Saying Goodbye

Twelve weeks ago today, I said goodbye to my best girl, my heart dog.  This is a post I’ve postponed week after week  because as soon as I’d start writing, the flood of memories was too sweet to share and the words escaped me. Since dogs aren’t verbal creatures, I suppose that not having the words to describe the 13 year journey I shared with Tasha is fair and to be expected.

There are times when the memories of her:  the smell of her head, the sound of her bark, the joy she brought to life, her intelligence and curiosity, her amazing drive and problem solving ability, her canine sense of humor, how I could see her soul whenever I gazed into her big brown eyes, all the things she taught me and all the things we learned together, come flooding back.

Tasha  was all heart and very independent, all the way until the end.  She wasn’t one to give up easily and she wasn’t ready to go which made it hard to help the dog-love of my life leave this world with as much dignity and grace as she deserved even though she disagreed with my decision. At 13 ½ it didn’t seem fair to amputate for osteosarcoma or to put her through chemo for 5-12 months more of life. I would have been doing it for me and not her.  It only took two weeks between diagnosis and the day  her leg suffered a pathological fracture.  During those two weeks, I kept her on pain meds and gave her whatever her little canine heart desired. The very next day, after her leg broke we had to say goodbye. I believe she would have ‘toughed it out’ but I couldn’t take the chance of prolonging any pain or suffering. It was the hardest goodbye I’ve ever had to say.

This is my tribute to a once-in-a-lifetime dog soul.  Words seem so inadequate when it comes to describing Tasha and so I remember her with this video.

I miss her. She is the melody I can’t get out of my head.

Wormy Corn: a Delicious Gift

Corn Worm (Photo credit: NeoGaboX)

When was the last time you found a worm in your corn?  Recently, while shucking a few ears of local corn, I nearly jumped for joy to find a fat, happy, munching worm in an ear! There’s a story that my father is fond of telling about me, especially in the summer when Americans are smitten with eating  corn on the cob, smothered in butter, salt and pepper. When I was a small girl of some undetermined age but surely younger than 8, I asked my father, in all my childish innocence, “what do you do with the worms?” To which he replied, ” we put them in the gravy!”  That bit of information never deterred me from eating gravy because even at that age I was well aware of my father’s unique and undiminishing sense of humor.

That conversation is at least 42 years old if not more. These days, most people don’t want worms in their corn, soft spots in their fruit, or blemishes on their food. If it’s a little ‘off’ or not as perfect as we’ve been led to believe equals nutritious, then many people throw away perfectly edible food. Business Insider recently reported that Americans waste $165 BILLION in food a year. The Week reports that every American throws away 40% of our food each year. They go on to say that one reason is that we buy too much food and it ‘expires’ before it can be used.  I’ve eaten so much expired food in my life and am still here to tell you about it.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, expires ON the date of the stamped expiration date. Nothing. But I digress. The article also goes on to say that the food we waste the most is….drumroll…..vegetables.  “Not only do vegetables get thrown away when they expire at home, but they also get trashed before they even make it to your refrigerator. In richer nations, edible fruit and vegetables end up in landfills because they are not pretty enough [emphasis mine] to meet a retailer’s standards.”   Not depressed enough yet? Dana Gunders of the National Defenses Resource Council writes,

” Getting food from the farm to our fork eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of all freshwater consumed in the United States. Yet, 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. This not only means that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also that the uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills as the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste where it accounts for almost 25 percent of U.S. methane emissions. Reducing food losses by just 15 percent would be enough food to feed more than 25 million Americans every year at a time when one in six Americans lack a secure supply of food to their tables.”

Give me the UGLY food! Really. Give me the food the insects have marred because I know the food hasn’t been sprayed. And it’s delicious.  Recently, at a local Farmers’ Market, several men who were enjoying a summer day golfing bought peaches, soft, ripe, fragrant peaches.  Within an hour they were back but all I had were dented, soft peaches that were attracting all sorts of curious, hungry insects. I apologized that all I had were these peaches  that were soft, and ugly (hoping I could take them home for myself).  They took most of them, stating, “that’s ok, we know they’ll be good.” I doubt they were disappointed.

Give me the ugly fruit and vegetables. I know they will be delicious. And no, I don’t want to eat food that has been genetically modified to withstand pesticides and herbicides as Monsanto has forced down our gullible gullets. I blame the government, I blame Monsanto and I blame Americans who need to have fast, convenient, sweet, fatty, and perfect foods.

This corn was bought from a family farmer on a street corner in a small rural town. It was the third picking of the day and it was only about noon. It was sweet, delicious and ugly. And I loved it. At a time when I shy away from nearly all corn and corn-products, thanks to GMO corn from Monsanto, I can say, worm and all, this was truly a delicious gift.

So what did I do with the worm? I lovingly carried it out to my chickens, of course! The circle of life.

Changes & Relationships

The urge to write has been nibbling at my subconscious for weeks now; an insistence that wakes me early in the morning and pulls me out from under warm blankets and the embrace of my husband’s arms. But when I get to my computer, huge mug of coffee in hand, I do a thousand other things that beckon to be completed for our start-up company (creating a logo, designing the website, planning events, etc.) I realize that I haven’t written here in five months. I’ve started, and stopped, rereading words the next day that didn’t seem to be really what I wanted to write about or how I felt and so I hit the delete button. And moved on to other, seemingly more urgent tasks. Today I am answering the call to spend the morning woolgathering about change and relationships.

In November, my lover and I married in a quiet ceremony at the local justice of the peace. We wrote our vows and exchanged rings and smiled the whole time at how lucky we are, lucky to have each other and to be loved unconditionally for the first time in our lives. Afterward, we returned home, smiling and laughing and grateful. Nothing about our commitment to each other changed that day; we were already committed to spending the next 30-40 years of our lives together (you do the math). And yet everything did change because my lover was now my husband, something I absolutely do not take for granted. Like many couples in love, we say “I love you” frequently. However, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank him for loving me; sincere gratitude for the gift of his love ever present in the forefront of my heart and soul. I breathe in his love for me and exhale the nagging self-doubt and negativity of the events of the last two years that as it turned out, brought me right to the very place I need to be. Life is full, simple, beautiful, busy as hell, outrageously funny and overflowing with love.

Over the last several years, we have discovered who our true friends are. I always find it exceptionally challenging to accept betrayal with humility and grace; and I rail against the unfairness of people who make claims to be counted among your friends but who turn out to be nothing but opportunists, taking from you your ideas, your property, your hard work, and sometimes your heart. But life isn’t fair and people are weak; they want easy and often that means betraying a friend because it is too hard to stand up to bullies. We try the best we can to reach people and amend the fractured friendship but at some point we move on, hoping they come to their senses, remember who they are but if the friendship never gets back on track, we move on, secure in the knowledge that a person who truly loves us will never let us go, no matter how hard the situation is.

This past year, at Christmastime, a dear old friend reached out to me; she was in Baltimore visiting her husband’s family before traveling to her home country of Puerto Rico to visit hers. I haven’t seen Maria in nearly eight years; I made a few feeble attempts to reach out to her over those years but she didn’t respond, busy with her career in California, her new marriage, and ultimately her two sons. She found me through this blog and we made a lunch date. I loved every minute of our reunion. I had missed her so terribly and we laughed about the crazy things we’d done, the trips we shared, my amazing story and vowed to keep in touch going forward. I vow to do my part to keep our friendship kindled because it is important to me that we recapture our friendship.

Recently, my youngest brother admonished me for not letting go of my hatred of my ex-husband whom decided in his sick and twisted, bi-polar reasoning, that it was in his best interest to end the marriage and take everything, both marital and my personal property as well as my business, and in my best interest to commit suicide. My brother is smart and had some zany ideas about how I could go about exorcising these demons and killing the ex… in effigy. He’s right, and he’s very smart about this topic. I have a thousand reasons for hating the ex but he doesn’t care that I hate him and as long as I hate him, he remains ‘alive’. And I have a dark cloud in my heart where only love should reside. When people walk away from you, let them go. “Your destiny is never tied to anyone who leaves you…it just means their part in your story is over.” 

I know of an old friend who chose to end her marriage nearly 20 years ago and she has held on to her anger, self-pity and regret for all that time; although she seems more bitter in recent months. Twenty years is a lifetime to remain as unhappy now as she was then. Instead of reaching out in love and friendship, she lashes out and blames others for her unhappiness. It is truly sad because her happiness rests solely in her own hands, in her own grasp. Twenty years is long time to be that miserable. I hope she reads this because I hope she stops looking at the closed door and finds the open window. People change, relationships change, life changes. Fortunately, humans are adaptable, if we allow ourselves to be.

“In the depth of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.”

Weddings are My Undoing

My lover and I went to a wedding last weekend. The day was sunny and warm but not dreadfully hot; the backdrop was the beach, with waves crashing in the background and guests kicking off sandals and flip-flops to walk more easily in the sand and soak feet in the afternoon September sun. The bride and groom, friends of ours, were embarking on the beginning of married life for the first time for each of them. They were joyful with anticipation as newlyweds are apt to be, and the groom, with tears in his eyes, beamed more radiant than the bride if you can believe that. She gave him a run for his money though.

I couldn’t hear their heart-felt vows, but the personally written and spoken vows were meant for each other, not for us. We visually witnessed their commitment, rather than heard it. Later, when the reception was well underway, tears streamed down my face the way they so often do these days at weddings. I’m glad I couldn’t hear their vows, or surely, I’d have been sobbing during the ceremony.  It seems that wedding are my undoing, all of my own, as well as everyone else’s.

The tumble of emotions that besets me at weddings is mystifying:  part nostalgia, part melancholy, part grief, and part angst.  I believe in romantic love, and I believe in romantic marriages.  Unfortunately I’ve never experienced a romantic marriage, or any marriage that lasts, but I’m fortunate to be in a romantic relationship with an incredibly romantic man, a rare specimen in my experience.

We’ve been friends for 28 years and, in and out of touch with each other the last 10, and finally reunited in a blaze of devotion over a year ago. I credit him with saving my life last year and I fully blame him for making me happier than I’ve been in a very long time.  Our banter, many times in the middle of the night, is uproariously funny. We entertain each other immensely, we read to each other, we finish each other’s sentences, and we cry together at the sheer beauty and love we experience.  He says we fit like fingers entwined and inseparable: mentally, spiritually and physically. And he’s right.

We have talked about marriage, how it doesn’t last (preaching to the choir here), how it’s just a piece of paper, why wedding rings are stupid if you work with your hands. Intellectually we agree and I see the folly of such an endeavor, but in my heart of hearts, my hopelessly and endlessly romantic self yearns to be his wife, to call him husband, to join our lives legally.  Despite endless failures I believe that marriages can last ‘forever’ if both people are committed to feeding and caring for their marriage. My own two brothers have been married to their wives for 13 and 15 years respectively and I’m more than a little envious of them, despite my overwhelming love for them and my two sisters-in-law.

For now, I’ll let my silly little heart take over at weddings, wistfully longing.   Fortunately, there aren’t any more weddings in the foreseeable future so all seem safe from my streaming tears.  I am the luckiest woman in the world to be the last love of this wonderful man.  His love fills my days with humor and my nights with passion.  It is enough, truly.

The End of Summer and Another Year: The Call of Sirens

Image by Foxtongue via Flickr

“The fiftieth year of our life is like the last hours of dusk, when the sun has set and one turns naturally toward reflection.  In my case, however, dusk incites me to sin, and perhaps for that reason, in my fiftieth year I find myself reflecting on my relationship with food and eroticism; the weaknesses of the flesh that most tempt me are not, alas, those I have practiced most.”  Isabel Allende, Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.

Yesterday was the last birthday of my 40s and to say my life has not turned out the way I planned is a gross understatement. Thirty years of being forced to plan, make goals, work harder, make more money and acquire more stuff, re-evaluate goals and keep climbing the mysterious and ever-elusive ladder of ‘success’ left no time for things of a sensual nature, things that make us human, things I need. For 30 years, I’ve made ‘friends’ that ultimately got bored, loved men who betrayed me and gave all but my blood to corporate America and managers whose bottom dollars were so sacrosanct that when I was a manager I was forced to put people into performance buckets that did more damage to their psyche than the tiny percentage of a raise would have done to the CEO’s budget had they gone into the performance bucket they really deserved and had earned.

Over the past year and a half I’ve learned that goals aren’t all they are cracked up to be, that life is bigger than any of us can ever direct, that small things are ultimately huge and that love comes from the most unexpected places. Two of my favorite quotes come from Marilyn Monroe:

1. “I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
2. “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

I forget these two tidbits of wisdom more frequently than I should. I am a flight risk, ready to run as fast and as far as I can so no one can hurt me again. And then I come to my senses. Because I am a woman who can NOT run from a man who loves me if I love him too. I love being in love. I love how my lover makes me laugh and how he laughs at my corny silliness. I love the feel of his hands on my body, the look in his eyes as when he gazes my way, the way he flirts with me and the way he supports my ever-expanding wings.

On this the dawn of my 50^th year, I am learning how to appreciate the sensuous things that make my life worth living: early morning sun rises over the mountains, clear, crisp stars dotting the black night and the sight of my lover’s smile; sound of cows lowing in the fields, the cacophony of humming birds flapping their wings 25-50 times per second as they drink sugar-water from the feeder and the distinct absence of sound that is felt more than heard; the smell of tomato and cucumber plants, the unique aroma of farmlands and the irresistible pheromones of my lover; the sweetness of hydroponic tomatoes ripened on the vine, the crunch of hearty bread made with my own hands, and the striking texture and taste of bee pollen; the insistent nuzzle from my dogs, the warmth of my niece’s hug, and the heat from my lover’s caress.

On this the dawn of my 50^th year, I am learning how to love slowly, sensually, wholly, holistically, spiritually and carnally. I am who I am, irrevocably.  As the long hot days of summer wind down, and crisp autumn air moves in, visions of nurturing soups and breads and tantalizingly long nights wrapped in my lover’s arms lure me to laziness. The best things are falling together and the temptations of the flesh call to me like wicked sirens. And I am compelled to answer.

Choices

I have two choices:

1)      To be afraid

2)      To take a chance

I have two choices:

1)      To fret about the future and rail against the
past

2)      To live in the moment

I have two choices:

1)      To push away the man who loves me because I am afraid and doubt my self worth

2)      To allow myself to be loved by him despite all the uncertainties

I have two choices:

1)      To be lonely

2)      To grasp the hand of the man who loves me and hold on tightly, knowing there will be
moments of profound loneliness but also of profound joy

I have two choices:

1)      One will cleave me in two

2)      One will make me whole

I have but one choice.

More Birthday Wisdom

Last weekend I had two interesting conversations about birthdays and age.

The first one was with my ex-husband Rob, who turned 70 earlier this month and who has notoriously and vehemently hated any mention of any birthday since he turned 19. Don’t think for one moment that he hasn’t lived life to its fullest; it’s just to him birthdays mean he’s one more year closer to death. He has always been an outdoorsman, a brilliant professor and an avid martial arts student and teacher. But over the last 5 years, he’s been plagued with health issues ranging from minor to debilitating.

The second conversation about birthdays was with my lover Lee, who turned 60 last weekend and who happened to mention that there have been many birthdays that have passed unacknowledged unless someone sent a birthday card.

Rob called me because he was looking forward to attending Lee’s surprise party but would be unable to due to his latest injury which is either a muscle pull or a hernia.  He told of upcoming vacation plans that would have to be shelved and of how the day before while putting his dogs’ bowls on the floor for breakfast, he collapsed in pain and lay on the floor for half a day until the pain was diminished enough that he could get up. HALF A DAY! I said to him that I was so sorry he was suffering so many physical ailments recently. He replied, “I don’t know why it’s such a surprise, I’m 70 and just waiting to die.” He abruptly ended our call after that.

Unbeknownst to Lee, 40 or so of his family and closest friends gathered together to wish him a Happy Birthday last weekend. He was under the absolute impression that we were attending a dear friend’s military retirement. The surprise was that we were there to celebrate his life- 60 years of laughter, love, pranks, antics and memories.  To say he was emotionally moved is trite and an understatement. Seeing ‘his whole life’ in one room was cool and reminded him how lucky he’s been in his life to have such caring and wonderful people in his life. He was genuinely grateful. And on more than one occasion he’s mentioned that he plans to live for another 30 years. I truly hope so because I plan to walk with him through each of those 30 years.

I love these two men in similar and yet different ways and I have known each of them for 27 years.  Rob’s waiting to die saddens me greatly; a light will truly go out in this world when he dies.  Lee’s planning to live another 30 years fills me joy and hope. Joy that my friend and lover will be making people laugh for a very long time and hope that we will spend those years together living a little and loving a lot.

Happy birthday to two of my favorite men; you mean more than you will ever know. I love you.

A Rose by Any Other Name…

Image by Law H8r via Flickr

Among the things I recently found are several boxes of old business cards with my former names listed in bold letters.  I have changed my name five times over the last thirty years, meaning that I have adopted a new moniker on average every 6 years. Oh I can see you raising your eyebrows at the sheer mathematical reality of that statement.

Today many women keep their maiden names throughout their lives regardless of the number of husbands they collect.  Despite that trend, I have happily and eagerly taken the last name of three husbands. The amount of work necessary to change over bank accounts, credit cards, school records, employment records, social security numbers, and driver license numbers never deterred me from this custom.

But the biggest surprise for most people is that I legally changed my first name and eliminated my middle name several years ago.  Born near the end of the Baby Boomer generation (1946-1966), I was given the most popular post-war name of the 1960s – Lisa. Until I changed my name, I spent my entire life answering to Lisa, even though many times, I wasn’t the Lisa being addressed. When my youngest brother married a Lisa, twice the number of Lisas in the same family meant twice the confusion.  In order to discern which Lisa was being addressed or talked about, my mother started using middle initials. If Lisa didn’t feel right to me, imagine after 40-odd years now being asked to answer to Lisa E. It was disconcerting.  Who was this stranger that was now me?

I’ve always had a fascination with names, what they mean, what their origin is, and who has changed names and why. Despite not having children, I own two name books for humans and one name book for pets; I even keep a running list of possible names for my next dog. I wanted a quirky moniker and I was tired of confusion.   It really didn’t take me long to decide on Jaz and I knew immediately that I would spell it with only one Z.

Almost everyone comments that my name is cool, unusual, and interesting. Some inquire whether my parents were flower children and given my age that’s an apt question but no, my parents were far from the hippie crowds of the 60s. My name has nothing to do with jazz music and it isn’t short for Jasmine, Jazmine,  Jazmin or any other spelling of such name.  It’s just Jaz. It’s unique and feels like who I think I am. My devoutly Catholic family has taken three marriages and three divorces in stride but was obviously bewildered by my changing my given name.  I appreciate the fact that my parents carefully and lovingly chose a name for me at my birth and I understood their displeasure and puzzlement when I changed it.  It’s been over 6 years now and my family rarely, although occasionally, reverts to my natal name.  I love them all the more for their efforts and acceptance.

Now I find myself saddled with an ex-husband’s last name that is distasteful.  It is neither a last name I’m proud of nor one with which I want to be associated.   I kept the offending name because I did not have the emotional energy to change my name everywhere when I was granted a divorce from him.  I’ve taken to omitting this last name on return addresses and other sorts of documents if not legally required.  Given my dismal record with the whole marriage thing and the decidedly strong opposition to marriage that my lover has, I doubt I’ll ever get married again.  If I’m wrong about that, I will adopt his last name in an instant.  If I’m right, the name of this rose will be Jaz, just Jaz (or Jazzy to my friends and loved ones.)

Mother’s Day

My Wonderful Mother

A few weeks ago, when I retrieved my belongings from the home I shared with my former husband, I found among the detritus of my life, a letter written to me by my mother on my first day of first grade 42 ½ years ago.  It is the only letter I know of written to me by my mother;  I don’t know when she actually gave it to me (I certainly couldn’t read it when it was written) and I don’t recall ever reading it before a few weeks ago. It is in pristine shape, as if she’d written it in the recent past.

The letter is about the closing and opening of doors from toddlerhood to childhood to womanhood and she asks that I “open doors slowly so that I may enjoy a very full and happy life.” She also tells me that “some of those doors will be happy and some of them sad. “ And that I “have to make my own decisions…but that she will be around any corner if I need and want her help…even if it’s just to talk. Love Mommie.”  The last sentence says, “Enjoy yourself.”

For most of my adult life I have opened doors quickly, sometimes without thought of consequences. Behind some of those doors have been periods of prolonged happiness and joy; many of those doors hid unbearable sorrow and pain either immediately or some time after being opened but only one was a sort of Pandora’s box unleashing evil and insanity into my life last year and yes, I opened that door too quickly seven years ago.

I saw and remember the pain etched on my mother’s face last year when she and my father and sister picked me up after being arrested, over-charged with crimes I did not commit by a husband who hoped I’d kill myself as I had wanted to do the night my marriage ultimately fell apart because in his sick mind my death would mean he could keep everything I, and we as a couple, owned; as I sobbed for the loss of a marriage that wasn’t worth the paper it was written on; and as I sat through hearing after hearing in a court system that didn’t really care that all I wanted to do that night was die and nothing that happened had anything to do with his safety.

I have paid for that mistake and am free to carry on with opening and closing doors.   At first I was gun-shy, not trusting whether I knew which doors to open and which to leave closed or to close quickly, once opened. Through it all, every turn, every success and every failure, my Mother was there. She fed me Maraschino cherries when she had to pull off a fingernail, tended to scraped knees, adopted kittens I brought home and hugged me when I cried. And last month, when the judge at my divorce hearing asked her if she thought there was any chance of reconciliation between me and the man who wished me dead, she stated without qualms or qualifications, “NOT IN THIS LIFETIME!”

Needless to say I cried when I read her letter of love and advice to me, written so long ago, when I was merely a child. It resonates with me today. I am the woman I am because of her. I didn’t always take her advice and to her credit, she didn’t give a lot of it. But what she told that little girl 42 years ago, she might well have told the woman who is her daughter just this last year.

I love you, Mommie and thank you. I am indeed happy.

A Stranger’s Birthday

Last week while in the grocery store with my sister, an elderly gentleman approached me

Birthday Cake (Photo credit: Will Clayton)

as I was walking towards my empty cart from the Customer Service counter.  He held in his hands a small sheet cake, which he held out to me and asked me, “How does my cake look? Is it nice?”

It was a beautiful, simple sheet cake with multi-colored mylar ribbons in one corner. I replied, “Yes, it’s very nice. What’s the occasion?”

He stated that his daughter had bought him this cake for his 79th birthday tomorrow and she told him not to peek. We smiled at each other conspiratorially.

And then he said, “There must have been something wrong in my head when I was a teenager.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I never thought I’d live past 40 because I could not imagine what my life would be like and so I figured I’d never live that long.”

My mouth gaped open as I stared at him in utter disbelief.  I sputtered, “Me too!”

I have told countless people that same thing. I clearly remember in my teens, thinking I’d never live past 30 because in my teens I could not imagine what my life would be like past that age.  Not once has anyone I’ve ever met ever hinted at similar feelings and in fact every person I’ve told that to  looked at me in incredulous disbelief. Yet, here was this stranger, on the brink of his 79th birthday, echoing my very same thoughts at approximately the same age I had them.

His daughter approached us just then and he indicated that she was the  youngest of his three daughters.  She was staring at her receipt and didn’t make eye contact with me until I said hello.  And at that time my sister called me back over to the Customer Service counter to finish our business there.

I thought about him and his birthday frequently over the next week. I thought about a seemingly random encounter with a stranger who echoed my same thoughts, decades before I had them. What’s the meaning? I sure don’t know…but people come into our lives for a reason.  Over the past 6 years or so, I’ve kept to myself thinking that at my core I am a recluse. I’ve learned over the last year that people really do need people. That I need good, loving people in my life.  Something in my demeanor communicated openness, or his spirit recognized a kindred spirit and gave me a gift on the eve of his birthday.

No matter how it happened I am grateful to this stranger who shared 5 minutes of his life with me.  Happy Birthday and many, many more to both of us.

Wabi-Sabi

Image by JapanDave via Flickr

Wabi-Sabi is the Japanese philosophy of appreciating things that are imperfect, primitive and incomplete.  The concept embraces age, rust, respect, nature, accepting the cycle of growth, decay and death and finding beauty in the simplest things because beauty is indeed everywhere if we choose to see it.

Wabi  connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects, or understated elegance.  Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs.

And so, this new chapter of my blog reflects my desire and decision to embark on a less materialistic and more simple life.  Two weeks ago, my long-awaited for divorce hearing occurred and although I long wanted to tell my side of the story, a story of a husband whose wedding vows apparently meant nothing, of emotional and verbal abuse which culminated in physical abuse, of bruises and cracked ribs, of lies and theft, of depression so deep that suicide seemed the only way out of the mess that was my life.  In the end, the decision to end the drain of money into my lawyer’s pocket and be done with he who will not be named was the right way to go.

And so, ten days ago, I retrieved from my marital home, the possessions we both agreed I could have.  I had an army of people who gave not only physical help with moving but emotional support as well. Thus began the unpacking of my stuff, accumulated over the last 30 years of my life.  There is a sense of letting go and of coming home all at once in this unpacking.  I have found things that hold more meaning to me today than they ever did previously and I have found things that no longer hold any meaning and will be given away or sold.

And whereas, previously, I would have wanted to refinish and repaint and repair those things that are scratched or cracked or broken, I now see beauty in their imperfection as well as in my own imperfection.  I will continue to grow into this new person, the person I always wanted to be, with new-found knowledge and insight about what is really important in life. I will live a little but I will love a lot. And therein lies the only things that makes life meaningful: simple beauty, deep love, spiritual oneness with our surroundings.

Namaste.

Endings….& Beginnings

Yesterday was the end of a year filled with endings.  The end of a marriage that in retrospect wasn’t worth the paper and time I spent on it. The end of a business I loved and was good at.  The end of a corporate career I was good at but burned out on.  The end of competing with my dogs in a sport we loved.  The end of fake friendships with people who couldn’t or wouldn’t commit to supporting me at the worst and most needy, lonely time of my life.  The endings were painful and I felt adrift, lost, scared and often desperate to hold on to the only life I knew while simultaneously pondering and planning how to end that very same life because I couldn’t figure out and didn’t know how to live through such betrayal from my ex-husband.

Oddly enough, I spent the last 32 hours in bed, dizzy, nauseous, and sleeping after I cried the last tears I will ever cry for the losses and events of the last year.  There are many people who think they know what happened a year ago and believe the worst lies because that is human nature… to crave and enjoy the drama and mistakes of others and to revel in the mud and crap of someone else’s misery. They are shallow people not worth the time it takes to try to correct their misguided beliefs. Many of those people seemed supportive in the beginning but after a few months chose to believe the confabulations of the mentally ill man who was my husband. The man who tortured me in ways only a narcissistic evil man can do.  His last words to me were “I can do whatever I want to you and you cannot stop me.”

He tried his best but in the end all he did was to show me what a liar and a thief he really is and to allow me to escape a brutally abusive relationship and toxic way of life.  In exactly eight days, the final paragraph will be written, the divorce will be final and he will be dead to me.

And out of the weeds and crap that was my life, I found beginnings and renewal.  I’ve lost weight, I eat healthier, I renewed relationships with my parents, brothers, sister, niece, nephews, aunts, cousins—all of whom have been so incredibly supportive, more than I could ever have previously hoped for or possibly known.  I hold them in my heart with deep love never fully appreciated before now.  I found out who my true friends are and that friends hold your head and hug you through your grief and despair and they find ways to make you laugh. They tell you over and over as necessary that you are worthy and beautiful and that they love you until it sinks in through the muck and mire.  I met new people who have become friends, who know the story of my life over the last year and don’t judge me, but accept me and embrace me.

I found new love from a very old friend, a man who loves me as I am right now, who makes me laugh, who is tender and attentive, who challenges and appreciates my intellect, who sees through the self-doubt to the beautiful woman I am.  He has taught me that happiness is a choice and that life lived simply is the most important thing.  Possessions and money don’t define happiness, experiences do.  We read to each other, we are silly in play, we are deeply passionate in our love for each other and are both grateful for the wonderful people in our lives and most importantly for each other. We get to work together on a family farm as I’ve dreamed of for years, with good people who are kind and generous and loving.  I get to be creative, to read, to write, to cook, to work with plants and animals and to love and laugh freely for the first time in 6 years.  I am no longer surrounded by shallow pettiness and that is truly a new beginning.

The sun rises and sets, the seasons come and go, seeds are planted, crops are harvested, rebirth, renewal , love, laughter, life.  My life is only half lived: I was born this year in the 49^th year of my life; coming home to the woman I’ve always wanted to be. I’m looking forward to the next 40 years, slower years, loving years, happy years.  It’s a matter of choice and I choose to live my life simply, happily and lovingly.

Resolutions

My New Year’s Resolution was to be unreasonably happy, to find joy, love and peace in every moment and to live life more fully yet more simply than ever before. I’ve been meaning to write about this resolution for almost 2 months.  I’m not sure why I procrastinated writing about a resolution that on the surface seems so incredibly simple, spiritual and emotional while others resolve to lose weight, work out more and generally work on their physical looks or health.  My resolution seemed simple enough and very doable, all I had to do was to choose to find happiness each day.  Happiness, joy and peace were the very things missing from my life for the last several years, this past year more so than the previous ones.  So it only made sense that my resolution would be to work on my emotional and spiritual health.

I had no idea how hard this resolution would really be.  Most days I succeed and many days I pretend to be happy, joyful and peaceful.  Pretending to have these emotions many times tricks my mind into believing that I really am happy, joyful and peaceful. But some days I fail miserably, inexplicably and am abjectly sad.  One night early in February was one of those times, one of those dark nights when dying seemed better than living.  I spent hours of the night writing goodbyes to my loved ones.  It was, of course, arduous and emotional.  And in the wee hours of the dawn, I closed my eyes and fell asleep, only to awaken an hour or so later to a new day.

My guardian spirits surrounded me the next day, calling, hugging, picking me up and offering words of wisdom, love and guidance.  I don’t know why some days are harder than others when each day really is the same. I don’t know why most days I can remember to laugh and some days I can’t stop crying. My dear friend Diane encouraged me to stop trying to stand against everything that life throws at me; to stop trying to move the mountain as it were. Instead, bend, let the pain and crap wash over me and envelop me because I’m not strong enough to stand against it, and the energy it takes to try to continue fighting  wears me down.  My therapist is fond of reminding me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel but it’s not coming AT me.

It is part of the healing process, having to go through hell and pain to get to the other side of a better life.  And despite the pain, life is truly better today than it has been for years.  Nearly eight weeks after the start of the new year, many have given up their yearly resolutions, but each day I reiterate and renew my resolution to be unreasonably happy, to find joy, love and peace in every moment and to live life more fully yet more simply than ever before.

In the past three weeks, I have found happiness, joy and peace in gorgeous sunrises, deer running across a field, curious horses following me as I walk, cattle inexplicably lined up in single-file, the smell of tomato plants, the taste of farm-fresh eggs from free-range chickens, the unmitigated ecstasy of my dogs when it’s time to play ball or take a walk, the joy of watching Tasha trot and run through the snow pain-free and without a limp, the sound of laughter, the hugs of loved ones, unexpected calls and notes from friends,  and the knowledge that I will live happily ever after after-all.

Thoughts from the Darkness

Yesterday was Winter Solstice and the night before last, those of us in the Americas were treated to a total eclipse of the moon.  I awoke at 1 AM, saw the moon was shining brightly directly overhead, that it was a windy 22◦ and went back to bed for an hour.  Then, I bundled up against the cold night, wrapped in a Renaissance period woolen cape, scarf, mittens and lots of fleece underneath.  At the height of the eclipse it was wonderfully dark and yet the red moon held her own against the sun’s diminishing light.  Surprisingly, the Canada geese on the creek were throwing a fit, squawking in frustration while flying overhead: I could hear them even though I couldn’t see them.  Apparently geese fly at night during full moons and I can only surmise their confusion at not seeing their reflections on the water because of the eclipse.  Unexpected darkness throws all of us into momentary bewilderment.

This astronomical phenomenon combining a total eclipse of the moon with the winter solstice hasn’t occurred since 1638 according to NASA and won’t happen again until 2094, long after those of us who lived through this one will be gone from this planet.   We all know that during the solstice, we experience the longest night and the shortest day of the year; as the days begin to lengthen, it is also associated with the rebirth of the sun.  Watching the eclipse during the solstice, I was awestruck as the sun’s light returned to the moon’s face, the perfect analogy of rebirth.  “It’s a ritual of transformation from darkness into light,” says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto’s Wiccan Church of Canada. “It’s the idea that when things seem really bleak, it is often our biggest opportunity for personal transformation.”

It seems fitting that the winter solstice and a full eclipse of the moon should occur simultaneously in the last two weeks of a year that was full of unanticipated endings and new beginnings for me.  This past year I was forcefully removed from a home I’d spent years nesting in, my marriage ended abruptly, my husband lied and stole all of my belongings, and my dreams of the future ended in a nightmare so implausible that my nights are frequently haunted eight months later.  And yet through it all, old relationships were forged and made stronger, new friends were well met, new experiences enriched me and a new spirituality, long forgotten and lost, reminds me of the things most important in life.  That’s not to say that I’m no longer an atheist, I am.  But just because I do not believe in any deity, doesn’t mean the world isn’t full of natural spirit and energy and beauty beyond human comprehension.   Enjoying and consciously participating in the natural cycles of the year brings peace and simplicity to life.

I celebrate this dark season and appreciate the opportunity to hibernate, to savor hot chocolate, warm woolens and wood fires, to catch up on my reading and writing, and to mediate with grace and thanks for all those things and people that make my life worth struggling for.  “Gratitude is always in season,” says Grove Harris, “and attending to the sensual pleasures of the winter is a useful way to ward off seasonal complaints.”

As the cold deepens in the northern hemisphere, I look forward to spring with each lengthening day.  The cold dark nights and gray hued days will not last forever and in that knowledge is a message of hope.  The spring will bring only a few more endings but it will also bring a lot more beginnings. Out of this dark year, my personal transformation is emerging and I am revitalized by the promise of a soulful, loving, simple future.

Life, Death & Gratitude

A few weeks ago, I heard about a local young man who had been having difficulties in his relationship with his father.  He committed suicide at the age of 28 by shooting himself in the mouth.  A few days ago, a local woman whose 8-year old son had been suffering from an undefined illness for a few weeks was not feeling well Saturday night. She got into bed with him and held him, dozing finally as she comforted him.  After a short nap, she awoke to find that her child had died in her arms.  I understand the depth of despair that young man felt in order for him to take his own life; I cannot imagine the depth of despair one feels at having one’s child die in your arms.  These tragic deaths of these two young people give me pause and require quiet reflection.

Having struggled for the better part of this year and last, and sometimes still struggling, with my own thoughts of suicide, I am reminded daily of the fragile nature of life. A friend said to me yesterday, “I cannot imagine anything in your life so horrible, that it’s worth you being taken away from me.”  The underlying message being, of course, that although life is hard each and every day, my life has meaning to a lot of people and that no matter what types of hell I may be going through, the loss to my family and friends would be devastating.

Dad & me

Several weekends ago, my family celebrated the 70^th birthday of my beloved father.  I wrote what was meant to be a toast and token of my love for him.  What I read aloud was a small portion of what I actually wrote because I could barely get through those few words, my voice cracking with emotion. I gave him the note to read at a later time. The next morning he wrote to thank me for my love letter to him and I cried with the full realization of how much my father and I love each other and sadness that it’s taken me 48 years to come to that realization.

I spent Thanksgiving weekend with friends and family and the joy and gratitude I felt for the support and love they blanket me in was again overwhelming at times. My niece called me her favorite aunt which made me smile. She sat on my lap and we had conversations more advanced than a 4 year old child should be having. She was born with Arthrogryposis Multiplex Congenita, a rare congenital disorder characterized by stiff joints and abnormal muscle development. She wears braces to help her walk but let me tell you, her physical disability doesn’t hold her back in any way.  She’s sweet and funny and smart as hell and I love that I can have smart, witty conversations with her, laugh with her and tell her how much I love her. She is one brave little girl surrounded by a lot of love, much like the aunt who loves her dearly.

While my marriage is dying a slow, agonizing death and my career has stalled and is taking a nose dive and all my worldly possessions have been stolen by a man who promised to love me forever, no one whom I love has died. Life could be so much worse.  But we all still have each other and find a lot of joy in loving each other. I am learning to hold my head up and I’m learning what matters most in life: cherish the people who love you and whom you love; help them out when they need it without judgment; let people cry when they need to while quietly holding them and tell them how much they really mean to you. And when life gets unbearable, don’t focus on your losses, count your joys. I am sorry for the young boy who won’t grow to be a young man and for the young man who won’t grow to be an old man. I am empathetic to the losses their families feel and I hope they find peace and love in time. I’m grateful to a little girl whose bravery is a road sign for my daily life.

Phoebe & me

Halloween

Halloween is my favorite ‘holiday’ of the entire year.  For me, Halloween is the only pagan holiday left nearly intact by new age religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.)  It remains untainted by religious reinterpretation but continues to be celebrated as a spiritual holiday by many.  Its roots lie in the Gaelic festival called Samhain, held October 31-November 1.  Translated from Old Irish, Samhain means “summer’s end” and is a Celtic harvest festival with ancient roots in polytheism.

In the Pagan calendar year, November 1^st marked the first day of winter, and the beginning of the cold, dark season as well as the start of the new year.  Animals were brought down from their summer grazing fields and either slaughtered or stabled. The harvest was finished and safely stored for winter; any crops left in the field were considered taboo and left as offerings for the spirits of the other world.

November Eve, October 31^st, was understood to be a magically potent time, when the thin veil between this world and the other was temporarily lifted. Both worlds existed side by side and communication with ancestors and other spirits was effortless from sundown to sundown.  Great bonfires were lit as part of the festival as people celebrated new beginnings, new dreams and new hope for the future.

It seems fitting that this time of the year, when we say goodbye to summer and hunker down for winter that we meditate and plan for next year. The future is full of possibilities. May this November Eve be your best ever.  Slàinte!

The Battle

There’s an old saying when the battle is raging and you’ve been hit: you put your head down and you bleed a while. Then you get back up and keep fighting.

Yesterday I lost the job that took 6 months to find and that I started just 6 weeks ago. The reasons aren’t important and although I think the reasons are ridiculously short-sighted and naïve, the end result is the same. So last night I had a good long cry, a good long bleed. I found a band-aid in the arms of a friend who stanched the bleeding and eventually I fell into a sleep of sheer emotional exhaustion. The most devastating year of my life refuses to end, the hits keep coming and I know there are yet more battles in my future.

I have no idea why I landed a job that only lasted 6 weeks.  Maybe it’s another lesson from the universe; maybe it’s a message that I’m supposed to once and for all turn away from corporate America and find another line of work. Maybe there are bigger things coming or maybe smaller, simpler things to come about which I’m not yet aware. Maybe it’s finally the chance to spend time doing that which I’ve always wanted to do: write. The Dalai Lama said, “Sometimes not getting what you want is an amazing stroke of luck.” It’s hard to keep remembering that bit of wisdom when it seems everything is lost but I know that in loss often there is something new to be found.  Being open to a new thing often demands that we let go of the old thing no matter how comfortable the old thing appears to be.

So once again, I must reach down and pull myself up by my boot straps.  My boots are old and the straps are frayed but they’ve served me well. Maybe it’s time for a new pair.  I think it will take a while to find a pair that fits well and is as reliable as my old ones.  In the meantime, I cry, I rail and I bleed.  And I take another small step forward hoping that next time the slide backwards won’t be as long as the one before.   After a bit, I pick my head up and rejoin the fight because the war is far from over.

Lessons

Sometimes the Universe has a way of teaching us lessons we should have learned a long time ago but didn’t either because we could not or because we refused to learn them.  And when the Universe decides we really need to learn a life lesson the Universe can be a harsh task-master.  This year the Universe decided to teach me several lessons in a crash course I’m calling Life 101.

Good people make bad decisions:  In the anger, betrayal and passion of any given moment of a life, good people make bad decisions that have unforeseen consequences.   The outcome of one’s actions can be so far removed from the intent that the intent is no longer recognizable.  Sometimes the outcome is as simple as an irrational act; sometimes it’s as complicated as spiraling downwards and imagining one’s death as a way out of the pain. Sometimes the unimaginable happens.  But one bad decision doesn’t define a person the way a lifetime of bad decisions can.  Everyone makes bad choices in life and we all deserve a second chance to get it right.

We don’t know what we don’t know: How can we? What we know is based on implicit and explicit knowledge, in other words: learned and experiential knowledge.  Often we are so close to a situation that we can’t comprehend the meaning and thus we don’t know what is actually occurring.  Other people around us are much more likely to see events as they really are and whether they choose to share their knowledge impacts directly on how we assess a situation. If I understood that my ex-husband was mentally ill and suffering from bipolar disease, I am confident that I would have handled his mania differently. But I did not know and so I did not understand and could not ask for the help I desperately needed. We make the best decisions we can with the information we have at the moment.

Live Simply: We have been brainwashed to believe that the more stuff we own, the better off we are and the happier we will be.  Like most, I believed I was successful and happy because of all the material things I owned over a lifetime of acquiring ‘stuff’.  In April, I lost my home, my husband, my business and access to all personal property.  For the last 6 months I have lived between my sister’s house and a friend’s apartment; I have driven a friend’s car; I have worn clothes that were lent to me until I could get some money to buy some; and I’ve learned the power of enjoying a few things immensely rather than many things superficially.  Even my diet is simpler these days.  I’m happier than I have ever been and enjoy the small things in life more than I ever thought possible.

Be Kind to Yourself:  Let people take care of you if you need to be taken care of but remember to be kind to yourself as well.  Nothing good comes of beating yourself up (there are plenty of people in the world happy to beat you up, don’t join them!)  Take long walks, get massages, read, meditate, eat healthy food, indulge your passions and hug the people you love a lot. And, yes, cry hard if you need to because crying washes away the detritus of our lives and cleans the heart and mind for better things. Most importantly, laugh as much as you can; surround yourself with people who can make you laugh because laughter really is the best medicine.

Detach Yourself from the Outcome of Events: I am a world-class worrier but all the worry in the world doesn’t give me power to effect the outcome of events.  By detaching myself from the outcome and focusing only on the things that I are within my control, I free up a lot of time to be kind to myself and enjoy in the present.   And most of the time worry never amounts to much more than a waste of time: it never ever changes the outcome and in most cases the outcome isn’t as bad as we imagined it would be.

Live in the present: We’ve all heard this advice and those of us who share our lives with dogs live with sentient creatures that only live in the present.  It is a life lesson we should all heartily embrace. We can’t change the past and we can’t know the future; all we have is the here and now and in the present, there are many wonderful things that humans miss because we constantly relive out our pasts and worry about our futures. There is no way I could have predicted the end of my brief marriage and I wouldn’t have wanted to know how it would eventually end.  There is nothing I can do about it now and so rehashing the events that led to the end doesn’t buy me anything; rather rehashing takes me out of the present. In the present, I have a multitude of gifts that I intend to enjoy each and every moment.

Forgive:  Forgiveness allows us to live in peace not only with others but also with our selves.  We don’t have to forget but it is paramount that we forgive and move on.  Holding grudges poisons the spirit, forgiveness fertilizes it.  Forgiving those who hurt us allows us to live in the present and choose happiness over feelings of hurt and anger.

Choose Happiness: It really does take the same amount of emotional energy to be happy as it does to be sad.  I’m not saying never be sad: we are human and sometimes we feel sadness.  But in any given situation that we face in our everyday lives, we can choose to be happy rather than irritated, angry, bored, or whatever other emotion we might choose to feel.  That is, we can manufacture synthetic happiness which has the power to make us feel…..genuine happiness.  Our psyche is amazing in this regard and I’m eternally grateful to Dan Gilbert for his inspiring talk on ted.com entitled “Why Are We Happy” .

Remain Open to Love: The more we remain open to the possibility of love, the more love comes into our lives. Just because we’ve lost one love, doesn’t mean we’ll never experience love again. The human heart has the amazing ability to love over and over and over again and each time we love really is the only time we’ve ever loved.  Embrace love, share love, be love.  You just might be surprised at where love can be found and how good life can be.

The Woman in the Mirror

There is a mirror over my bathroom sink and often I see myself brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, and putting lotion on my face.  Sometimes I even notice whether my eyebrows need waxing, if my hair is pulled back in a presentable manner or that my clothes actually match.  I see bits and pieces of myself but I cannot remember the last time I looked in a mirror and saw my entire self.

A few weeks ago I was walking with a friend and caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a store window and I stopped abruptly, wondering if the image reflected back was really me. The bits looked right: long wavy brown hair; blue eyes covered by blue-tinted sunglasses; correct age, height, weight – although thinner than I’ve been in a very long time; and the clothes were mine.  I stared for several moments looking at myself from head to toe taking in the portrait of myself, the woman I am now, so different from the woman I’d been or thought I’d been.

I remember being shocked that I actually looked pretty good considering the turmoil my life has been the last five months. Inside I felt haggard and raw but the outside of me didn’t replicate those feelings.  Who exactly was the woman staring back at me?

“Is that what I really look like?” I asked my friend.

“Yes, and I wish you could see yourself the way others do. You are a beautiful, sensuous woman.”

That exchange got me thinking a lot about how I see me – my physical self, my emotional self – and how much I’ve changed since April of this year.  It’s been a long time since I took a good hard look at the entirety of me.  If the bits of me were disheveled, they were easily fixed but if the whole of me was disheveled, that was much tougher to fix.  It is clear, however, that the whole of me has been disheveled for quite some time and so I stopped looking at me in the mirror.

Over the last ten years, I lost sight of who I really am and what matters most to me.  Or maybe I never really knew.  I’ve done the things I thought were expected of me: earning three college degrees, climbing the corporate ladder, working hard and amassing a shit load of material things Americans think we can’t live without.  I also did a good job of keeping people at least an arm’s length away.  Having lost several close friendships throughout my 30s and early 40s, keeping people from getting close staved off any further emotional pain I might experience from lost friendships.

I called myself a recluse and was happy to be such.  I believed that being one of only two people at the end of my life was perfectly satisfactory.  And then my life fell apart in ways I could never have previously imagined.   Unable to make sense of it on my own and believing that there was no one I could turn to for help, I felt alone and lonely. I became desperate and suicidal. So much so, that I planned exactly how to end my life. I didn’t want to die; I just didn’t see how to keep living anymore.

But then an amazing thing happened. My family, old friends and friends I didn’t even know I had wrapped me in the cocoon of their loving arms and held tight. They refused to let me slip away. They held a mirror up so I could see that my life is worth living and that my life does have value…to me….and to them.   Many whom I believed were friends drifted away but that says more about them than it does about me.  Today, the wealth in my life is measured in the amount of love I receive from those who love me and whom I love back rather than in material things and I’m richer than I’ve ever been.  There’s a lot of healing work to do but I’m confident with the love and support of friends and family, I will once again be whole.

And so to the woman in the mirror who is the whole me, I say “Welcome Back.”

A Life Half Lived

In exactly 2 weeks, I will turn 48 years old. The 4th decade of my life has been full of life changing events, but 2010 has been, by far, the most challenging and frightening year of my life.  It has also been the most transformational. I have decided to restart this blog as a way of healing and sharing so that others who might find themselves in the similar desperate situations can find some comfort.  Much of what I write will be painful and shocking to some. Hopefully much of it will be inspirational and uplifting.

I’ve titled this page “A Life Half Lived” not because I haven’t lived my life to the fullest, although certainly I could have led a much fuller life, but because to date I’ve only lived half my life.  I have an entire half  life yet to live: more people to befriend and love, more skills to learn, more books to read, more places to visit and more novel things to experience.  I plan, in the second half of my life, to be
a better daughter, sister, aunt, friend and lover.  I hope to be a better world citizen: to do more for the planet and to help less fortunate people.

I will not be perfect and I will not always succeed, but one of the most important things I’ve learned this year is that I have a strong support system of friends and family who love me and will pick me up when I fall. I never knew that before this year. It’s humbling. It is also  hugely comforting to know that the safety net is always nearby. And so I dedicate this blog to my safety net of family and friends who picked up the pieces of my shattered life, dried countless tears, doled out innumerable hugs and kisses, silently held my hands and stroked my hair and simply loved me back to life.

Losing Passion for My Passion

About a year or so ago, I wondered what one does when one loses passion for one’s passion. I had been actively involved in dog agility for the better part of 10 years, spending time, money and effort training my own dogs, traveling to competitions and teaching others.  And while competing with my dogs was still fun, agility wasn’t something I particularly wanted to spend all my time or even most of my time doing any longer.

There were several reasons for my seeming loss of passion.  First, my eldest dog Tasha was 10 and nearing retirement.  While she certainly did not lack any enthusiasm, her rear end was getting weaker and she suffered from arthritis in her hips from a lifetime of running, jumping and not being the type of dog who naturally takes care of her body. Her age allowed her to jump 12 inches in her division and I thoroughly enjoyed still teaming up with her for a few runs each weekend but I could sense the end of her career looming large.  She and my other two dogs have had astonishingly successful careers, are champions several times over.  They and I have nothing left to prove to anyone.

Another important reason for my loss of passion for the sport of agility had to do with the politics and junior high school cliques that permeate the sport of agility.  Most people claim that they just want to spend the weekend playing with their dogs and hanging out with like-minded dog folks.  However, there is a pervasive lack of camaraderie within the community, especially between clubs and often within individual clubs. Decisions are made for monetary reasons and friendships are sacrificed to justify making money.  Many new people to the sport as well as not so new to the sport are ostracized for a variety of reasons and often quit agility because the social aspect of the sport, or lack thereof, is demotivating and painful. I realize that it is human nature to be exclusionary and that we must work hard to be inclusionary.  And I believe that cliques and junior high school behavior permeate many hobbies and avocations. But I haven’t been in junior high school for a very long time and spending several weekends a month in a similar environment isn’t my idea of productive fun.

At that time, I mentioned my loss of passion for my agility passion to my veterinarian who himself was undergoing a similar loss of passion for his passion: aerobatics. He said he’d be interested to watch my loss of passion develop to see if we both traveled the same path.  The difference as I saw it, however, was that he didn’t teach aerobatics while I owned a business centered on teaching and coaching agility. It seemed incumbent to me to continue competing for my students’ sake.  I enjoy watching them compete, coaching them and celebrating their successes with them.  The joy on their faces and in their dog’s eyes is infectious.

Four months ago, circumstances conspired to abruptly end my participation in agility: my dogs and I are retired and I’m not teaching.  I miss my students and their wonderful dogs and they are kind enough to miss me.  Agility taught me a lot of things about dogs and dog training, how to be a team mate with another species and a coach to two species, that winning doesn’t mean taking first place but rather doing better than you’ve ever done before and lastly, that having fun is the most important thing in life.  I’ve met some wonderful people and dogs and shared a bond with my own dogs that many people only superficially experience.  But I do not miss agility, my dogs don’t miss agility and I am healthier and happier not being in a negative environment weekend after weekend.  I hadn’t realized how depressed I was until I was no longer doing what I didn’t want to be doing in the first place.

So what does one do when one loses passion for one’s passion?  Easy.  Find another passion!  There are so many other things in life to explore and I’m excited to be learning new skills, meeting new people and searching for a new passion. If I’m lucky, I’ll find several passions and several new friends and my life will be richer for it.

The Morning After

Breeding is not for the faint-hearted. River was such a trooper throughout the ordeal. Her hard labor started at 2:15 PM and the first push came at 2:30. She was holding back on the first one, absolutely sure that the pressure was a need to relieve herself and being a good dog was determined not to potty in the house. The journey to motherhood for a maiden Dam must be scary. Finally back in the whelping box, she relaxed a little bit, pushing when need be to our gentle encouragement and praise.  The pushing lasted an hour and midway through it, River started shredding the newspapers and pads like she was possessed.  She was indeed a force of nature and it was awesome to watch.  When she finished, she nestled in her creation, perhaps checking the appropriateness and comfort for her pup.

After an hour of pushing with some periods of quiet waiting, River delivered her first puppy at 3:55 PM, a little girl who weighed 6 ounces, and was stillborn. We rubbed and prodded, and shook and rubbed some more. We let River see and smell and lick and poke. But the pup’s tongue and paw pads were white and we knew it was hopeless. That took the wind out of our sails. I called my veterinarian, who took my call despite being in the middle of a 2-week vacation, mostly to hear what I already knew: wait an hour for the next pup to arrive.

We sat back contemplating the little girl who might have been while River took a much needed and deserved nap. One hour and twenty minutes later, I called my veterinarian hospital because River looked a little too relaxed and the contractions had not resumed. They advised us to take her in. So we bundled up the puppy basket, towels, hot water bottle, a few brightly colored collars, the whelping chart and notes I’d taken, our hope and we packed River and her stillborn puppy into the car. Scott drove while I rode in the back of the Sequoia with River. The drive from our house to Fells Point through rush hour traffic took an eternity and although River was shaky and whining, I didn’t feel any real contractions.

The techs laid a small blanket with a Halloween theme on a low table where I could sit with River and hold her while a veterinarian I’d never seen before palpated her abdomen and declared that she thought there was a pup up high under her rib cage. She also examined the puppy, wrapped in a towel, lying on the counter and didn’t declare anything. One of the things I love dearly about my veterinarian is that he allows me to watch procedures on my dogs (and occasionally other dogs!) He knows of my nursing background and that I won’t pass out watching him do things to my dogs that would make other people queasy or worse.  I asked the vet tech if I could go with River up to the procedure room where another staff veterinarian was going to do a sonogram. The tech was hesitant and said she’d take River and shave her and then the doctor could escort me upstairs. There was no way in hell River was going anywhere without me and she was adamant. So I took her leash from the tech and said I’m taking her and upstairs we went.

As it turned out she didn’t need any shaving and as it turns out, there were no more puppies to be seen on ultrasound. The doctor ordered an x-ray and stated that if she found a spine, she’d re-do the sonogram. But there were no more puppies inside my little girl. She had delivered a singleton puppy, stillborn. While the staff searched high and low for the oxytocin, I made a few phone calls and sent a text message to my veterinarian who stepped out of vacation mode, called his hospital, and asked to speak to me. It was comforting to hear his voice, advice, and sympathy.

Oxytocin is a naturally occurring hormone that stimulates  uterine contractions and the let-down of milk. It is also the bonding hormone that all mammals, male and female, have naturally in their bodies. In dogs, it is also used as a clean-out drug to ensure there is nothing left inside the bitch that would cause her to become ill. Since the hospital couldn’t find theirs, they had to go to the local pharmacy and get some which meant more waiting. I took River back down to the exam room where Scott was waiting, and put her back on the blanket where she dozed on and off with her head on my leg. A couple of times, I got up to examine the puppy, still lying on the counter.

After the shot, we were free to go home with our one-week supply cephalexin to ward of infection but without puppies.  As we left the exam room and the little pup on the counter, River began whining and leaking milk all over the floor. She did not want to leave her puppy behind. I put her in the car while Scott waited for the antibiotic prescription to be filled. River was very curious about the empty basket that still smelled like her puppy.

When we got home, I closed the door to the office where the whelping occurred and opened a bottle of wine. Poor River, so tired, trying to protect a pup that didn’t exist from the other dogs who were curious about the curious odor she was emitting. I should have bathed both her and me to wash away the puppy and whelping smells but she and I had no energy.

After the bottle of wine was gone and the tears had dried, we went to bed. River and I slept the sleep of exhaustion, wrapped around each other, comforting each other in our loss. She was a good Mama dog even though her motherhood didn’t last nearly long enough. The empty whelping box is sad and it is much too quiet around here this morning.

We lost a puppy but gained a lot experience and a new relationship.  River is physically healthy and time will heal the emptiness she is feeling this morning. And next year, we will try again.

Laboring Still

We’ve been at it 12 hours now with periods of long rests interrupted by heavy panting and shivering. River is a trooper.  I let her out of the whelping box for two meals (scrambled eggs for breakfast and cottage cheese for lunch) and several potty breaks.  After lunch she was so eager to get back into her whelping box that she jumped in before I could open the door for her.  She’s started having a slight brownish discharge which must mean puppies are getting nearer but it could still be many hours to go. She has not yet started actively pushing so we are still in Stage 1 labor near as I can tell.

Day 66: Labor Finally!

It’s 3:15 AM and River is definitely in Labor. About 1 AM, I could feel the contractions as River lie beside me. They didn’t last long and she fell asleep in between, pushing herself into me through a contraction and then falling asleep until the next one. She asked to go outside (it’s dark!) a few minutes before 3. She tried to go back to bed but couldn’t so we are up. We are alternating hanging out in the office near the whelping box and going to the living room. She’s restless and panting. Out of curiosity I took her temperature: 99.1º. She never did drop below 98. And now she’s just thrown up. More later.

While I cleaned up after River she put herself in the whelping box. If only I’d put her in there BEFORE she tossed her cookies! It was mostly undigested dinner so she’s been in labor for a while. I tossed a bed in the whelping box for her: she alternates between resting and panting/lip licking/stretching/cleaning herself.