Step Back

Herself speaks.

I have to step back from news and politics, because am exhausted, angry, and sad.

Today's earworm: Cowboy Take Me Away (Dixie Chicks).

I wanna walk and not run
I wanna skip and not fall
I wanna look at the horizon and not see a building standing tall
I wanna be the only one for miles and miles

(The only caveat: in the lyrics of the song the woman asks for the Cowboy to take her away. Woman, these days it is clear: you will have to take yourself away. No one else is going to do it for you.)

Wrath

Herself speaks.

Although I would like very much to do so, I am unable to write properly about the Kavanaugh hearings this week.

The degree of rage held by Womankind is tremendous. Justifiably so.

We are no longer able or willing to blame ourselves for, hide, or dismiss the casual atrocities we have experienced over our collective lifetimes.

I am one of the extremely lucky ones -- my stories are mild, relatively speaking; my moments of discomfort and danger pale in comparison to those of Christine Blasey Ford and of countless other women. It is unthinkable, the abuse and assaults that they have had to process and accept as part of their personal history; the disbelief and slander, the shame and frustration and criticism. So many wrongs, never put right.

I find myself looking back and realizing that I was not as angry previously as I should have been at things that once happened. I am re-evaluating so many experiences, and am looking at the impact of my self-blame and my assumption of responsibility for the actions and feelings of Men. It is terrible. Draining. Enraging.

I own my actions, let there be no doubt. I will no longer, however, own the actions of others.

I feel unsafe. And I am angry not only on my behalf, but even more so on behalf of women who have experiences that have been, until this week, unspeakable. We know, too, that there are so many others who carry scars from events that may forever remain unspeakable for them. And the worst part is, we all know these things will continue, because of how Humanity is.

Nevertheless: perhaps this cumulative rage may make a dent in the Ways of the World.

We can hope.

All the Dog Beds Are Mine Now

One Slice of Good News

Herself speaks.

In the morass of Terrible that has been 2018, there has been one solidly Good moment.

My 81-year-old mother had some questionable medical screening results that necessitated a biopsy.  We all tried to put on brave faces while waiting for the biopsy results. It was a strain, waiting. The results are now in:

Benign.

Back to your lives, citizens. Nothing more to see here.

Hallelujah.

Our waiting faces looked like this.

Home

Elderly three-toothed dog's ashes are home.

It seems so strange, that the flesh-and-blood creature who was such a stalwart companion is now naught but cremains. It is hard to believe that I will never again hold him as I used to do: tucked under my arm, my hand at his chest, with his front legs dangling down between my fingers. He normally didn't like to be picked up -- but when I did so, he would relax into my hand and arm, and look alertly around to see where we were headed. I am glad he felt safe with me.

Rest in peace, my fine fur friend. I miss you. 

The Tending Instinct

Herself speaks.

I watch the news. Additional women come forward to speak against Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh. The rhetoric from the side supporting Kavanaugh is filled with vitriol. Doubts voiced vehemently. Aspersions cast. And at the same time, there are whispers of a boys' club, of sexually aggressive behavior, of a cavalier and sneaky and entitled attitude toward the bodies and minds of women. "Boys will be boys." "What man hasn't?"

Seriously?

It is enraging and frightening. And so many women are now having flashbacks to the terrible experiences lying just under their skin, are newly burdened with doubt and self-blame and anger.

Here: read this article. It explains some of the complexity behind #metoo and #whyIdidntreport. Read it.

Sometimes You Make Your Rapist Breakfast. (Find it here: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a19158567/what-is-rape/)

So many women -- "haunted by the mythology of the Perfect Victim."

It is not just fight or flight. It is, rather: fight, flight, freeze or appease.  Befriend and tend: "Often, women calm their aggressors down, and try to tend to the emotional needs of themselves and others, instead of escalating by violence, or attempting to flee."

Whether such reactions are biological or sociological is unclear. Yet, this is how women are. Safety is a very different beast for women than for men. And women have now, finally, had enough of trying to find safety in this Men's World. NO MORE. 

Do you hear the voices? We will be silent no longer.

Change is on the horizon.

On Fire

Today's earworm: Beyonce, covering Prince's The Beautiful Ones and Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon.

Fantastic performance. Especially Sex on Fire. She adds a depth of longing which I don't hear in the original (though I still enjoy the original).

I hope you enjoy, too.

Wrong

Herself speaks.

I loathe Donald Trump as I have never loathed another human being. His attitudes; his carelessness; his flippancy; his deliberate ignorance; his misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia; and his disregard for so many other human beings. For starters. Until my dying day, I will remember that terrible moment when I realized that he would in fact win the presidential election: where I was standing, the news statistics on the television, the overwhelming "HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING?" I am nauseated again, thinking about it.

And his tweets. YE GODS, HIS TWEETS. Most recently there is the tweet which inspired the hashtag, #whyIdidntreport. Look at how Kavanaugh's accuser is being treated. She is Every Woman, and women will no longer be Silent. The volcano erupts: so many of us, boiling with anger, done with keeping quiet, exploding in rage about the assaults that we, for a million different reasons, kept quiet. If you have the strength, read the stories. This is what it is like to be a woman. So many hidden terrible moments that subtly (or overtly) changed the courses of our lives or the lives of our friends, neighbors, daughters, sisters. And we are now finally speaking, because the President casts aspersions on all of us who have not spoken out.

If you read #whyIdidntreport, and still do not understand better why women don't report, perhaps you should go home and re-think your life.

----
All this being said: there is one more thing that is in the news that sits also as wrong with me. That is: Stormy Daniels' revelations in her upcoming book regarding "graphic descriptions of the President's anatomy."

First of all: I could have gone to my grave not knowing what Donald Trump's penis appears to look like. This is information I did not need. NO ONE needs it. Ever.

That aside: as reprehensible as I find Donald Trump to be (see above), I nevertheless think that it is unacceptable to tease, taunt, or mock anyone for something as private as the appearance of one's genitals. Even Donald Trump.

My personal opinion: when one agrees to be physically naked with another person, one forms an unwritten contract to treat the other person's nakedness with respect. Whatever transpires is between the two of you, and there it should stay. Even when one of the parties is an adult film star, and even if the world has seen all of the unclothed bits of one (or even both) of the parties -- there is absolutely no legitimate reason to shame or humiliate a sexual partner. In fact, I would encompass sexual proclivities and abilities, difficulties and foibles, into the contract: such things are a nakedness of a piece of the psyche, and all nakedness should engender the same respect.

I do not feel bad for Donald Trump, though. This one attempt to humiliate him will be lost in the sea of those who are suffering at his hands, directly or indirectly.

All I can feel, right now, is the rage of Women.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44629967

Vernal Equinox

So it begins. 

Holes

The hardest part is the Elderly Three-toothed Dog-shaped hole in the household.

I cannot sit on the couch without noticing that gaping absence where he once sat next to me. I cannot make myself comfortable in bed because he is not there in his blanket nest near my feet. And when I come home, I no longer need to make the tour of the house to check which of the dog beds he is occupying. (He could no longer hear me, so I would seek him out to let him know I had arrived.)

So many holes.
-----

Grief is a strange beast. Each of us attempts to tame it differently.

I follow many animal-rescue and pet pages of Facebook. Inevitably, an aged, loved pet occasionally passes on. While some pages celebrate the life of the pet, others focus primarily on the terrible, nearly unbearable sorrow of the owners. Paragraph after paragraph about how their hearts have broken forever, how they are wracked with tears, how they will never be the same. And their outpouring of grief continues, day, week, month, year. Wave after wave of sorrow, on and on. Raw. And very human.

I understand those posts.Yet I cannot write that way. I hoard my grief, save it for myself, for quiet moments when I am alone. If there is no consolation to be had, then I want to be by myself, lest I burden someone else with the impossible task of trying to provide solace.
-----

One of the consequences of loving a pet -- a repercussion that we do not contemplate until it arrives -- is experiencing their loss. It can be a terrible, unimaginable loss. Yet as I contemplate my fine fur friend through the lens of sadness, I do not want to lose sight of the joy that I have had in loving him. For if I do, I cannot open myself up to the possibility of loving another creature again.

There is no replacing those who have gone On. Yet perhaps, in acknowledging what we have lost, we can see the echoes of what we have loved. Recall their beauty. And then, in time, perhaps try again. In time.

It is important to love again, even after loss. All creatures need love. And even more than that: all creatures need TO love. Especially people. Love of an animal -- unconditional, uncomplicated -- is so much easier than love for a human being. Sometimes we need that simplicity.
-----

This all being said: I shall not write much further about my sorrow. I want to write instead about this small scrap of canine goodness that graced me with his presence for four years. There aren't enough words to explain all he was. I will use just a few, and hopefully, they will be enough.

He had wonderfully odd ears, a ridiculous tongue, and endless patience. The way he talked to himself when he snuffled around the house always brought me a smile. He found a quiet happiness in all the small things: a good meal, a roll in the grass, a casual stroll. He was a wise little soul. If he could have communicated with words, he would have advised thusly: if you are ever feeling sad, he would recommend that you have a cool drink of water (for that always helped him), and that you take a nap on the couch with someone you love -- for that was one of his most favorite things of all.

Rest in peace, my buddy. Thank you for your time with us. 

Oink

When I adopted Elderly Three-toothed Dog from the rescue group, his foster mother told me: "He walks around talking to himself." I thought that was mighty odd and could not imagine what she meant.

And then, he became used to living with us, and he would wander around, inspecting his domain. And he would make this whuffling, oinking sort of noise. AH. He was, indeed, talking to himself.

I found this short clip today in my phone, and it brought me such joy. It encompasses so much of what he loved: wearing warm clothes, talking to himself, and checking that his nest was just the way he wanted it.

Bless you, Tio. Such a Good Boy. 

When I Get Where I'm Going

A song for Elderly Three-toothed Dog:
When I Get Where I'm Going (Brad Paisley). 

When I get where I'm going
There'll be only happy tears
I will shed the sins and struggles
I have carried all these years
And I'll leave my heart wide open
I will love and have no fear
Yeah, when I get where I'm going
Don't cry for me down here.

Godspeed, My Fine Fur Friend

Be at peace, my buddy.

I hope we meet again someday. 

Date with Destiny

Tomorrow is Elderly Three-toothed Dog's Date with Destiny. (We met with our usual vet today, who ever so kindly and gently told me that there is no hope. We opted to take one more day with our Fine Fur Friend, with the help of meds for comfort.)

He had a quiet afternoon. He rolled in the grass - his favorite thing - and took a good nap on the couch, and then he had a few mouthfuls of pizza for dinner. All is well.

He has had a good life with us. And I am grateful for the time together.

Good boy, Tio.

Home, For Now

Waiting, Again

Tiny Dog rests in Elderly Three-toothed Dog's bed while we wait one more night. (He feels much better, although his labwork is still not good.) If we are very lucky, he may be home tomorrow. I am not sure what the future holds, although I am currently confident that he is doing reasonably well and that I will see him again soon. 

I try to think about how he has always been friendly and enjoys meeting new people. and that helps me to hope that he is not too worried or scared right now. Perhaps he is sleeping soundly. 

All of the people at his regular vet's office think he is very endearing. Hopefully he is getting some consoling attention at the animal hospital too. 

All day long, I have found myself listening for the jingle of his collar. I miss him. 

A Reprieve

I didn't want to call the animal hospital this morning, in case there was bad news about Elderly Three-toothed Dog, but I couldn't bear the thought of waiting for them to call me, either. So I picked up the phone.

He is doing well, with good vitals. Importantly, he ate breakfast "like a champ," informed the cheerful person on the line. Once they re-check his bloodwork, we will know when we can bring him home.

I am so glad that we have a little bit more time with him. He can sleep in his own nests, and bake his old bones on the patio with Tiny Dog. We will do whatever we can to make him comfortable, for as long as we have him with us.

Waiting

Elderly three-toothed dog is ailing, and so we are visiting the weekend vet. Fortunately a new weekend vet has offices just a few miles from home. We are waiting for the results of his labwork now.

Let us hope that he is merely under the weather, and will perk up soon.

UPDATE 10:22 PM: Elderly three-toothed dog is entering kidney failure. Hopefully, 24 hours of IV fluids will help him flush out his system. We shall see.  I had to leave him at the emergency animal hospital for overnight treatment, and it broke my heart. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet.

What if he dies without me?

My stoic and elderly fur friend. I hope we have a bit more time together. 

Elderly

Elderly three-toothed dog is slowing down. He sleeps so soundly, and eats less than he used to. I do everything I can to keep him comfortable. Bless him. 

Flashback: Baby Tiny Dog.

So very tiny.

The Falling Man

Herself speaks.

Every year since 2001, on September 11, I think of The Falling Man.

You have seen the photograph: the man, head down, one knee bent, like an arrow in front of the twin towers. Inexorably speeding toward oblivion.

Esquire eloquently tells his tale, here: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/

I think of him, and the unthinkable, necessary decision to jump. And then I think of the others who also made that unthinkable, necessary, decision..

I think of the bystander and her anguished cry: "God! Save their souls! They're jumping! Oh, please God! Save their souls!"

The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; 

The cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.

(Psalm 18:4-6) 

We will carry the memory of these people with us, individually and in our collective conscious, until the end of time. 

For Whoever will call on the name of the LORD will be saved. - Romans 10:13

Good Places

Watch Your Hands

Herself speaks.

I'm still angry about something that had nothing to do with me.

Pop star Ariana Grande performed at Aretha Franklin's memorial service. And the officiant, a high official in his church, groped her.

GROPED HER. Right there, in front of his God, the mourners, and everyone watching on television.

It seems impossible to believe -- until you look at the pictures and the footage. There is no way he did not know where his hand was.

(Look here, for example:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-groped-ariana-grande-pastor-breast-aretha-franklin-0905-story.html#
And read the article.)

And when he was called out on it, his "apology" was even worse than his previous action.

"It would never be my intention to touch any woman's breast....Maybe I crossed the border, maybe I was too friendly or familiar." 

Look at that language closely. He did not apologize directly to her, instead choosing to lump her in with "any woman" he wouldn't touch. He used hedging language, benign language: "Maybe.""Too friendly." Maybe: as if there were some doubt there. And friendly -- as if he had used too much of that positive attribute. Ridiculous. 

I keep imagining what was going through her head - "does he really have his hand THERE?" And, as we have all been trained (whether deliberately or not), "How do I escape without escalating?" Because we never know how escalating will turn out. Do we risk putting ourselves in possibly greater danger? Do we risk "making a scene"? And self-doubt: what if we are overreacting? Because again, we tend to second-guess ourselves (and especially on national TV - surely such a thing wouldn't happen? At a funeral?! By a bishop?!) By the time she sped through the 80000 thoughts, it was over, leaving her feeling violated, likely criticizing herself for not reacting faster or differently. 

I've seen it said: why didn't she punch him? That just puts the onus back on her to react in a way other people feel she should, instead of properly burdening him with behaving in the way he should.

This fills me with rage.

Even in this age of #metoo, there is still no paucity of men who will take advantage and then subsequently play the "I didn't know I did anything wrong" card. And plenty of people, too, will believe him over her. Why? Because he's a man of the cloth? Or because she wore a short dress? Justify, excuse, explain away. It's what is done. 

Need more food for thought? Read about tending, here: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a19158567/what-is-rape/.

You will understand better.

And perhaps you will be as angry as I am.

Photo found here: 

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5b8eda12/turbine/ct-1536088590-znqtuu7qoc-snap-image/750/750x422

Valley Music

This evening's earworm: Goodbye to You (Ben Harper).

This is one of the many excellent tracks on the Call It What It Is album. I have the CD in my car: it is a solid choice when the radio or Pandora is insufficient (or when there is no signal). In fact, on the long trip back from The Task, it was my only option as I drove through the mountain pass.

Unfortunately, for this reason the album is now intertwined in my head with The Task. I am trying to reclaim the music by listening to it in different settings. I found some of the tracks as acoustic versions on Youtube, and these renditions are just different enough that I can enjoy the music without any flashbacks to The Task.

Goobye to You is particularly heartrending when acoustic. It is, though, perhaps even more beautiful.

I hope you enjoy.

Scent

Herself speaks.

My parents continue to downsize their possessions as they have moved into a "senior living" facility. (They still have their independence, which they guard fiercely; yet they also have More Help nearby. It is a comfort to me, since I am 2,000 miles away and cannot be immediately on hand should they be in need.)

Mom asked me whether I'd like a bedspread and matching decorative pillow cases that they used to have in a guest room. She couldn't bear to just casually give them away, she said; she wanted to be sure that they went to a good home since she is so fond of them. I accepted her offer. I did not need them, for my house is Quite Full of all the things; nevertheless, I knew they were pretty, and I thought that it would somehow be a comfort to Mom, who is, despite a brave face, a bit sad about moving.

When I opened the box that arrived in the mail a week later, it contained not only the bedspread and pillow cases, but the scent of my parents' house.

Ah. I hadn't realized how much I've missed seeing them. I'll arrange a visit soon.

-----

When Cherished Friend was here this past weekend, he brought some laundry. (I am glad he brings his laundry; I try to counterbalance the onus of the drive here by ensuring that he is well fed and has all the household amenities available to him. Besides, chores like laundry are always better if they are running in the background of something more more satisfying, such as a game of Scrabble.)

And as I walked through the laundry area to fetch something from the garage, there it was: the scent of his house.

Alas. It is always bittersweet to know he is here for only a short visit.

-----

I occasionally joke that in the event of the Zombie Apocalypse, I will be one of the first people to die because I am not remotely visually observant: those Zombies would probably be able walk right up to me without me noticing until it was far too late. The truth is: I don't see things easily. I find it very difficult to identify the bird or airplane or lizard or whatever it is other people spot so quickly; I sometimes don't realize that things are right there in front of me. It's not a lack of vision (my eyes work fine with glasses) - it's a lack of seeing. I have always been this way.

It has occurred to me, though, that if the Apocalypse Zombies smelled (and likely they would -- what with that rotting deadness and all), I would in fact do extremely well. As clueless as I am to sights, I am extremely sensitive to scents.

I can smell all the small things. A single scent can dredge up memories from long ago, and I can recall exactly where I first encountered the smell: the soap in my grandparents' house in North Carolina; the biscuits at summer camp when I was eight; the aroma of the rental car when we went to Disney World; the shampoo I used in college.

I encounter all the little aromas on a daily basis, too. I know if there are bicycle tires or plastic lawn furniture for sale in a store as soon as I walk in. I can immediately discern when someone nearby has crossed from "pleasant musk" to "pungent armpit." Sometimes a smell alone -- raw onion, cocoa powder -- will give me a headache. And I am an expert at identifying when food begins to go bad.

I have always been this way. Furthermore, I like being this way, for all it takes is the echo of a scent to take me back -- to a moment, a person, a feeling of happiness. And when I catch such a scent, wherever it may be, I am comforted.

Old Dog, hard of hearing and sight, also relies on smell. 

Slowly

Herself speaks.

One thing that I have lost: the motivation -- or perhaps just the time and energy -- to dance, solely for the pleasure of it. I am working on finding it once more.

Let's begin with something popular, and far more suggestive than one might expect from a pop song: Despacito (Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee). With a little help from Google Translate, I have learned the flavor of the lyrics, and they are surprisingly... raunchy? Lascivious? Naughty? Oh, my. 

Seems like a good place to start. 

Despacito
Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito
Deja que te diga cosas al oído
Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo
Despacito
Quiero desnudarte a besos despacito
Firmo en las paredes de tu laberinto
Y hacer de tu cuerpo todo un manuscrito (sube, sube, sube)
(Sube, sube)
Quiero ver bailar tu pelo
Quiero ser tu ritmo
Que le enseñes a mi boca
Tus lugares favoritos (favoritos, favoritos baby)
Déjame sobrepasar tus zonas de peligro
Hasta provocar tus gritos
Y que olvides tu apellido....

Outside

Herself speaks.

Cherished Friend visited us for the long weekend. It seemed like approximately a zillion years since we'd seen him in person. It's always a contentment to have him in the household, even when it is just for a few days. 

On Saturday, he, Beloved Husband, and I went for a hike. It was everything I had ached for, for ages: hiking, outside, in the best of company. All worldly cares put away for a few hours. The view. The trees. The mountain. The insects, even. The rocks. The gathering clouds. All, lovely. 

-----

It is Good Days like those that highlight, for me, the terrible impact of preparing for The Task: the inability to spend any time doing what I enjoy; the cost to my relationships with those most important to me -- those whom I neglected, by failing to reach out as I normally do, or to pay sufficient attention to the things important to them. I regret my self-centeredness during that time. (Though. in truth, I am not sure that I could have accomplished The Task any other way.) I am still struggling a bit to find my footing even a month later, though it is improving, bit by bit. Back to work. Back to the regular household activities. One step at a time, one day at a time. 

With more hiking. That will help.

Excellently Close

376 to 378. Well played. 

Hike

Lovely.