Relief for Paws, Claws, Hooves, and Fins

When you click the purple button on the right (you’re still doing that, aren’t you?), you not only help feed shelter critters, you also get lots of options to help animals all over the world. The site has recently posted special methods of contributing aid to the pets of Japan.

I just learned of an organization called World Vets—sort of a Doctors Without Borders for animals. Right now they’re working with Humane Society International folks and local Japanese vets and shelters to provide assistance where and how it’s most needed. There was a special blog fund-raising drive on March 17 that was successful enough to crash the World Vets’ servers and frustrate potential donors. Though the tech problem has been fixed, the need for $$$ hasn’t.

I realize there’s no end to the organizations vying for your greenbacks. But it’s always good to know which ones will put your donations to the best use.

“Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission—to be of service to them whenever they require it...”
—Saint Francis of Assisi

[For a short introduction to disaster rescue work, read Dr. V’s column at Pawcurious. For an example of rescue mismanagement, read the latest about the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. For an unfiltered description of current rescue work in Japan, visit Pet Captain or Animal Refuge Kansai. For a report of the quake’s impact on wildlife, I encourage you to read Jason Goldman’s article for Scientific American.]

[Akita pic from World Vets; porpoise pic from Global Animal.]

Antidote to World Gloom

“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”
—Lady Bird Johnson

The Rules of Renewals: Reading Books the Library’s Way

Stranger In A Strange Land – No. 11
My library branch is conveniently located for many people, but not for me. This is why I opted last week to renew all the books I had (which can be done by phone or online) so I didn’t have to brave the trip through a torrential rain. I intended to return the books I’d finished on the next dry day so someone else could read them. But my plan backfired.

One of my books—the one with only 600 more pages to read—was on hold for someone. I could NOT renew it.

“You can put it on hold,” suggested the librarian.

“You mean, I can let the other person get, say, 452 pages into it and then take it away from him/her so I can pick up where I left off weeks earlier?”

“Yes,” the librarian confirmed. “Sorry about that.”

Hmmm. I didn’t know what to make of this. Everything else about the library has been a monumental improvement over what I was used to. The building is fairly new with murals climbing the children’s section walls and natural light pouring in through the windows. Signage is easy to follow and I can always find something from my long wish list of books. The day I signed up to become a member, life-size foal sculptures of fiberglass stood everywhere, painted or appliquéd by local schoolchildren in honor of the World Equestrian Games. I applied for a card online at a kiosk and received it on the spot. Checking out works the same way: self-serve and bar-code efficient. Plus helpful librarians are never far away—with a smile.

Back in my Land of Lincoln library branch, smiles were hard to come by. So were librarians. There was one at the checkout, of course, and if you waited in the line long enough you could usually talk to a reference librarian. But other than that, the only other employees were an outsourced security guard and a part-time book-shelver who was typically three days behind with the inventory. The building was ’60s old, architecturally insignificant, and wholly uninviting. Sometimes the branch closed because the air-conditioning wasn’t working; other times it closed to save money on electricity. To get books from my wish list, I usually had to request them through the interlibrary loan system. It could take weeks before they arrived at my branch, even if the books were only coming from a few neighborhoods away. But one great thing about that branch was that I could walk to it.

Well, this new glitch is a small price to pay for an efficient, well-stocked library. Once I acclimate to the rules of renewals, my membership should be smooth sailing.

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, type Stranger in a Strange Land into Lull’s search function on the right.

[Pic of Lalique brooch used on cover of A. S. Bayatt’s The Children’s Book; pic of foal covered in Beatrix Potter characters.]

Why Are You Here?

I’m not asking you to justify your existence (though I’d be interested to hear how Mr. Slimy thinks he’s contributed anything positive to our planet). I want to know why you read Lull.

Now, a few of you out there have known me in a previous life and come to Lull periodically for an update on my world. Others have been strong-armed by my sister into reading Lull.

But what about the rest of you? What makes you return to Lull (if you do)?

We must have something in common. What is it? Dogs? Books? Nature? Writing? Loss?

What do you look forward to on Lull? Quotes? Art/Photos? Stranger in a Strange Land posts? Notes on books I’ve read?

Lull is at a crossroads. I know what it does for me, but I’d like it to do something for you, too. I’d like to provide more of whatever is your favorite thing about Lull. (Unless, of course, you have some kind of schadenfreude obsession. I’ll not go looking for adversity to write about.)

Please use the comments section below or send me an e-mail to let me know what you’ve come to expect from Lull. And then I’ll do my best to oblige!

[Art by Arthur Rackham.]

My Newest Space-Saving Idea

Several shelves of a cabinet in my dining nook are stacked with boxes of postcards, note cards, holiday cards, and stationery—some dating back to 1982. Heck, some dating back to 1973. Half of it, maybe more than that, is no longer the type of card I would choose today to send to someone. But all of it tells a story or opens a memory about a time and place in my life. The cache has been hauled from apartment to apartment, state to state.

But no longer. Space has become more valuable than memory touchstones. And so begins my “Write-and-Release Program.”

Similar to my Read-and-Release Program, this one has more benefits:

1. I use the cards to correspond with friends and family, increasing the frequency of my communications. (This is usually a good thing, right? It may shock some recipients because I wrote so rarely before.)

2. Recipients may use the cards as bookmarks or coasters if they find the cards appealing; if not, I hope recipients recycle them.

3. The poor old U.S. Post Office gets some much-needed business.

4. I open up some prime real estate in a cabinet.

I started the Write-and-Release Program last week and already realize that I need to keep track of to whom I’ve written and when. Other than that, there are no downsides (for me).

Let me know if you’re low on stationery or bookmarks. I’ll send you some blanks.

Now it’s time to sharpen the nibs…

[Art by Vermeer.]

How’s Your Spirit Today?

“Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit.”

—Mark Rothko

Obsessed with Animals

If you’re a longtime reader of Lull, you may have guessed by now that I’m pretty bonded to animals. Always have been.

But I want you to know I realize this puts me squarely in a minority, and I want you to know I have a sense of humor about it.

I happened upon a list called “You Know You’ve Been Doing Rescue Too Long When…,” and though I’m not a professional animal rescuer, I could certainly relate to some of the “faults” on the list. Here are a few:

You have a mental list of people you’d like to spay, neuter, or euthanize.

You stopped at a house with a “Free Puppies” sign in the yard to have an “educational chat,” and your family had to post your bail.

You absentmindedly pat people on the head or scratch them behind their ears.

You needed a prescription to recover from Old Yeller [not to mention every animal-related book I’ve checked out of the library this year!].

[Pic is Oliver, the Pygmy Hippo born recently in a Swedish zoo.]

Everything’s Coming Up…Yellow

I missed the exact day when these trumpet-heads burst from their cocoons. I’ve been trying to be as mindful about Spring unfolding as I was last year.

But it’s harder without the pooch in tow.

However, on a walk to the post office yesterday, I noticed that the day’s welcome sunlight had finally persuaded the forsythia to stop peeping out one bud at a time and, instead, to step into the world en masse.

How can a darkened soul resist the joy of Spring yellows?

The Lucky Day Arrives

Beannachtam na Feile Padraig!
Translation: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Angel at His Feet

In her upcoming book, If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t), actor and animal activist Betty White describes her good friend John Steinbeck’s method of writing: “standing up at a drafting table—in long-hand, his white bull terrier, Angel, lying across his feet.” (My own feet hurt just thinking about writing this way.)

The Bull Terrier was Steinbeck’s dream dog. He wrote of wanting one long before he wrote about his travels with Charley, his standard French Poodle:

“I have owned all kinds of dogs, but there’s one I’ve always wanted but never had. I wonder if he still exists? There used to be a white, English Bull Terrier. He was stocky, but quick. His muzzle was pointed and his eyes triangular, so his expression was that of cynical laughter. He was friendly and not quarrelsome but forced into a fight he was very good at it. He had a fine, decent sense of himself and was never craven. He was a thoughtful, inward dog, and yet had enormous curiosity. He was heavy of bone and shoulder. He had a fine arch to his neck. His ears were sometimes cropped, but his tail never. He was a good dog for a walk. An excellent dog to sleep beside a man’s bed. He showed a delicacy of sentiment. I have always wanted one of him.”
—From “Random Thoughts on Random Dogs,” in the Saturday Review

Years later he got his wish, for Angel was Steinbeck’s last dog—the one who shared his final hours of life.

[Pic by James Richey.]

Bibliotherapy* for Caregivers

When crisis hits, some folks pick up a book to escape; others read to delve deeper into whatever challenge confronts them. Being one of the latter group, I turned to Home by Marilynne Robinson last year when I was deep in the throes of caring for my father.

You probably read Gilead, Robinson’s poetic tale of a small-town minister who, grappling with death and aging, writes a last letter to his very young son. Home is the concurrent account of that minister’s best friend, who is ailing, and his children.

Both novels should be read simply because Robinson is a brilliant and thought-provoking writer. But as a caregiver, I found especially poignant her passages about the adult daughter who returns home to take care of her fragile father:

“Did she choose to be there, in that house, in Gilead? No, she certainly did not. Her father needed looking after, and she had to be somewhere, like every other human being on earth. What an embarrassment that was, being somewhere because there was nowhere else for you to be. All those years of work and nothing to show for it. But you make the best of things. People respect that. It is a blessing to know what is being asked of you.”

Writers connect us with characters, fictional or otherwise, who share our feelings, reduce our sense of isolation, calm our anxieties and guilt, teach us different methods of coping, guide us in understanding ourselves, and enlighten us about the people in our lives. Writers reveal a world to us we may know but not be able to express. To see your feelings in print validates them somehow.

You might as well start a reading list now about caregiving because if the subject hasn’t touched your life already, it will. Maybe you won’t be the caregiver, but someone you know—a friend, coworker, relative, employee—will be. And for the nonprofessional caregivers (the ones neither trained nor paid to give care), the all-consuming nature of those duties will impact every other aspect of their lives: work, friendships, hobbies, health. Even when the creature being cared for is a nonhuman. Rick Bass perfectly describes the strange parallel world caregivers inhabit in his essay “Sick Dog” (part of the anthology WOOF! Writers on Dogs):

“So it goes, in the caregiving mode. You have to get away; you have to get right back. For a long while, your time and even your emotions are not really your own; for a long time, it is you, at least as much as the patient, who is entrapped, held hostage.”

This is the plight of all nonprofessional caregivers. To walk an imaginary mile in their shoes, or to continue toward the finish line in your own, pick up a book.

* Bibliotherapy: the use of literature as a healing experience.

[The Sick Child by Edvard Munch; Sleeping by Georges Lemmen.]

Ides of March
by Andrew Wyeth

A First Impression of the Monks of New Skete

I know a couple of people who recently purchased German Shepherd pups from breeders. You can probably guess my reaction to this method of dog acquisition, but I bit my tongue in both cases. As a friend, in that moment, my responsibility was to express delight for the purchase.

Yesterday, I learned that a mutual friend had given a training book to one of the new puppy owners. It was a bestseller when it was first published and was written by the Monks of New Skete. My brain crinkled at this news; I vaguely remembered something unsavory about those monks, but because I couldn’t recall any details, I kept mum. “What a nice gift!” I think I managed to say.

Now this morning I’m reading an essay by J. C. Hallman that contains—insert drum roll—the Monks of New Skete. And though they may provide excellent training advice, based on this one anecdote about just one of their shepherds, I’m not interested in hearing it.

Hallman spent time at the monastery while working on a project about religious sects and William James. While there, he witnessed a young dog giving birth to her first litter. Here’s what I learned through Hallman:
• Breeding dogs is the main source of income for the monastery.
• According to an X-ray, the dog had only one pup, a rare number that posed a financial burden to the monks. It meant costly labor with little return (profit).
• When the dog’s birthing started to go awry, another monk stepped in to help. But not for long: Matins held priority over dog emergencies.
• Without a vet or anesthetic, the monks cut the dog in order to open up the birth canal for the emerging pup. (Perhaps this is the norm for all breeders, but isn’t there a less painful way to achieve the same results?)

The newborn turned out to be a stillbirth, so I don’t know how the monks would have treated him otherwise. As Hallman writes of the monks in “Becky Hungry Coyote” (part of the anthology WOOF! Writers on Dogs):

“They were eminently practical about their business… . Their females were ‘bitches,’ their litters were investments, and in general the monks were suspicious of the kind of canine fundamentalism that could result when the master-dog relationship served as a substitute for alienated relationships among people.”

Hrrmph. Between dogs as commodities and dogs as substitutes, what about dogs as dogs? Why can’t we recognize them simply as creatures with whom we share ourselves, just as we do with friends or family? Not canines as proxies, but canines in their own right. Here is where I believe the Monks of New Skete, like so many people, draw the line between humans and animals. It’s the same line that confounds me about a number of religions.

I’m open to hearing a perspective about the Monks of New Skete that will alter my first impression of them, but for now, I’m happy on my side of the line.

[Pics from 321Dogs.com and The Witness.]

A Second Impression
Hmmm. While choosing links and pics for this post, I happened upon Morgan Van Wyck’s article, “The Monks and Dogs of New Skete.” In it she reports that the monks try to live “a life without division.” They practice a discipline borrowed from Rilke known as “inseeing”—the crossroads of the contemplative mind with the natural world. As one monk puts it:

“Inseeing is being willing to look at another living thing in a way that allows for seeing it in and of itself. It is respecting this ‘other’ for what it is, without trying to change it or own it. In this struggle to deepen one’s understanding one is enriched, given life, no matter how limited one’s success in this endeavor.”

Well, that’s an alternative perspective, isn’t it? I suppose even monks can fall short of their philosophy and their better selves. I know I do.

Open the Door

“The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
We must get up and take that in …”
—Rumi

[Pic from EyeFetch.]

Four Firsts for a Friend

We welcomed a friend here a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately for her, we were still emptying my father’s barn and exhausted from our efforts. We made lousy hosts, hardly up to showing her the highlights of the Horse Capital of the World. But surprisingly, she managed to experience some personal firsts anyway:

1. She ate her first Girl Scout Cookie—the classic Thin Mint.

2. She watched the Oscars on television with us.

3. She visited a humane society. The fact that said friend had a French upbringing doesn’t explain why she’s missed Thin Mints and the Oscars in her lifetime—especially since she’s lived in the States for a number of years now. However, her supersensitive allergic reactions to all things animal do justify her avoidance of animal shelters. She did fine, though. Even toured the dog kennels after we donated some bedding to the place.

4. When she called an acquaintance who currently resides in the Bluegrass, he couldn’t talk at that moment. He was hunting squirrels for dinner. (Do I really need to explain why this would be a first for most of us?)

In spite of her hosts, our houseguest had a memorable weekend here in what H. L. Mencken named the Bible Belt (now also dubbed the Diabetes Belt by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), proof that adventure awaits us no matter where we are. We only have to recognize it.

[Vintage Girl Scout cookie tin bank courtesy of Girl Scouts Make History; armed squirrel photo from Treehugger.]

Reverence for Reference Books

Apropos of equestrian Susan Richards’ fondness for phone books, here’s comedian Steven Wright’s take on dictionaries:

“I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”

[Art from Memory Dust.]

I Scream, Therefore I…

Two months ago I yelled at someone over the phone. I can’t remember exactly what I said—something along the lines of “Stop talking and listen to me.” Only in all caps, full volume: “STOP TALKING AND LISTEN TO ME!”

It was one of those moments you’ve probably experienced yourself at work with a boss or colleague. You’re discussing the schedule for some huge project and the boss makes a statement that’s unfounded and untrue about one of your deadlines. You interject to set the record straight, but the boss keeps speaking, extrapolating out the consequences of the “problem” you’ve caused and he’s condescending and righteous in tone and won’t let you get a word in because he never once pauses in his diatribe—just continues talking AT you and OVER you and THROUGH you.

So I screamed. I did the thing most of us want to do in such circumstances (sans the strangling—I was on a phone, after all) and yet it didn’t make me feel any better. Just different.

I’ve never screamed at anyone before. I’ve raised my voice in passionate discourse, but never aimed it AT someone. I’ve always attempted civility and control in my communications.

Now it feels as if some part of me escaped with that scream. Some important piece of my identity flew into the ether, never to return.

I don’t know what I lost, but without it, I’m not who I was.

[Art from Maxamania.]

Don’t Fence Me In

Stranger In A Strange Land – No. 10
One obvious difference between my old neighborhood and my new one is fences. Nearly every square inch of public and private property in my old ’hood was bordered by wrought iron. Even the parks and green spaces. It could feel claustrophobic and exclusionary.

Not so in the Horse Capital. Oh sure, in the back yards you’ll find fences with children or dogs inside. But not in the front. And not in the parks. Paper and mail carriers can deliver their goods for blocks and blocks without once having to open a gate.

Outside the city, two kinds of fences frame the landscape: plank and stone.

The traditional horse farm fence is wooden planking painted white; the contemporary version is darkly stained, making its upkeep less expensive. As simple as the fencing looks, it’s costly. According to one source, the white runs about $18,000 per mile and the dark runs $6,000. And there are hundreds upon hundreds of miles of the stuff here.

Alongside the quintessential planking that borders roadways, you’ll often see stone walls—no mortar, just carefully placed rock, one after the other, one atop another. Beautiful to behold. And complicated to repair. One careless driver can take down a whole section and if the property owner can’t afford to fix it, it becomes another bit of history lost.

In a book I recently read, Buffalo for the Broken Heart, the author describes refencing his cattle acreage for buffalo. Unlike cattle, buffalo really do (and should) roam, so they need much larger pastures than cattle with much sturdier fencing. And though both cattle and buffalo fences may be made of the same basic materials, the construction and costs are quite different (for instance, the poles have to sink deep into the ground, requiring large machinery to do the digging). The first pasture of only 40 acres cost the author $5,000 in materials alone back in the early ’90s; labor was another story. And as soon as the first pasture was done, fencing for the hundreds of other acres had to be started. Not to keep anything out (as was the intent in the Windy City), but to keep the mammoth buffalo in. For once they step onto someone else’s property to graze, the welcome they receive is usually delivered by a rifle.

As they say on the range, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

I’m not sure what they say in my new neighborhood, but the lack of fencing here shows a refreshing openness and friendliness. At least, that’s what I’m choosing to believe.

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, type Stranger in a Strange Land into Lull’s search function on the right.

[Photos top to bottom from Blog N Kentucky, the Kentucky Land Sales Newsletter, and Jason Lindsey.]

Helping Women Rebuild Their Lives After War

Stranger in a Strange Land – No. 9
Google reminds me that today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. To celebrate, I can take part in a “bridge event.”

Sounds like a good thing to do on a Tuesday, so I check the Google map for an event in the Bluegrass State. Back in the Windy City, bridges were easy to come by, what with a river zigzagging throughout the town. But Kentuckians will need to travel to Ohio or Tennessee to actively participate in a scheduled event.

Perhaps a smaller event is better suited for the population here—say, on a covered bridge? (I know, I know. Covered bridges are an endangered species. We could have our event NEAR them but not ON them.)

If you, too, are bridge-challenged, you can join the activities online and donate to the cause.

[Photo of Switzer Covered Bridge taken by Dave Elbon.]

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, type Stranger in a Strange Land into Lull’s search function on the right.

Reverence for the Written Word

“As a group, I put writers on the same level as horses: a species almost beyond reproach. Whatever their imperfections, they were still writers. They got me through my childhood, through the last ten years without a date. Whatever sanity I had was thanks to writers, to books that either helped me forget my troubles or helped me understand them. I was one of those people who thought the answer to everything was in a book. To me, the phone book was a book. I could hardly believe we got it free.”
—Susan Richards, in her memoir Chosen By A Horse, after meeting a writer who fell short of her expectations

[Seated Scribe by Gentile Bellini.]

Nice Weather If You’re A Duck

Stranger in a Strange Land – No. 8
It’s pouring here. Again. Which means we have to be on the lookout for flash-flood warnings.

This is the norm here: See rain, grab ark. The water has nowhere to drain since the town is built on limestone. So water pools quickly.

But as I approached my local grocery store, these two birds were loitering on the sidewalk. They made the entire day worthwhile.

What gave you joy today?

This is part of an ongoing series regarding my transition from the Land of Lincoln to the Bluegrass State. For a list of previous articles in the series, type Stranger in a Strange Land into Lull’s search function on the right.

Reality Sucks

My husband is watching Restrepo as I write; I half watch. The opening aerial shots of the mountainous region are gorgeous. Could be lots of places in the world, but it’s not. It’s the very specific Korengal Valley of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. And the American soldiers are getting shot at every day from ALL directions. They call it the Valley of Death for good reason.

I’m not a fan of war movies, yet I feel obliged to tune in to this one. Any problems I thought I had pale in comparison to what these soldiers face. The documentary is humbling and sobering. As filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger say, “[The soldiers’] experiences are important to understand, regardless of one’s political beliefs. Beliefs are a way to avoid looking at reality. This is reality.”

[Pic by Matthew Moeller.]

Grief Brief

If you follow the reading lists posted on the far right of Lull, you may have noticed that I finished About Grief: Insights, Setbacks, Grace Notes, Taboos by Ron Marasco and Brian Shuff. I had to read it quickly because it was a short-loan from the library.

About Grief was a light read on a heavy subject. And though I didn’t learn anything new,* the book validated my recent feelings and behavior. I can think of a number of people who would benefit from reading About Grief—especially those who are experiencing an intimate loss for the first time, and those who are a little lean in the emotional intelligence department.

* One anecdote I hadn’t heard before was in a section presenting the contrasting views held of the body of the deceased and how to honor the life connected to it. Rolling Stone Keith Richards honored his father by blending some of the ashes with a leisure drug of choice and snorting the mix.

First Hues of Hope

A dear friend recently sent me this poem, which I’ve been wanting to share with you. Today seems appropriate, after spotting my first crocuses of the season.

“Even as the snow fell
Through it came whispering
A breath of spring!”
—Kobayashi Issa

Give Me a Rake and I’ll Change the World

I raked a lot last month: vines, leaves, sticks, stones, trash, dirt. I didn’t change the world, but I certainly improved the looks of my father’s property.

“Getting down to earth” was a great tonic for my grief. Birds chattered and sang in the trees and bushes as I raked (no need for an iPod in the garden), and the sky often diverted my focus with shape-shifting clouds and colors. I watched various hues of green emerge on once-dormant trees.

Breaking down sticks and branches to fit in the designated yard bags took nearly as much of my time as raking. This task brought to mind my beloved pooch, who would have made a terrific assistant in the garden.

My one-in-a-million canine liked having work to do, and she loved sticks. But she didn’t chew on them the way other dogs do, nor did she retrieve them or prance around with them in her mouth. She “detwigged” them—pulled all the little offshoots off with her paws or her teeth until the stick was free of all excess. And once she broke it down to a straight stick, she abandoned it; mission accomplished. Had she been helping me last month, I could have finished twice as fast.

Instead, I had only the neighbors’ hound (pictured) to keep me company. He was on the other side of the fence, though, tethered in a parking area. When I asked him one day if he liked sticks, he disappeared from view for a moment, then popped up with a stick in his mouth! I took that as a Yes and started a stash of sticks for him. Every day, I’d meet him at the low end of the fence and hand over a new stick. Unlike my pooch, he was the kind of dog who preferred to find himself a sunlit spot to lie down on and slowly chew the wood. This activity prevented the boredom that so often overwhelmed him as a lonely yard dog.

As soon as he heard me in the yard, he stood near the stick stash I’d made (he couldn’t see the sticks—he just remembered me bending down in that area of the yard before giving him a new stick) and emit a single, loud bark. It wasn’t a pushy bark, either. It was more of a “Hey! Here I am! It’s me!” Who wouldn’t want to reward such sweetness—and smartness?

So I got my dog fix, my bird fix, and my gardening fix all in one task on the aptly named Woodland Avenue. Who knew that a simple rake could be the path to happiness?

Good Grief! When Does It End?

To grieve, or not to grieve.

I’m not sure we have a choice. It either happens or it doesn’t.

Trouble is, I’ve experienced so many rounds of loss in the last few years that I can no longer discern whether I’m in or out of grief mode. So I picked up one of the latest books on the subject by Ron Marasco and Brian Shuff—About Grief: Insights, Setbacks, Grace Notes, Taboos.

Years ago when I knew I was suffering from grief and needed to read about it, there was hardly a book to be found on the topic. Now it’s a genre with its own section head in bookstores and libraries. You can find books categorized according to the age of the deceased, your relationship to the deceased, the way the deceased left this world (murder, suicide, accident, illness), and the species of the deceased. You can find various approaches to understanding grief—through a lens of psychology, neurology, spirituality, or, as is the case with About Grief, through the tad flippant view of a literature/film buff.

One passage that gave me pause was this excerpt from C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed:

I once read the sentence, “I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about toothaches and lying awake.” That’s true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.

I started pondering how often I pondered my grief. I wanted to know how normal I was. I also wanted to be like C. S. Lewis. But the truth is I’m neither.

Grief and I have been together so long that I don’t have to think about it anymore—it’s permeated me. Clings to my body, oozes into my marrow, reminds me of its presence through tensions and pain and overall blueness.

Case in point: Every November, no matter what’s going right for me, I wear a whiff of melancholy. And every November, I’m perplexed by this fragrance until I remember—once again—that this was the season of great loss for my family: a grandfather and a sister within a two-week period.

My brain no longer tallies the dead; the numbers entwine with my physical well-being.

So the real choice seems to be, To grieve mindfully, or to grieve without awareness.

The right decision may be obvious, but it’s not easy.

[Thinking About Death by Frida Kahlo.]

The Church of a Poet

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –
—excerpt from a poem by Emily Dickinson

[Photo by Michael and Diane Porter.]

Space People Take One Small Step

ne of the books I recently released from my library was Corporate Mystic: A Guidebook for Visionaries with Their Feet on the Ground by Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman. In it, I noticed this quote from mythologist Joseph Campbell, which further encourages me to seek a quiet space:

“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspaper that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you.

This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.”

As I write this, my husband is setting up just such a space for himself in the basement of our apartment building. His space includes tools and molds and various materials necessary to create artworks. I’m delighted and relieved, for it means he’s beginning to separate himself from our many losses and look toward a future. It’s a wise and healthy move for anyone burdened by grief and hardships.

[Drop cap designed by Jessica Hische.]

Seeking Quiet Midst Chaos

I started reading Madeleine L’Engle’s A Circle of Quiet largely because I’ve been searching for a pocket of quiet in my own life. Figured I might pick up a few pointers from am author of 50+ books, mother and caregiver to a fluctuating number of people, wife to a Broadway actor, and resident of a town in which she would always be regarded as a newcomer. Plus, Jean Kerr’s testimonial on the back cover spoke to me: “I know it will give great consolation to ordinary people who sometimes wonder why they bother to get out of bed in the morning.”

Those of you familiar with A Circle of Quiet know that it was first published a lifetime ago—in 1972. But I have to tell you that it holds up. Sure, there are some words that reference the era—kids glued to their transistor radios, for instance, and people fighting for change by fighting the Establishment—but substitute today’s versions of those words and the writing remains fresh and relevant.

Readers learn on the first page of the book that L’Engle’s home contains more than 3,000 books. Of course, this draws my interest. But it’s on the second page that I get really hooked:

“Vacuum cleaners are simply something more for me to trip over … . The sight of a meal’s worth of dirty dishes, pots, and pans makes me want to run in the other direction. Every so often I need OUT; something will throw me into total disproportion, and I have to get away from everybody—away from all these people I love most in the world—in order to regain a sense of proportion.”

Ah. Here was someone like me. L’Engle wrote Circle after logging 50+ years of life. Having reached that point myself, Circle offers more to me now, I believe, than it would have 20 years ago.

I’m more than halfway through the book and have flagged one passage after another that holds meaning for me. Even when I don’t share the same view as L’Engle, I do puzzle over the same subject. This is more than I expected to get out of A Circle of Quiet, which may exempt it from my Read-and-Release program. At least for a while, anyway.

[Art: The Intruder by Andrew Wyeth.]

I’m (Almost) Back

friend e-mailed me yesterday and asked whether I’d been out of the country. She hadn’t heard from me nor had she seen much on Lull lately. Perhaps you were wondering the same thing.

I wish I could say that my husband and I spent January abroad on a much-needed sabbatical, but we were here—in the Horse Capital of the World, yet nowhere near the horses.

After my father died, it took me some time to get his eulogy written and the final arrangements made for his funeral service. Then we spent January doing exactly what we’d been doing for months prior to moving to the Bluegrass State: dusting items, washing items, wrapping items, selling items, and hauling items to charities. In fact, about the only break we’ve had in the last year from such dreary tasks has been caregiving for my father. (Now it’s not just my thumb that hurts; I hurt all over.)

Once we emptied his house—including 500+ hardcover books—and prepped it for painters to freshen it up, we began emptying his barn. More dust, more decisions (sell it? toss it? give it away?). Every day may be a new day for some people, but we typically know what’s in store for us. (Except for that one day when a surprise awaited us: Someone ran into our parked car and totaled it.) Makes getting out of bed a Sisyphean chore.

What’s more, we had no computer at hand for most of January (we were living at my father’s house) and when we did have a computer (when we visited our own home), we had only intermittent Internet access. Some of you may remember that the Net issue has been a problem since we moved here.

However, FINALLY our cable provider sent someone who figured out the problem—though only after he’d deemed everything fine and started off in his truck. I chased him down. Asked him how he knew it was fine.

“I checked it on my computer,” he said.

“Well, do me a favor and check it on my computer,” I said.

And guess what? It didn’t work.

Turns out, the culprit had nothing to do with routers or Macs or operators or anything else the cable company had been blaming it on. The problem was a tiny piece of metal on the cable in the basement that had corroded and couldn’t hold its connection. Once it was replaced, all was well. I still have to discuss getting a credit from said company, but at least I don’t have to look for a new provider.

Oh, other things have been brewing. But for now, I just need to finish emptying a barn and then I hope to bring Lull (and my life) back into full swing.

Another friend reminded me this week of a Winston Churchill quip that may well become my new mantra: “If you are going through hell, keep going.”

[Drop cap designed by Jessica Hische.]

Mark the Day with Poetry

Late Fragment
by Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Looking for Answers?

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
—Albert Einstein

[Pic from the Kentucky Department for Natural Resources.]

Coming to Grips with the Age of Snark

Generally, I’m not fond of snarky writing. I know I’m in the minority when I admit this; I realize snark is popular today—defines our culture. And I don’t dismiss it out of hand: I’ve been known to laugh at well-written snarkiness. But when such writing is used for good, then I’m a fan.

Case in point: the Fugly Horse of the Day! blog.

As you might have imagined, my move to the Horse Capital of the World has influenced my Web reading and expanded my awareness of equine racing and rescue. I happened upon Fugly one day and have continued to follow it.

The Californian behind Fugly gets the word out about abuse (in training, in breeding, in care) and horses in need while giving the abusers a well-deserved slap of snarkiness. But more than that, she rallies horsepeople across the country to DO something on behalf of the creatures she profiles. Readers share information with one another, research lineage, call someone who knows someone else who can get the media involved in a situation or who can get the facts about an alleged crisis, help find new homes for ponies destined to become someone’s dinner. She presses readers to press their local politicians to add teeth to animal welfare laws and enforce those laws—not just sometimes but all the time. (All too often, authorities give abusers a pass in order to remove the animals without a fight. This does not prevent the abusers from acquiring more animals, nor does it change the abusers’ behavior.)

Yeah, I know. It’s not like this blogger is mobilizing an entire nation to fight for justice as we recently witnessed in Egypt. But she’s shouting out for one creature on our planet who has no voice (or isn’t listened to). She’s doing what she can where she is. And that MATTERS.

[Pics from Save A Forgotten Equine are Dexter upon rescue (top) and a year later after receiving appropriate care.]

My Read-and-Release Program

Today I reread most of a book I stopped reading some years ago—Jon Katz’s The Dogs of Bedlam Farm: An Adventure with Sixteen Sheep, Three Dogs, Two Donkeys, and Me. The author’s approach with animals had made me uncomfortable. (Apparently, I’m not the only dog lover or reader who felt that way.)

Because I need to cull some more books—need the space, thinking ahead to the next move—this one seemed a good prospect for “release.” Of course, I felt compelled to finish it before saying goodbye to it. Here’s my favorite passage, uttered by trainer Carolyn Wilki when she reprimanded Katz for his behavior with his Border Collie:

“Face it: if you want to have a better dog, you will just have to be a better goddamned human.”

Ain’t that the truth—no matter the animal?

Another Friend Crosses the Bridge

“I guess you don’t really own a dog, you rent them, and you have to be thankful that you had a long lease.”

—Joe Garagiola

Sometimes genetics call the shots on the terms of the lease. And sometimes, as in the case of this fellow, the guardians get to set their own terms.

Burt was rescued as a pup from a park in Los Angeles. He was nearly feral—hence quirky—and would require an especially understanding human to care for him. He got that and more.

When he was diagnosed with cancer and an immediate death sentence three years ago, his humans refused to buy into it. They tried everything possible (acupuncture, massage, herbal remedies) to extend his days and keep him free from pain. And they succeeded for several years.

Burt knew it. And he managed to reach the average old age for large dogs, in spite of the vet’s prognosis. But two days ago, he couldn’t go on. He hid in the garden beneath a palm and waited for his main human to drive through two hours of Los Angeles traffic to get home to him. When he heard her car, he struggled to sit up one last time—to receive her affections and to communicate all that they had meant to one another over the years.

And then Burt crossed into a different time and space, leaving his humans and their friends with this stark reality from Marjorie Garber: “If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness.”

But the timeline from joy to heartbreak is always worth it. I’m pretty sure Burt would agree.

Do Your Dog A Favor and Read Merle’s Door

The other day as we were driving to the post office, we noticed a couple of guide dogs on the sidewalk ahead of us. We thought they were guide dogs because of the harnesses they wore, but we were curious about them because they weren’t the typical Shepherd, Lab, or Golden Retriever one sees leading the blind. Even from the back we could tell that one was a Border Collie and the other had an unusual cinnamon-colored coat. When we got closer we could see how wrong we were.

These weren’t guide dogs. They were ANCIENT dogs in harnesses designed for people to assist them in walking. The cinnamon pooch was a Husky who had decided to stop for an indeterminate length of time while he gazed at who knows what. His coat was no longer Husky full; it was short and shot out in different directions. Both dogs were frail and I wondered how long they’d been “walking” and how much farther they had to go.

Memories of our own ancient pooch flooded through my mind—just as they did while I read Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog. Anyone who lives with a dog, especially an elderly or sick one, should read this book.

If you just want to enjoy a good story about a pooch, Merle’s Door delivers. Merle is one smart dog—and a tremendous clown (I laughed out loud on numerous occasions). But author Ted Kerasote also provides insights into canine behavior that every dog guardian should know, plus research and history on the subject. The book includes notes on publications cited and an index. Kerasote is wondrously thorough.

Toward the end of the book is an excerpt from veterinarian Bernard S. Hershhorn’s Active Years for Your Aging Dog. It’s a list of criteria dog guardians should consider before choosing to euthanize their companions. First, Hershhorn emphasizes, “Chronological age, in itself, is never one of them!”

Here’s the list (please share it with folks who might need it):
1. Is the condition prolonged, recurring, or getting worse?
2. Is the condition no longer responding to therapy?
3. Is your dog in pain or otherwise physically suffering?
4. Is it no longer possible to alleviate that pain or suffering?
5. If your dog should recover, is he likely to be chronically ill, an invalid, or unable to care for himself as a healthy dog?
6. If your dog recovers, is he likely no longer to be able to enjoy life, or will he have severe personality changes?

If your answer to all six questions is Yes, your dog should be euthanized. If your answers to questions 3 and 4 are No, you might want to let your dog die naturally. But first, you should consider these final questions:
1. Can you provide the necessary care?
2. Will such care so interfere with your own life as to create serious problems with you or your family?
3. Will the cost involved become unbearably expensive?

Sometimes a decision to cut a dog’s life short is based on the guardian’s reaction to the dog’s condition (e.g., unsightly tumors, deformities, etc.). But Hershhorn and, by example, Kerasote help us learn to examine the situation first through a dog’s perspective and needs.

Every dog deserves a peaceful and loving ending.

[Pic from Dogblog.]