You will have to believe me that a magnificent buck was outside my window this morning. I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back he had melted into the camouflage of leaves and bark, still, invisibly, there.
I have come to believe that the invisible things are often the most important. These are the things we feel intensely and sense around us: maybe passion, maybe tension, maybe danger, maybe the proud buck in the trees.
Advent is an invisible thing, too, covered in mystery and in the deepening darkness of the earth. I don’t think it’s contradictory, or even surprising, that in this time when the earth stands sleeping we should await, with hope, the promise of light and new life. Because whether you accept the theology or not, those things are coming, literally and visibly.
But it is the invisible that beckons, that clutches the heart and draws us deeper.
And as winter comes, that silent moving of the universe is the darkest, deepest mystery of all. What is eternal? Can some part of us be eternal, too? What is this thing that I am, that wakes, and dreams, and sees the stars, and speaks to the souls of the trees? Why am I here, this small thing, trembling at my mortality while soaring out to meet the edge of sky?
The human soul has seasons, and the earth, wheeling through darkness and light, prepares us for them.
Auggie has spent the past three nights sleeping cuddled up next to me, which is not his usual thing. I believe he’s seeking reassurance after so many weeks of having been abandoned (in his view) at the hospital. He’s dozing so contentedly this morning.
We live in the country. So, when the temperatures dipped into the teens this week, of course, that brought an influx of mice.
Mice are a houseowner’s horror. They are destructive, filthy, and carry disease. But—and I know how this sounds—I cannot bring myself to kill them. I see their big black eyes, and their tiny feet, and they are so frightened and vulnerable. They are like very tiny puppies.
By the way, did you know that mice sing to one another?
So I buy humane traps, bait them with the dogs’ freeze-dried liver treats, and early each morning load my catch into the car and drive out to a cornfield a little more than three miles away. It must be three miles, because, apparently, mice can find their way back over any smaller distance.
Yesterday I caught three. My 13 year old grandson willingly accompanies me because we stop for a doughnut afterward, and he then gets a ride to school. It’s a bit of an adventure.
Last night I set three regular traps, and something new: a bucket trap, with a little ramp and a trap door. I filled the bucket with dried leaves for a soft landing, and smeared the top with peanut butter with dog treats stuck into it. Although I can’t be sure whether anyone is in there this morning, there is a hole in the center of the leaves which suggests there might be. I’ll know when we get to the cornfield. When I dump out the bucket I will be sorry to lose the cache I’ve saved of dry leaves for soft mouse landings, but it can’t be helped.
I don’t know whether the farmer has noticed a car stopping by his field in the early mornings, but it’s a nice field, with corn stubble and lots of kernels scattered in a mouse-friendly way. I have some minor concerns about whether the mice are too cold, but I am doing my part. They are on their own now.
Dad’s working late tonight, but I have lovely company. Since Auggie’s illness the Germans have grown more affectionate with one another. I see them through the kitchen window as they’re playing together, and it surprises and delights me. They romp and hide and pounce on one another just as Moses and Auggie used to do. I’m not sure what’s different, but maybe dogs share with human beings the appreciation of things almost lost.
We are in bed with a fire in the fireplace and some Irish whisky to go along with a good book. The dogs are not particularly interested in whisky or books, but they do enjoy comfort.
Life is almost back to normal. Auggie’s fur is growing back, and he’s full of spark. He does have one wilting ear, which we think is the result of wearing a cone for a month and accumulating moisture. Back to the vet we go! I’ve suggested to the clinic receptionist that when I call he should respond “Now, what?”
Auggie in a rare quiet momentEli couch-shepherding deer A Mid-romp Pause
We traveled for the holiday, and while it is always good to see family, it is also good to be at home in your own bed, and then waking to watch the sun rise, with the silhouettes of deer and turkeys in the woods, and the sweet soft breathing of big dogs nearby.
When I had a day job my Sundays were filled with dread. On Monday mornings I would stand at the big windows of my bedroom looking out at the beauties of the woods and sky, feeling bereft at having to leave for the demands of the classroom or office.
Now my schedule is mostly my own. And because I have always hated that Sunday feeling, I try to never schedule anything on a Monday. I write in the mornings, and reserve afternoons for appointments, errands, exercise, and domestic tasks. Lately, however, in what seems to be some kind of mechanical conspiracy, we have been on a breaking-down appliance spree, so my autonomy has been interrupted by lengthy bouts of dishwashing and repairmen who schedule their appearances in five hour appointment windows. Today, I have nothing planned except writing, walking the dogs, and making beef stew. There will also be a long, fragrant bath. A perfect day. I hope.
But we never know, do we? Our expectations of perfection are mostly disappointed, and since disappointment is a form of ingratitude, it would be graceless not to appreciate the imperfect blessings of our real lives, no?
And this brings me to My Dog Pete, the children’s book I finally got around to publishing this year after more than a decade of leaving it to languish in a file in my office.
My husband, who is a man of deep insights, recently pointed out to me that the book contains the philosophy of a happy life. I heard this with some surprise, because I was only telling a story, not trying to convey a moral. In the book, a little girl wants a perfect, golden dog who will be handsome and admired. Instead, she gets a mixed-breed, mischievous shelter dog who was probably abused, leaps as gracefully as a gazelle, and smells a little funny. She doesn’t want him. But–spoiler alert–against all her heartfelt preferences, she falls in love with him.
So often in life, when things don’t live up to our expectations, we are frustrated and disappointed. And yet, most of the time, what we get–even though it isn’t perfect–is still something good, and we are lucky to have it.
We must notice the good things we are so blessed to have. Ingratitude is a sin, and in most theologies perfectionism is, too, because it is a focus on self-will and the ego. And also because for most of the world, sadness and misery is a normal day. So now, when one of us doesn’t get exactly what we hoped for or expected, we say to one another: “I wanted a golden dog.” And we remember to relax into the reality of imperfection that is still filled with many beautiful things; many blessings.
After all, in real life we didn’t expect it, but we got Pete. And we wouldn’t have changed him for any other dog in the world.
Hoping you had a Happy Thanksgiving.
Pete, in one of his (many) stubborn moments.My Dog Pete is available exclusively at Amazon.
A friend and I went to a local greenhouse to make Christmas decorations with greenery and red trimmings in big outdoor pots. It was a lot of fun, and felt like the beginning of something both old and newly sweet. In the spring and summer, the seven greenhouses overflow with plants and flowers, but now everything smells like balsam and spices, and there are poinsettias, and garland, and wreaths, and hanging balls made with evergreens and sparkly things. It struck me sharply how much we need the presence of green things amid the darkness and cold of winter.
The family who own the nursery are fifth generation in the business, and the current manager told us of her great-grandfather who had been buried alive in World War I, and survived in an air pocket, eating the shoelaces of a dead comrade. He came home to his wife who had been told he was dead. Together, they began nurturing growing things, which seems both beautiful and significant.
In my family we have keepsakes: furniture, Persian rugs, silver, an ancient Bible, paintings and photos. And we have common threads, too: a love of learning, of literature and art, a passion for freedom and an expectation of basic decency. But I think about what it must be like to be upholding the family’s work in such a particular way, with all the significance and restrictions, resentments and pride that must come into the mix. All the generations–male and female–were represented at the nursery; they all seemed skilled and cheerful: laughing while disagreeing about the right way to place the boughs in a planter, teasing one another, singing along with the corny Christmas music, putting floral stakes and tape on pine cones and big shiny ornaments, and helping us create the right shape for our arrangements. They worked well together.
As we were leaving, we stopped to look at this old stone building next to the gravel parking lot. It was a poignant reminder of a family’s history.
Writing bad poetry is a pastime shared with youth and age. I will spare you mine, but intense emotion always draws it out of me, and I hide it as if it were an addiction to drink or pornography. I am so grateful that Auggie is home. And he is back. This is not redundant.
His stitches are out; the cone is off; his obsession with balls is unabated; he is romping nearly at full speed, and he seems to have a new appreciation for home, and bed, and snuggles. He is insatiably hungry; all I do is feed him. I don’t even need to tempt him. He is healing and his body needs to rebuild.
We almost lost him more than once, and we are so grateful to have him back, whole in every meaningful sense of the word, and sound. But he seems to have muted just the smallest bit, noticeable only to those who know him, and suddenly he is no longer young and immortal, but middle-aged and vulnerable like the rest of us.
We took him in for a check-up and sat studying the veterinary wall chart on dog sizes and lifespans. At six, Auggie is now well into middle age, and his life may be more than half over. His family have lived to twelve and fourteen. While that makes me vulnerable to hope, those ages are not common for big dogs, and Auggie is a lean 112 pounds. Mortality lingers in the background for all of us, but dogs have those first sparkling years, and then the slow sadness creeps in too quickly.
I used to scoff at people who said they couldn’t endure the pain of losing another dog. Now, I’m starting to get it.
But meanwhile, here they both are: vibrant, restless, and ready to run. I’d better go.
A few months ago a new book came into the world without much notice or fanfare. That’s on me. It came during a month-long houseful of family, amidst all the cheerful jumble and chaos that entails, and also as the final process of signing and shipping and accounting from the previous book was wrapping up. This wasn’t a first book, or a last book; it wasn’t even an author’s first kind of book. And so, like so many middle children, it has had to make its way along with not much help or notice. But now, as I am settling into the coming winter, I look back with clarity at the season past, and there it is: alone, abandoned, but not un-loved.
It is, like my last book of essays, Reflections on a Life in Exile, a very personal book, written mostly amid the ennui of the pandemic. Some of it is funny, some is melancholy, some of it may be slightly mad–a bit like living through the pandemic itself. In whatever mood, I hope you find it companionable.
You can order it from your favorite bookseller ( some of mine are here, here, here, and here ) from Barnes & Noble; from Target; or from the guys in Seattle. Or you can visit your local library and ask them to add it to their shelves.
In any case, I hope you’ll look for it, and if you like it, you’ll leave nice reviews in various places. And if you crave to be the first, no one seems to have ever purchased it from Target.
And, once again, if you still occupy the world formerly known as Twitter, please share with my tag @audacityofgoats.
No, I’m not actually back on the Island. But I do feel that I am back from the brink of grief. We have had a rough month with our six year old German Shepherd, Auggie.
Without getting too gruesome with the medical details, there were times when I left the veterinary hospital sobbing, thinking we would have to let him go. He was in and out of the hospital for the better part of three weeks. Even after his second surgery to remove two enormous cysts, we did not know if he would ever recover. Then he got pneumonia.
We couldn’t explain to him why he was in pain, or why we left him with strangers. The veterinarians didn’t want us to visit because it upset him for hours afterward. It upset us, too.
But…Auggie is nothing if not obstinate…and so are we. We promised each other to do whatever we could to save his life, and we were blessed with a dedicated and relentless team of veterinarians, who studied, and researched, and watched, and consulted, and kissed him, and fed him braunschweiger. He has a neurologist, but not until a week after his surgery could we begin to hope that he did not have a vanishingly rare neurological condition which is, essentially, untreatable, and would have meant he could not go on.
Auggie goes back to the surgeon on Wednesday to get his staples out–he has an incision that must be 20 inches long. He is healing–so far as I can tell–beautifully. I know because we cannot keep him quiet.
He has blasted through two hard plastic cones (the soft ones were too easy for him to get around) and the one he’s wearing now is patched together with duct tape. He has figured out how to use it as a battering ram to open doors and push past his brother, and also how to position it so he can pick up his beloved green ball. He is not permitted to run with green ball, but carrying it comforts him. I have piles of boxes and baskets on the chest on the foot of our bed so he can’t jump up, but he wants desperately to be cuddled. We have had to keep him tranquilized to prevent him from ripping out his stitches, which are both internal and external. In the process he has had nine separate prescriptions which need to be given at varying intervals of six, eight, and twelve hours, which has meant lots of middle of the night, early morning, and late night alarms. Also lots of braunschweiger, freeze-dried tenderloin, and Secret Cheese.
I haven’t gotten much writing done.
But along the way I have learned once again how much it matters to count your blessings. And since I am inexplicably locked out of Twitter, I will be putting my energy into more blog posts, and more serious writing. Please pass the word for me on twitter with @audacityofgoats so people know to look for me here.
J.F. Riordan 