couple who hasn’t traveled together for years; they don’t feel they can leave their six cats.  Personally, I have the suspicion that they never really liked traveling together in the first place, and this makes a handy excuse.  (I know I’ll get emails about that comment…)  For John and me, there is no point in traveling without the other unless we absolutely have to for work.  Besides, there are wonderful pet sitters in the world.  I’m even a little jealous of just how much Cleo loves hers. 

My sister gave hours of each day to caring for her aging cat Perdita.  Though shriveled to the weight of a kitten and completely incontinent, Per wasn’t in pain and clearly wanted to hang around with my sister and her family.  She didn’t care much for any other humans, but my sister had bottle fed her and her brother Raoul when they were found abandoned, days old at the most.  Raoul was a hale-fellow-well-met kind of guy, but Per was able to expand her heart only enough to love Jan’s husband and daughter because Jan loved them.  Everyone else was suspect, and one felt lucky to be graced with a rare Per sighting when visiting the family.  Jan helped Perdita to a dignified exit with all the love and patience she had helped her to a hopeful entrance.

A dear friend of ours takes her Labs to a doggie swim-gym several times a week so they can have no-impact exercise for their aging joints.  Finnegan and Merlin may be the best traveled dogs I know, having gone walk-about with Jen and Anth in their converted van, spending four years or so traveling to Alaska, New Orleans, Boston and back to the Central Coast.  I can’t imagine two adult humans and two adult Labs in a van or tiny apartment for all that time, but they couldn’t imagine life without the dogs.  What I thought of as a sacrifice was a no-brainer for them.

John and I detest DIY projects, the converted backyard notwithstanding.  Our watchwords are “Hire the professionals.”  We are full of admiration for all those who can build, carve, tile, pave, install and refinish.  We stand amazed at our brother-in-law who built an entire cabin by himself.  And I use the quaint word “cabin” only because it is located in the mountains.   But John and I have neither the talent nor the inclination to master home improvement skills.  He is fond of paraphrasing Dr. Bones from Star Trek, “Damn it, Jim, I’m just a country guitar player!”  That would be a lowercase country, given that he’s built his city on rock and roll.

So it may come as something of a surprise that our Sunday went to installing a patio pet door in the sliding glass door off our kitchen.  It may not come as a surprise that it took us something in the neighborhood of six and a half hours to complete this home improvement.  Now, Cleo has instant, ready access to the backyard any time she wants it. 

The journey to ending up with a pet door to the outside was fraught with any number of wrong turns.  To begin with, it took us months to settle on just the right one.  We had to compare the permanent installations with the semi-permanent, those with the temporary.  Did we want aluminum or vinyl, double or single-paned.  Should the flap be rigid, flexible, jointed?  Magnetic?  Automatic?  Who knew there were so many options? 

We finally settled on one a couple weekends ago (semi-permanent, vinyl, double-paned, jointed) and placed the order on a Saturday.  On Sunday, our credit card company called to ask if we had magically made simultaneous multi-thousand dollar purchases in southern California, Northern California and South Carolina.  Um, no.  What had initially alerted them to possible fraud was a $3000 plus purchase at a Bose outlet in San Matteo and a $2500 charge at a Macy’s near LA.  At first they were confused by a posting from Walmart in Charleston for $500 in groceries, but quickly decided that it was unlikely that was us.  The upshot was a canceled credit card and an email on Monday morning from the pet door people asking if there was some problem with our credit card.  I now had the choice of giving the new card number out over the phone to a complete stranger or canceling the order and starting over on the secure website.

The nice fraud department adviser counseled me that as long as a payment site was specifically labeled “secure,” chances are nearly infinitesimal that your information will be stolen online.  The real problems, he said, were restaurants.  “The minute you let your card out of your sight, you have no idea what’s being done with it,” he told me.  He described small apparatuses that wait staff can attach to their belts that allow them to swipe a card and obtain all the information necessary to make a perfect duplicate.  “Any time you take your card out of your wallet in a public place, assume that someone nearby is snapping a picture of it with their phone.”

I canceled the order and started over.

So our nice UPS man delivered the door mid-week, and John and I tackled the installation today.  Let me just say, John was great—a creative problem solver, an indefatigable driller, measurer, sawer and screwer (though that sounds a bit wrong).  “Power tools!” he would announce in a tone of deep appreciation every time a screw went into its intended destination (especially the couple of times we had to reverse our steps and do something over again). 

For the first hour or so, Cleo observed from a safe distance.  Eventually, she decided that the whirring noises probably weren’t life-threatening and came over for the up close and personal, occasionally providing help with a paw to the knee or an encouraging lick of the nose.  About 7:30 this evening, we all stood back to admire the finished product.  A little caulking here and there will seal the deal, so to speak, and keep us warmer this winter, but all in all, it looks pretty spiffy.  Cleo thought it was most elegant.  She just had no idea what it was for.

A half dozen times luring her inside to outside, out to in with hotdog slices and she was beginning to get the idea.  It was a moment of triumph for all of us when she magically appeared by our sides as John and I put the tools away in the shed.  The return trip back into the house is still problematic, but she seems to have mastered the in-to-out route.

In fact, just as I typed that last sentence, I heard the swish and smack of the flexible door as she made use of our gift to her.  There is a remarkable sense of joy in hearing that simple sound.  It suddenly seems small, the sacrifice of the last Sunday before school starts.

Familiarity Breeds Love

The other day I read an entertaining article in the New York Times that compared pet ownership (or animal companion guardianship, depending on your outlook) to playing a video game.  Not being a gamer, I couldn’t relate to most of the article.  Photorealistic graphics, level attainment, joystick usage and the like might not go over my head, but they don’t resonate with my heart.  One point that the writer made, though, did strike home: Taking care of a dog involves a lot of repetitive tasks, and the very nature of that repetition builds intimacy and love.

You might walk a dog today, but she still needs to walk tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the next.  As you stroll your accustomed routes, a familiarity develops that lets you know exactly how each of you will respond to this old scene or that new sight.  A dog, especially a Bedlington Terrier with its Velcro hair, needs to be brushed regularly.  The warmth of companionship and the murmur of conversation as you poke into pads, sniff ears, examine teeth, separate burrs from tassels and seeds from everywhere else builds mutual love.

And, of course, there are the less seemly routine activities.  I went walking on the beach with a friend yesterday.  As we approached the sand, Cleo went into her indicative stance (the old-fashioned water-pump position, John and I call it).  In the midst of a story, I went on talking.  Without thinking, I pulled the plastic bag from my pocket and stood waiting for Cleo to finish.  She gave one last crank of her tail and stepped daintily away from the warm deposit.  I bent down, but, at a climactic moment of my story, paused in mid stoop, gesticulating with the bagged hand.  I made my point and looked to my friend to see her reaction.  It wasn’t exactly what I had expected; a look of horror faded into one of disgust.  “Ew,” she said succinctly.  I looked down.  A malodorous series of dashes was an arm’s length from my face.  I efficiently scooped it up, reversed the bag and tied a knot, an action that I had done so many times it was habitual.  And obviously without thought.  Cleo, in the meantime, had been happily occupied with sniffing a patch of ice plant.  In that moment, there was something so familiar to us, so foreign to my friend, that I felt even more united with Cleo.  A love born of understanding and responsibility, of expectation and fulfillment, of guardianship and dependency took ever greater root.  

Cleo embraces repetition and consistency, yet she is remarkably flexible.  She has settled into the summer routine of spending her days at home, but come next week, she will make the shift to ten months of office hours, students, and constant activity.  Her bedtime and waking time mesh seamlessly with ours, and we are nothing but inconsistent there.  One weekend this summer she spent in a cabin in Guerneville surrounded by (doting) strangers, the next week she spent on her own with a sitter.  She flourished in both settings.

There have been a couple of things this summer that threw her for a loop, though.  On our vacation in Ashland, Oregon, John and I went shopping at a local mall.  Not terribly characteristic of us, but we’d forgotten things like swim trunks.  As we strolled the polished granite expanse, we happened on a Sleep Number Bed showroom.  If you live in Central or Northern California and have ever tuned into KGO Radio, you have heard dozens, hundreds, thousands of commercials for Sleep Number Beds. 

“Want to check them out?” John asked me. 

Well, of course!  On a lark, we sallied into the store.  Two hours later, we left with a receipt and the promise of delivery within a week.

The delivery of the new bed was filled with great fascination for Cleo.  Bustle!  Admirers!  New smells!  At bedtime, when she sleepily jumped up to join us for a pre-crate snuggle, she was clearly surprised that this bed was a good deal lower than our previous, raised mattress.  But the real trouble began when the bed started to move.  Up she sprang as the head of our bed loomed over her!  A strange growling rose from under the mattress!  A Bedlington is nothing if not brave when confronted with a threat to her people.  She launched herself off the mattress, whirled in mid-air and turned to face the monster.  Barking at full roar, she peered under the bed.  Okay, nothing there that looked terribly dangerous, but the bed was still moving.  “Bark!  Bark bark!” she said, now looking at us.  Once the bed had reached its preset position,  and after a good bit of reassuring, she stopped barking and cautiously jumped back onto the bed to curl up between us.  By a couple days later, she was an old hand, completely unflappable, riding the moving bed from raised to flat, flat to upright with nary an ear twitch.

The second event was a more dramatic change.  After years of living with a backyard which I had taken to calling “the blasted heath,” I decided I couldn’t take it anymore.  Land in Monterey is so precious that lots for building are measured in feet, not acres.  In addition to that, residents may not remove trees from their properties without permission of the City.   I tell you this to explain why it is that our tiny backyard is dominated by a sixty foot pine tree whose trunk is some twenty feet around, whose shallow roots snake through every part of the soil, and whose spreading limbs create a dim and clammy microclimate that has killed off every plant I’ve ever tried to grow there.  In the South, polite people would have termed this desert a “swept dirt yard.”  Anywhere else, it would just be called “hideous.”  And this is what the lovely French doors of our bedroom open onto.  It is the first thing we see in the morning and the last thing at night.  Can you say “depressing”?  I thought you could.

This past spring I realized that it was time to accept that we would never have a lush, green yard.  I was ready to pave it over.  After some reflection, design time and consultation with a friend who is a Master Gardener, I modified my vision.  Two days restaining the fence, two days moving and placing a ton of flagstones, two days filling the gaps with fresh soil and planting wooly thyme and ferns, and two hours of hanging Talavera animals and sticking decorative lights into the ground and the place is transformed.  Sometimes, John and I just stand there looking at it.  It has been a bit hard on Cleo, though.

When she sensed the presence of the hated neighbor dog in the blasted heath days, she would pile out the kitchen door, tear along the narrow walk, vault over the wooden deck and come to a skidding halt by the fence, sending a spray of fine dirt and dust sparkling into the air.  She would bounce up and down, barking at the fence, digging frantically, until the whole yard was hazy with lung choking grit.  This summer, she was a great help to me as I worked on the transformation, supervising placement of the flagstones, carefully and thoroughly inspecting every bag of topsoil until her face was a mask of loamy earth.  Even so, she seemed to forget that the yard was evolving.  One evening after we had hauled a half ton of stone from the front of the house to the back, Cleo and I were relaxing with our feet up.  Suddenly, she heard the neighbor dog!  She charged to the kitchen door, demanding to be let out.  As I slid it open, she leapt out, flew down the side walkway, sprang over the deck—and stopped dead, staring at the ground. What were these rocks doing in the middle of her dirt patch?  Where was she supposed to bounce and dig and bark now?  She turned to me with a “What the--?” look on her face.  Tail and ears drooped, and she walked back and sat on my foot, turning to look wistfully at the fence.  I’m glad to say that she has made peace with the change.  She has chosen a different part of the fence through which to argue with the neighbor dog, and she has become fond of the feeling of warm stone on her tummy.

Routine, consistency, knowing what to expect can be reassuring.  It can build a relationship and the love that follows.  But change makes our minds grow.  It tests our resilience and asks us to reach inside ourselves to be the best creatures that we can be.  When we look to each other to see us through the rough patches of change, our love has a chance to deepen and mature.  We are interconnected, interdependent, and that makes an unpredictable world feel like a much safer place.

Warm flagstones

"Tears and Fears and Feeling Proud"

It’s been a rough weekend, hasn’t it?  At the same time that historians, psychologists and pundits tell us that we are more divided as a nation than we have been in a hundred years, though our dialogue has coarsened and our treatment of each other can sometimes lack a recognition of each other’s basic humanity,  an event like the Aurora movie theater shooting unites us instantly.  The immediacy of the internet has brought us all so close to each other.  I’m not talking about the ability to get news updates every few minutes, but rather the fact that our friends and “neighbors” might live not the next street over, as they did when I was growing up, but in another state or another country thousands of miles away.  When I woke to the news on Friday morning, my first thought was for my sister and her family who all live in the Denver area.  Following a split second after that was concern for the Bedlington Terrier parents I’ve come to know, though never met.  Judging by the emails and posts of support and condolence that came in through the social media networks, many of us were thinking the same way.

There are so many elements to this story that have a visceral impact.  The movies, for all of us, are a place to escape the world.  During the Great Depression and World War II, movies were enormously popular.  For a coin or two, you could leave behind the worries and fears of daily life and immerse yourself in the world of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Myrna Loy and William Powell (and Asta), Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson.   It’s true today as well.  Even with hundreds of channels on our televisions and myriad entertainment options on our computers, we still go to the movies in droves.  But I think it’s the timing that we also find so breathtaking.  Who is the audience that usually goes to the midnight showing, opening day, of a summer blockbuster?  Teenagers and twenty-somethings.  My students plan outings weeks in advance of a big opening.  They talk about it non-stop.  The excitement carries them through the slog of a summer job.  It is an unavoidable conclusion that the shooter purposely targeted kids.  At our very deepest human core, aren’t we hard-wired to protect kids?  Whether we are parents or not, I don’t believe there is a single one of us who doesn’t want to grab a couple of nearby children, teenagers, young people, and hold them tight for a minute simply to express thanks that they are alive and unharmed.

When we hear about something like this, we understandably become a bit obsessed with trying to comprehend the perpetrator.  What led him to this action?  What was amiss inside him?  How did no one know that he was planning this?  We wonder if there will be copy-cats, if there are others like him lurking just below the surface of our awareness.  We begin to believe that we live in a time that is somehow broken in which events like this are common or inevitable, and that we will never come out of it.  But the truth is that these events are rare.  In reality, we look around at our friends and neighbors, be they nearby or thousands of miles away, and see fellow human beings who love and worry and care and sometimes feel alone and scared, just like we do.  They, like us, are seeking ways to connect, looking for chances, not to make our lives more difficult, but to ease our burdens, to make our lives happier.  They are training therapy dogs to take into hospitals or nursing homes.  They are making crib caps and baby blankets to give to new parents who can’t afford them.  They are volunteering on suicide hotlines.  They are performing daily small kindnesses like smiling at the grocery store checker, or holding a cab door for the passenger getting in after they’ve gotten out, or exchanging a pleasantry with a stranger while they both wait for their lattes.  Human beings are bridge builders if you give us half a chance.

In this act of violence, there was one deeply shattered psyche.  There were so many others who exemplify real humanity.  What it truly means to be a human being is embodied by Jarell Brooks who was wounded in the thigh because he stopped to help a mother and her two small children to escape from the theater, by Nick Yowler who leapt to protect his sister and eventually pulled her out of the theater, by Matthew McQuinn and Jonathan Blunk who died because they used their bodies to shield their girlfriends from harm.  Reality is that we are far more likely to be heroes than villains.

As we go about our coming weeks, I hope we’ll all take a moment to build a bridge with someone.  I hope we’ll remember to live our lives in ways that make us proud.  I hope the families and friends begin to heal.

In the last few days, I’ve heard a surprising new refrain from people whom Cleo and I meet.  “If she were my dog, I’d never put her down.  I’d want to cuddle with her all the time.”  Well, they don’t know how pointy her paws can become when she is ready to be put down.  A squirming, flailing Bedlington is capable of delivering a very clear message.  But I have found it exceptionally therapeutic to bury my nose in her side and breathe in that distinctive Bedlington smell, to pat the sproingy hair on her head, feel her warmth, and even to be poked in the back by four pointy feet each morning.  I look into her laughing face and I’m reminded of the honest, simple goodness of Cleo, of her love of all humankind.  That eases my heart.

May fortune so smile on all of us.

...To Say Nothing of the Dog

For many teenagers, and frankly for most of the rest of us, the destination, not the journey, is the primary focus.  Where will they go to college?  How good will their end of term or end of year grades be?  What will they do this summer? This weekend?  This evening?  When I was in acting conservatory, one of the most annoying girls in my class said one of the most profound statements I’ve ever heard.  As we sat around the student lounge one morning avidly counting the days till vacation, she suddenly blurted out, “My God, we’re wishing our lives away.”  The statement stunned us all into silence, and it has stayed with me for over thirty years, reminding me to enjoy the moment, to treasure the journey as well as the destination.

Dad, Mom and Cleo near Bodega Bay
Photo by David Smith

In the last two weeks, John and I have enjoyed two very different vacations, one with Cleo, my two sisters and their husbands, and one for just the two of us.  The first involved one sister and her husband flying into San Francisco from Washington, D.C. just before the Derecho storms hit the east coast, knocking out power and flattening trees in seven states.  My other sister flew in from Denver, leaving raging wild fires and smoke-filled skies for the towering redwoods.  Her husband, already in California for a business trip, met the other three at the airport while John and I had the comparatively easy Monterey to Sonoma County drive with an anxious, panting, drooling puppy dog.  Cleo clearly prefers the destination to the journey.  She was in seventh heaven being doted on by six adults.

John at the Roadhouse
Photo by David Smith

After we had piled our supplies into the rental house and chosen bedrooms for the weekend, we strolled down the narrow lane to the roadhouse we’d spotted as we drove in.  Noticing that there was music there every Saturday night but not on Fridays, my brother-in-law David turned to John.  “Want a gig tonight?” he asked.  Does a duck paddle?  As the four women-folk waited outside (three two-leggeds and one four-legged), the guys popped inside to enter into negotiations.  In less than ten minutes, they were back.  John had a gig.  Between David’s skillful negotiations, Paul’s mention that John was three times voted best musician in Monterey County, and John’s assurance that he wanted to play only for tips, the management was quickly won over.  It was a magical evening of the unplanned and unexpected.

The next day, we decided to go for a hike, but discovered that before we could, John needed to procure some hiking boots.  A quick Yelp indicated a likely spot, so six adults (to say nothing of the dog) climbed into the rented hearse-shaped mini-van and set out for the boot shop.  A quaint spot presented itself for some lunch, light shopping and cattle admiring.  Then we realized that we were unexpectedly near the inn where my sisters and I had stayed last year in celebration of a milestone birthday.  We detoured to show our husbands the beautiful setting.  That led us to remember that the little town where The Birds had been filmed was close by, so we zig-zagged over there to see the famous locations.  From there we made a bee-line to the boot shop, and after navigating three u-turns on a narrow highway because we couldn’t find the road we were supposed to turn on, we noticed that the street sign was handwritten on a ragged piece of cardboard stapled to a stake.  REI this was not.  When we finally found the “boot store,” it turned out to be a tiny outbuilding behind a small house in a postage-stamp-sized beach community perched on a cliff above the ocean.  It was, in fact, the workshop of a woman who designs and hand crafts beautiful, unique sheepskin moccasins and boots.  She admired Cleo (and thankfully made no jokes about lambs making lovely footwear) and we got a detailed tour of the workshop.  We left empty-handed.  But a romp on the beach was an absolute must for a little girl who had been so patient despite the unrelenting anxiety of riding in a car all day, so we climbed down to the sand and took a soul restoring stroll.  On the way back to our house, we dove into a winery for some last minute tasting, where several people stopped to pat and admire Cleo until we were thrown out of the tasting room (she was actually sleeping sprawled out on the carpet when they told us she wasn’t allowed inside).  Such a lovely day of journey with no destination in sight.

The family minus Paul and Cleo
Photo by Paul Berger

The lesson was repeated last week when John and I traveled up to Ashland, Oregon, for the Shakespeare festival, finally opting, by the way, to leave Cleo at home with a new sitter who is a colleague from school.  They got on famously.  It was a far sight better than the chaos of a week with seven dogs.  After the play our first night there, we wandered into a likely sounding bar for a nightcap.  Though deserted when we arrived, ten minutes later it was packed with actors and crew from the festival shows which had just ended.  It turned out we had chanced into the post-show hangout.  We returned there each night, striking up acquaintances with crew members and actors of shows we had seen or were shortly to see, with the bartender and with the owner.  Another unexpected destination arrived at by being open to the journey.

So with all of this, you might think I would finally internalize the lesson.  I am not always quick on the uptake.

We got home from Ashland on Wednesday.  On Friday, Cleo was scheduled to take her Canine Good Citizen and therapy dog tests.  For more than a year, we have been going to obedience classes so that Cleo would be ready for this moment.  I had poured over all of the requirements, feeling confident about some, downright panicky about others.  In fact, I was so wound up about the tests that I suffered intestinal rebellion all of Thursday, not managing to leave the house until late afternoon so that we could do a little training at the venue in which the tests were to be conducted.

On Friday morning, recognizing just how wrought up I was, John resorted to the one technique he knows always calms me down—we clipped Cleo to her leash and set out on a walk. 

“What are you so anxious about?” he asked me.

“She might jump up on someone.  Dogs who jump up will be disqualified.  The rules say so.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Or she might start barking at the other dogs.  She’ll sound so vicious.  She won’t show that she ‘can behave politely with another dog.’  That will disqualify her for sure.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“No,” I admitted.  “I guess we could just keep training for another year and try again next summer.  Or test with someone else.  I just really wanted her to be an official therapy dog before another school year started.”

“She’s going to pick up on your anxiety,” he warned.  “How about thinking positively.”

“Well, I really do think she can do this.”  As soon as I said the words aloud, I realized I believed them. I also realized that I didn’t care, deep down.  While I wanted the legitimacy of official certification for the sake of the school, there was and is no doubt in my mind that Cleo is a magnificent therapy dog, kind, sensitive, loving, funny, patient and cuddly.  “Actually,” I said to John, suddenly feeling much calmer, “I really do think she’ll be fine.”

We were the first team to arrive at the venue.  The coordinators were still setting up.  It was a pleasant surprise to see that one of the assistants was a friend from school.  Cleo and I dropped off our chair, blanket, and snacks and took a walk to blow off some steam.  When we got back, other teams had arrived.  There were twenty of us in all.  The tester explained how the day would unfold.  Cleo and I, team number five, would be starting our test with the basic set: Accepting a friendly stranger, sitting politely for petting, allowing the stranger to groom her, walking on a loose leash, sit, stand, down, stay and recall.  By the time we had watched three of the first four dogs pull on their leashes while “heeling,” have to be hauled into a sitting position, and jump up on the tester, I leaned down and whispered to Cleo, “We’ve got this, baby girl.”  My confidence soared when one of the dogs in the other group, testing for supervised separation in which the dog is left with one of the assistants while its handler waits out of sight, began to whine, bark and finally howl.  The test administrator called to his assistant, “Get the handler back and we’ll try it again later.”   I obviously take other people’s rules far more seriously than they do themselves. 

"Reaction to Another Dog"
Photo by Ellen Mitchell

Suffice it to say that of the twenty dogs, nineteen passed.  The one who didn’t was a Pug who refused to lie down.  But I will hasten to add that Cleo was easily one of the five best dogs there.  She did everything beautifully, though she did jump up on people during the “Walking through a crowd” part of the test.  She was just very eager to greet everyone.  But the thing that just amazed me was how calm she was with all of the other dogs.  The only time she barked was when she thought another dog was behaving badly (she is a bit bossy, not uncommon for a terrier).  She dislikes it when other dogs rattle their collar tags, growl at each other, lunge for someone else’s snack, or become too boisterous.  Even then, as soon as I told her to hush, she did. 

And so, the day has come.  After nearly two years of planning, dreaming, training and loving, Cleo is officially a Canine Good Citizen and a certified therapy dog.

The surprise is that the goal, though pleasant, isn’t nearly as satisfying as I expected.  The journey, on the other hand, our weekly obedience classes and, more than anything else, daily life with Cleo, is more inspiring, more fulfilling, more precious than even I imagined it would be.

Official Therapy Dog
Photo by Ellen Mitchell