Ten

Ten years ago today I had no idea that my life was about to change. I might've been home reliving another tedious and horrific week at work, dealing with the annoying and seemingly helpless students who buzzed around my desk like annoying gnats. Or maybe I was at the gym, running on the treadmill or going through the horrific squat routine that always rendered my legs nearly useless the next day. Or maybe Ken and I had gone to dinner as we often did on Saturdays back then. I'd just lost my grandmother seven weeks earlier and often spent those nights revisiting old letters from her while wishing she'd visit me in my dreams to tell me everything would be alright. Whatever I was doing, I had no idea that eight weeks later Ken would arrive with the little red dog who would become my best friend and brother.

Duncan has changed my life in ways I never imagined on that cold November evening, the first night I held him in my arms, asked him if his name was Duncan, and watched as he winked in reply. He saved my life in the darkest of moments, and when his own life was in danger, I did everything in my power to return the favor. We have walked thousands of miles together, cuddled and cried together, ran and played, shared moments no one else would understand. My dog quickly became the center of my life and I haven't regretted it, not for a single moment.

He turned ten years old today, and while he may not understand the significance, he has certainly reaped the rewards, and I hope that he is somehow able to understand my joy at witnessing his own. There is nothing I won't do for him and so I made today his.

It started early with a long walk and a Frisbee toss that made me late for work, a fact I didn't mind at all. And when I returned we had another long walk, both of us relishing the cool rain. We stopped by the leasing office where the staff has grown to love him. Melissa, the woman who prepared our lease and was there at our first moments in this new home, sang to him and gave him treats, not minding one bit that his wet paws were leaving little puddles on the edge of her desk.

And then, as always, it was off to Hero's where they sang to him and literally showered him with a bowl of treats.

And then it was home were he had a dinner of chicken and peanut butter, and then got his presents: a giant bumblebee to match Buzz, his dragonfly, a great big smoked bone, two bully sticks, a new penguin to replace Percy, and two big dog cookies shaped like birthday cakes. The good folks at the dog park wished him a happy birthday, he played Frisbee again, and is now curled up on my bed going to town on his bully stick. He is a happy dog and my heart is soaring just being near him.

Ten years ago everything changed. Grandma was gone and I was struggling to come to terms with that, but I've sometimes wondered if she didn't find Duncan out there and nudge him in my direction, giving me someone who would stand beside me and watch over me after she was no longer able to do so herself. It doesn't matter if that's true or not. What matters is that he has been there for me in more ways than I can count, taught me more than I thought I'd ever learn, and has been a better friend than I ever thought I deserved.

Happy birthday, Roo. Happy birthday, brother.

Grackle

I have a way, it seems, of loving those things no one else finds particularly useful. Take for instance the darlings of my spirit, the Russian Olive trees which I have written so profusely about in the past, and will no doubt write about again in the coming weeks. To most they are weeds, terrible, stubborn thorny pests that plague the landscape, not beautiful to look at but so sweet to hold in the tender embrace of my nose. I do not always look with my eyes, and love is bigger than the box of my heart.

And that is why I have fallen in love with the Grackle, the most common and ordinary and seemingly unspectacular of birds. An iridescent black with a piercing yellow gaze, and a call that is not melodious or sweet, but grating and metallic, this unloved bird with an unkind name has somehow found a spot in my heart because it plays to my memories of childhood and takes me to places long forgotten.

When I hear the grackle call, its body fluffing up, expanding like a blackened marshmallow over a campfire, I recall the swing-set in my grandparents backyard, and the hours I spent there with my sister or my cousins, our little legs pumping forward and back, forward and back, in that endless drive to climb higher and higher and to perhaps leave the ground behind forever, the scrape of the chains rubbing back and forth, metal on metal, forward and back, forward and back, an anchor to the earth. I can see the vague shape of Grandma through the screen in the window in the kitchen, her eyes sometimes catching mine, her smile big, her lipstick impossibly red.

I miss her, but when Duncan and I venture down the trail past the pond, to the place where the willows are thick and yellow and the Russian Olives are only just beginning to don their grey green spring coat, where the rush and whoosh of the nearby roads fade away and the delights of our sound garden can come to life, the grackles appear, perched on the thick fat ends of the willows or in the branches above us, and sing the rusty chain song that takes me home to my grandparents immaculately trimmed yard in the 70s, when all the world was before me, when I never had reason to doubt, when Grandma promised I'd never be alone.

Everything

Everything matters, as I was reminded once again on our evening walk around the lake. From the green halo which is slowly--too slowly--overtaking the trees on the edges of the park, especially the willows, which are sobbing for the inevitable but tedious arrival of another Rocky Mountain spring, to the throngs of people that had overrun the trail, most of them--myself included--in shorts and t-shirts. They jogged and biked and walked, leisurely and without any sense of time, while others struggled with their puppies, gangly yellow labs, hounds with ears nearly dragging the greening ground, Pomeranians that jogged along the edge of the path looking like dusty cotton balls caught in the playful, warm afternoon breeze. They were pleasant, these people, smiling as we passed, some offering hellos and passing pats to Dunc's head as he hurried past, his nose low, his eyes trained on the shrubs where the rabbits roost. The smells was there, too, that rich, moist, dark-earth fragrance of spring, thick as the flavor of copper but as light as the few cloud wisps that drifted overhead. It mattered that families had gathered with loaves of bread to feed the geese and ducks in the same way that I had fed them when I was a child and my grandparents had taken me down to the river or to Tautphus Park in Idaho Falls. The ducks crowded the shore, mindful of the eggs they'd just planted in their new nests, but unwilling to ignore a free hand-out from the visitors. It mattered that I pause in our walk to visit with the elderly man who'd stopped to sit on a bench and stare out at the sun playing on the water, a look on his face that reminded me of my grandfather after Grandma passed away. When Dunc sniffed his freckled hands and allowed him to scritch his ears and mumble incomprehensible words to him I wondered if some kind soul had stopped for Grandpa on those long, lonely afternoons and if the moment had meant anything to him, enough to bring a smile to his face. It mattered that the sky was finally gold and blue and warm enough to smile into and that there was no hurry to head home, only to enjoy the sound of Roo's feet on the path and his tail as high as a flag, flapping and wagging with each step he took.

It has been a difficult month for me but afternoons such as this one remind me that even when I think nothing matters, it all does, and there is an infinite world for which to be grateful.

Middle

I'm in the middle of MaxDog, a wonderful book by my blogging friend Caryl Moll. Caryl writes of her Golden Retriever Max, who entered her life just prior to a very tumultuous time, filled with uncertainty, anxiety, grief, and depression. Max filled her days with confidence, exuberance, and the kind of special devotion only Goldens can provide and helped her overcome the challenges that interrupted a seemingly idyllic life in South Africa.

I first came to know Caryl two years ago when I stumbled upon her blog, Living Life to the Max. Almost instantly we connected in a way that only people who have shared similar circumstances can understand. Max was her rock during some very bleak days and as I learned more of her story, the more I understood her bond with Max and the tremendous impact he has had on her life.

Like, Max, Duncan entered my life at a difficult time. Just a few months prior to his unexpected arrival I'd lost my grandmother, who I'd been close to and with whose passing I was having an extremely difficult time coming to terms. Max was originally intended to be Caryl's husband's dog just as Duncan was meant to be Ken's. But life has a way of turning things around and soon Duncan and I formed a bond that transcended his relationship with Ken. Not too long after Max arrived Caryl's life was turned upside-down by a series of events beyond her control. And a mere six months after Duncan joined our family I was diagnosed with a debilitating anxiety disorder that changed my entire existence. Duncan was there for me in ways entirely unexpected, and through his guidance I began the long process of rebuilding my life, a task that continues to this day. Max did the exact same thing for Caryl, offering his unconditional love and acceptance, while encouraging her to reenter the world and resume her own life.

I identify with this book in many ways and am thankful I've had the opportunity to read it and grow closer to Caryl, or as close as two people on opposite sides of the planet can grow. Caryl was one of the amazing people who sent me a magic feather last year prior to my trip to New York. While I don't have an autographed copy of MaxDog, I keep the card she included with her feather as a bookmark. In it she wrote, "Remember, courage is not the absence of fear but that special person's ability to embrace it... Fly, Curt, fly!!!" I have cherished it, and the feather, since their arrival, and stop every time I open the book and thank The Universe for putting her into my life.

If you'd like your own copy of MaxDog, you can order it here. Or, if you own a Kindle and would like a digital copy, you can download it from Amazon here. Please be sure to visit her blog and tell her Duncan sent you.

The Overlooked

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." (Mother Teresa)

It was a big, fat juicy thing, the lone dandelion lucky enough to survive the last visit of our landscaping crew, and for a good long while this morning it was all that mattered. Duncan and I strolled down to the Glen this morning, a place we pass through numerous times a day but haven't spent much time enjoying lately. Rather than make our usual rounds we decided to simply lay on the hill on our bellies and watch the shadows move through the cool mat of grass, delight in the paths of the ants as they struggled up one blade, down the other side only to stumble across a stick, bigger in their world than a fallen tree in ours. I wanted to pluck it as my grandmother taught me, and wipe its lustrous head across my nose until it turned yellow with its buttered powder, but I refrained. It was gorgeous and enormous, a whole world unto itself with its bright petals and curling stamens, and even though it is considered a weed I found it no less magical than the tips of the blossoms in the trees, which are inexplicably far more revered.

 

And so while Duncan licked the sticky seedlings from his feet I watched a dandelion be a dandelion and the blossoms be blossoms and reminded myself once again that there is beauty in everything, especially in those things most easily overlooked.

First Christmas

It has been a busy week. Ken and I finally decided that we wanted to stay here together for Christmas, with Duncan and the cats, and start our own tradition rather than separate and go home for the holidays as usually happens. So we decided that in in honor of our first Christmas back together after a two year separation we'd go all out. We bought our first Christmas tree since 2005, dragged out all the decorations we've amassed over the past sixteen years, and have spent our free time making the apartment look as though the North Pole exploded all over it. Duncan and the cats have been quite patient and well-behaved. There have been no incidents involving the digestion of tinsel or marking of the tree. In fact, Pip, Olive and Winnie have spent much of their time laying peacefully under the tree gazing up at the lights and shadows among the thick branches. Duncan was initially a bit unsure of the Santa I put up in the window but he seems to have come to terms with his presence here.

We even put up the Christmas village my grandmother hand-painted. And Ken had the great idea of stringing icicle lights around the edge of the ceiling in the kitchen so they look like stars shining over it.

 

This Christmas will be the first in my life I haven't been home with my family in Idaho but I'm looking forward to the time with Ken and the new traditions we'll start together. Duncan will miss running across Mom's mountain and watching the herds of deer as they move across her yard under the pale Idaho moon, but we'll find a way to make it up to him.

I have no doubt there is love enough in this home to make up for all the things that will be missed.

Thank You

The last few years have been some of the most challenging of my life and at times it's been difficult to find things for which to be thankful but this year my blessings are easily recognizable and I am can say for the first time since my family lost my grandmother in 2004 I am truly grateful and humbled by the blessings that have found their way into my life. On this incredible Thanksgiving afternoon, on a warm, sunny Denver day, I am thankful for

• Ken, who was able to find his way back home to Denver, and for the time we've been able to spend together since, rebuilding our family and bringing new life into these nearly sixteen years we've been a part of each others lives.
• the smell of homemade pumpkin pie first thing in the morning.
• Kevi, who reminded me this morning that we should be thankful for our troubles, for they too have purpose: to make us stronger and to help us truly appreciate the blessings that we have found.
• Patty Griffin's song "Heavenly Day," in which she sings, "No one on my shoulder / Bringing me fears / Got no clouds up above me / Bringing me tears / Got nothing to tell you / I got nothing much to say / Only I'm glad to be here with you / On this heavenly heavenly heavenly heavenly heavenly day."
• The good people I work with, who are supportive and kind, who make me laugh and think equally hard, who have become a sort of family to me.
• The poetry of Mary Oliver.
• The soft weight of cats sleeping against me on cold nights.
• My family, who seem to get stronger and closer every day, especially my sister, Casey, who had a difficult year but has shone brighter than ever before.
• The memories I have of the people who have walked with me, if only for a time, and shared so many special experiences, from April and the WNG to Marc, who knows he's smarter than me; from Kelly and The Dirt People to John, who has cow dreams; from Little Ruth to David, who taught me that not only are things good, but they're good for you; from Karren and her cookies to Rick, who understands the butterflies as well as I do.
• The power of Skinadinkinaw!
• The "It Gets Better Project" and Dan Savage for changing so many lives.
• Russian Olive and Linden trees for being sweet enough to get me through the entire year.
• Orion standing watch over these Autumn skies.
• Facebook and the connections it has restored.
• Duncan, for his ability to say "I love you," for his voice and eyes, his delight and wisdom, for the miles we have walked and will continue to walk, for the courage he has taught me and the dreams he has encouraged, and for being with me, not only during the difficult days, but the kind ones as well.
• And, as always, A.A. Milne, who wrote, "And by and by Christopher Robin came to the end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop."

And I am thankful to all the people who have joined Duncan and me on our walks through this blog, who comment and email and love him as much as I do. You have all enriched my life in countless ways.

Blessings to you, this Thanksgiving Day. May they be too numerous to count.

Well

Summer seemed to end last Saturday when the weather turned from bright and almost unbearably hot to miserable and wet, gray with low clouds and a steady mist of rain. September, that wretched bitch of a month, took over with a dreary vengeance and my health followed suit.

 

I have been sick for the past several days and Duncan has had just about enough of it.

I am one of those people who chooses to bask in whichever bug has taken up residence in my body. I am not like my friend David, who gets dressed and goes about his day as though nothing is wrong, tending to chores and taking sensible care of himself. No, I am exactly like my friend Kevi, who, like me, has somehow managed to turn illness into an art-form. First I construct a nice little nest for myself on the couch, selecting only the softest pillows from my bed and a nice warm blanket to wrap myself in. On the coffee-table I assemble a wide variety of brightly-colored medicines, juices, water bottles, balms, ointments, tissues, syrups and inhalants, regardless of whether or not I plan on using them; their rainbow colors are somehow soothing and invigorating and it is comforting knowing they're there should I need them. I bring whatever book I'm reading and lay out several DVDs, usually television shows, which are quick and easy to watch and easier to fall asleep to and wake up without feeling as though I've missed anything. The blinds get drawn, the tea kettle is always on low, maintaining a nice steady simmer should my mug require a refill. The cats are invited to take up their perches on my hip and against my chest while Duncan nestles down on the floor below me and we all settle in for what always proves to be a miserably wonderful convalescence.

And then I proceed to moan. Moaning, regardless of whether or not anyone is close enough to hear, is a morbid and delightful remedy and I find I enjoy it very much. The cats don't seem to mind; in fact, sometimes it encourages them to be extra lovey and snugly. Even Dunc is kind enough to whimper along with me, occasionally finding the perfect harmony for an afternoon of misery.

After days of witnessing his papa languish on the couch, and nights hearing him gurgle and moan and sputter under a pile of pillows and scattered sheets and blankets, this evening he decided he'd had enough. The weather has turned nice, my cough has finally subsided and my fever seems to have settled down a bit so I humored him, climbed off the couch, scattering cats and tissues and vapor rubs in one quick motion, dressed myself in something other than sweats and a ratty t-shirt, and took him outside. He's been anxious to practice catching the muslin-covered Frisbee I bought him for his birthday so I donned a hoodie, grabbed his new toy and walked with him down The Run to The Glen. I wasn't feeling well enough to venture across the street to the park where the Soccer Hoards have assembled again, and where the frightful Columbine Marching Band has taken up their horrific mangling of music (and you all know how I feel about marching bands!) so we settled on the lip of the earthen bowl of The Glen, Duncan sprinting down one side, his head craned back keeping his eye on the Frisbee, then back up the other side to catch it (or not, as the case seems to be, although his aim is improving). The cool evening air felt wonderful and the last light of the sun was refreshing in my eyes and on my skin. Finally, when we'd both had enough of the Frisbee (it seems I need as much practice throwing the thing as he does catching it) he settled down in the cool grass and watched me close my eyes and turn my face into the setting sun. After a few minutes he ambled up beside me, pushed his cold nose against the palm of my hand and licked my wrist. I patted his head as a dragonfly zipped between us.

Duncan jumped after it, his tail high, his eyes wide with wonder, a delighted grin wide on his face.  I watched as the dazzling metallic green of its wings and its impossibly slender blue body darted back and forth around him until it came to a standstill before him, just above his nose. The two seemed to stare at each other for a long moment and I was reminded of that scene from Bambi, the one my grandmother quilted onto my baby blanket, with Bambi watching the butterfly flutter about before settling quietly onto his tail.

It was a lovely evening, and even though my chest still feels thick and heavy and my fever hasn't quite decided what it wants to do for the night, I believe I won't be moaning and Duncan will be content with the medicine he fed my spirit today.

Now and Forever

I remember many things and most of them are so clear and precise in their colors and textures, sounds and scents that often they sweep me away completely and leave me sitting or standing unmoving but wakeful and unable to discern what is past and what present. My childhood is frighteningly vivid, something that I feel so close to that at times its though I'm there––riding my little red tricycle around my Grandma Fuger's house in my terrycloth shorts and t-shirt, or playing alone in the cubby under the stairs in Grandma Rogers' dining room, or peddling my dirt bike across the hills behind our house on long summer afternoons. I know the names of each and every neighborhood friend who I wrangled into performing plays for our parents in my backyard. The rumble of our riding lawn mower is still a fresh tickle on my skin and the Miller Hi-Life scent of our backyard barbeques is as vivid as last night's dinner. I am consumed by memory and fear more than anything else losing a single one, forgetting some very simple bit of my past that has been like a precious gem to me all these years, something clutched tightly in my fist, leaving a mark that is red and deep and still the most beautiful and endearing of scars.

I do not know if there is a heaven, at least not in the traditional Christian sense of the word. More often than not I believe that just as in life, The Universe allows us to create our own perceptions of death. Whatever we believe in life is true in death, and so I cling to the idea that when I die I will be granted the power to revisit any day I choose, to sit with the ones I have loved so deeply, to talk with them again as I did all those years ago, to laugh and play with, to nap against, to set aside all the baggage of these days and receive and share again our pure, raw love.

There are times, late at night when I lay awake staring at the ceiling, or in the frigid cold of washed-out winter, when I feel very alone and confused as to how I got here, when I worry about never having the opportunity to play Follow the Judge with my friends in the ravine behind our homes, or never seeing Grandma's face on Christmas Day, sitting with my grandfather while he tied flies or riding in the car with Grandpa Rogers while we drove down the dusty two-lane highway between Firth and Shelley, or falling asleep on the patio under the stars with my sister, or driving from Pocatello to Denver with my mother when I was ten years old and listening to her tell stories about her own youth and all the adventures she had. At those sleepless times I recite my memories over and over in my head, summoning them and living them again, moving through them as quickly and as precisely as possible, hoping that this will not be the last time I hold and turn these precious gems in the palm of my hand.

And then there are evenings like this one, when Duncan pulls me down to the lake and around the path to each of the Russian Olives trees, which have opened their blossoms to me and have scuttled away the smoke that hovered over us yesterday, drowning out their power and the peace they bring. These are the times that I am reminded that memories reside in our brains right next door to the place that processes scent and all I have to do is close my eyes and breath deeply and I can travel to any place and time I have ever been and live there as clearly as I did all those days ago.

How perfect that I am doing it with my wise best friend, my guiding angel on this earth, taking communion in the little yellow flowers that have become the stepping stones of my life. Now and forever.

At Last

My year has been a difficult one, from that morning we were hit by the car to the evening five nights later when I learned my grandfather had passed away. Each time I sat at the computer to write I found only anger and sadness dancing from my fingertips and I tried to remember what my grandmother often told me, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

So I stayed away, discontent with my walks with Duncan, dwelling not on the peace the rhythm of our footfalls brought, but on the cold and isolation of winter, the lonely bitterness of the wind against my face, the ache in my back and chest. I wanted only to rush through those walks and return home to make a quick dinner and fall asleep before I could think more about the unhappy hand I'd been dealt in 2011.

And then this morning I awoke to discover I had no blog. It was gone. Completely and utterly. The words, "This blog has been removed" sat on my screen like roadkill on the street, unmoving and tragic, heavy and frightening both to look at and to look away from. Although I had ignored this outpost on the internet I had never been able to ignore the possibility and promise of returning there when the time was right. This morning that, too, seemed to have been taken from me.

Each walk with Duncan is done with wide eyes, open ears, my skin prickling with the sensations of weather and the deep concentration of remaining open and unfocused with every step we take. But this morning after we ambled down the hall together and I prepared his breakfast, my heart was broken with the thought that all those walks had somehow been lost and the thought of starting anew was overwhelming and more than I could consider. Google had closed my account, erased my email and negated four years of travel with my best friend. Chalk up another bitter win for 2011.

It was only at the end of the day when the blog had magically been restored and an immense sense of relief settled over me that I knew tonight was the night I'd come back, that Duncan would lead me to the comfort I've been seeking but ignoring.

The sky on the drive home was incredible, a shade of washed-out forgotten blue with the fading streaks of clouds so golden they burned white, twisting and dissipating above the mountains. I could not navigate the streets fast enough or find my way home quick enough. The butterflies fluttered in my belly and I could almost feel the familiar weight of Dunc's leash in my hand and the gentle tug of him guiding me through the night. I watched the fading contrails above the mountains change slowly from single, humble scratched lines into billowing plumes that elongated and thinned, smudged and reformed into new shapes entirely. One, bright with pink and orange-dazzled edges, twisted itself into a question mark that hung miles large and I felt all those questions I've been grappling with these past weeks bubble up to dance on and confuse my surface. It stayed there long after I got home, turning, eventually into a child's drawing of a wave, jagged and high-peaked with deep valleys and no place to rest. It stayed there long after the blue of the sky forgot how to be blue and turned to something else, after I changed into a pair of jeans and the soft green and gray short-sleeved flannel shirt of Grandpa's that mom gave me, donned my new walking shoes and let Duncan lead me down the stairs, across the street and to the tall hill above the lake where we could watch the last of the light leave the sky.

And while we sat there on the cement bench, Duncan somehow content to rest his shoulder against my leg while the warm breeze danced in the long hair around his ears, that single treacherous wave of a cloud flattened out into the nearly straight line of a calm and serene sea with Jupiter glowing just below it but still above the black line of the mountains. We sat a long time in the joyous and deserved warmth of this February evening, content for the first time in weeks and happy to have something good to say at last, and a place in which to say it.

A New Feather

It has been a difficult week and tomorrow Duncan and I will climb into the car  once again and make an unexpected return to Idaho. I have spent much of the day packing and cleaning, getting organized, running errands and grieving.

Last night my grandfather passed away, the last of my four grandparents, and my heart has been breaking ever since. Duncan was with me, on a walk through the dark and quiet when the call came. Almost immediately my good, red dog was at my side, standing so that his head stood even with my hand, gently resting his weight against my leg in reassurance, a reminder that he was there for me. The sky was brilliant and clear and vast in a way it hasn't been as of late, and as my mother and I cried softly and tried to be brave, I tilted my head back, turning my face into the darkness above. "Look for that new bright star," Mom told me. And so I spent much of last night doing exactly that, standing with Dunc in the dark watching the heavens, wondering what a world without grandparents would feel like.

My grandfather was an amazing man and I wish I could have introduced each of you to him. Perhaps, in a way, I did when I wrote about him several years ago. He would've made you laugh even if you didn't want to. And so tomorrow as Dunc and I drive the six-hundred miles back home, I'll be thinking of all those stories and laughing even when it seems so hard, smiling against the bland miles of Wyoming, through the winding snow-covered hills of southeast Idaho until I arrive home and can receive the hugs I've been sorely missing these past few days.

But we won't be alone. Grandma and Grandpa will be with us. Perhaps all four of my grandparents will be there, magic feathers, strong and light and able to carry us across the distance to the home they built on the edge of the Idaho desert, to the family they loved so very much.

Grandma's Christmas Village

There is one place I would love to take Duncan for a walk, but we can only get there at Christmas and only because my grandmother––who loved Christmastime more than any other time of year, and worked tirelessly to ensure it was as magical for her children and grandchildren as it was for her––built it with her own two hands. You won't find it on any map for no roads leads there. The only compass that will lead you there is a willingness to open your heart–– if only for one day––and allow your imagination to see the world as you did when you were very small and new to the world.

My grandmother was a woman who always needed something to do, be it quilting baby blankets for each of her grandchildren, constructing magical hot-air balloons from mesh and yarn, redecorating the house every few years, fishing with my grandfather, and then finally assembling the Christmas village that took a decade to build, although I'm sure if she was she still with us it would have continued to grow and expand as all good places should.

While many people have a Christmas village none compare to Grandma's. She hand-painted every piece––all one hundred twenty buildings––and all of the snow-covered trees that filled it. At first it was only a few houses and shops, but over the years it grew and grew and finally my grandfather was summoned to build a mountain, which he did because he wanted to make her happy and loved her more than anything, even fishing and tying flies. Each year the mountain rose up, nearly six feet high, in their front room, comprised of ten street levels. It was wired so that each home lit up as though the occupants were gathering for Christmas dinner. The Dickensian street lamps in front of the houses glowed a soft orange and cast warm pools of light in the cottony snow at their bases. A vast night sky hung overhead with mirrored stars and a miniature Santa in his sleigh, with all the reindeer, flying overhead. Down below, at the base, a farmhouse and livestock looked out over a long train track that wound in a circle, around it. An electric train chugged across it, vanishing into a tunnel on one side only to emerge a few moments later on the other.

It was remarkable feat, the pride of all her hard work and hobbies, and each year when we arrived on Christmas day, she would take me by the hand and lead me into the front room to visit the village and show me all the new additions, not just to the mountain but to her entire collection spread throughout the house, from the crystal snowman and woman who ice skated to the bells she hung in the door that played the most magnificent Christmas songs.

Grandma's death was the hardest thing I have ever endured and although my heart broke the morning she passed, I could not help but wonder how Christmas could ever be the same. The village was divided up among her children and grandchildren, never to be complete again. My portion, though, means more to me than anything else I own, and when I assemble it and turn on those lights I can't help but imagine trudging through its snowy street with Duncan, stopping in the cafe for a cup of hot chocolate, hearing the bell on the door ring when we enter the pet store, smelling the warm coffee and deep woody scent of the bookstore, listening to the bells toll in the church steeple that rises above the duck pond where the geese flock. Duncan's tags would jingle on his leash like silver bells and no one would mind my whistling "The Carol of the Bells," my favorite Christmas carol, as we peeked in the shop windows and waved to the people inside their warm, cozy homes as they draped garland on their trees or placed the star on top.

 

This is my seventh Christmas without Grandma but looking at my piece of the great village she created and sitting in the dark with Duncan while I envision our walk through it, has kept her Christmas spirit very much alive. Sometimes, in the house she painted with her address, which sits front and center, next to the big tree that lights up with a hundred tiny bulbs, I imagine I can see her there, back in the kitchen making divinity and fudge, preparing the dill bread she knew I loved so much, wiping her fingers on her apron at the sight of me outside her window.

"Merry Christmas, Curtie," she would say.

"Merry Christmas, Grandma," I would beam as we leaned in to hug and kiss each other on the cheek.

And then she would take me by the hand, pull me inside and lead me around to see the red and green and golden magic she loved so much.

Merry Christmas, Grandma. I miss you.

Lilacs and Forgiveness

I was not a good papa tonight. Not only did Pip spend the day locked in the bedroom closet, where he'd wandered this morning while my back was turned, curling up in a tight little ball on the clean linens, but I was late getting home as well. I'd planned to leave work a few minutes early but once outside I spotted a small lilac bush and insisted on crawling through the shrubs to pick off a small sprig of fragrant purple flowers. I realized I hadn't had an opportunity to enjoy them this Spring and had just been lamenting the fact that I'd probably missed my chance for another year. When I saw them I couldn't resist and once I had them in my hand I held them close to my face, breathing in the scent which reminds me of my childhood and my grandmother. Driving home I felt nostalgic and eventually found myself at my previous job visiting for a long time with old colleagues.

It was nearly eight o'clock before I got home, long overdue. Dunc was sitting on the bed in the window, wiggling and yelping as though he thought I'd abandoned him forever. I carried my things up the stairs, my tiny clutch of lilac pinched in my curled fist. No sooner had I opened the door than Duncan jumped up on me, knocking the flowers to floor where he tromped joyously all over them, smashing them and scattering the tiny petals across the tile and carpet. I scooped them up and held them to my face one last time, thinking of Grandma and the smell of her yard all those years ago.

I leashed up Roo and took him outside. He pulled me downstairs and tended to business almost immediately. It was a long time before he was ready and when he was he knew where to go. We sidestepped the park and ventured down into Leawood. A warm wind came up, churning the leaves in the trees and waving across the long grass. Duncan kept pausing and turning his face into it, closing his eyes a moment in rapturous glee. Then he'd stare at the sky and the miles-tall cumulonimbus cloud which looked like the curled hand of an old woman, soft and white, wrinkled and cottony. Time and time again he did this, pausing to watch the cloud, which slowly unfurled, the fist relaxing, the fingers straightening and the palm opening to the fading gold of the sun like the secret insides of a flower. Ignoring the places he knows the bunnies congregate he pulled me down the street as though leading me in a specific direction. When we finally turned the corner across from the elementary school he stopped in front of a tall copse of white and purple lilacs, a mountain of them, all still new and wonderfully fragrant. He sat, turned his face skyward and seemed to smile at the cloud which had flattened out, one long finger pointing at us, to the place he'd led me where the lilacs still bloomed.

He sat quietly at my feet while I gathered a small handful, carefully plucking each and holding them to my nose, breathing in the memory of years passed. I don't know how long I stood there, eyes closed. The sun had drifted below the horizon and the clouds in the north and west had smeared across the sky, sparking with distant lightning. When he knew I was ready Duncan stood, stretched and led me back home, waiting patiently for dinner while I filled a small glass with water in which to place my treasure.

He's sitting at my feet now, licking my ankles and occasionally glancing up at the flowers resting next to me on the end table.

Pippin won't have anything to do with me, of course, and is no doubt planning the most opportune moment to retch on my pillow. It would be a bad thing but the lilacs somehow make it better before it's even happened.

Purpose

I awoke to a gray sky peeking in my window this morning. Duncan was curled next to me, his chin resting comfortably on my feet, one paw draped over my leg. I was slow to rouse, blinking away the sleep and dreams, warm under my comforter and snug with the cats curled against my chest. Dunc yawned and stretched his legs out far before him, rolled onto his belly and pushed himself up, wobbly and unsteady as his weight stirred the mattress, causing the springs to groan as he jumped down onto the warm carpet. He did his morning yoga, leaning far forward into downward dog, then coming up, arching his back and craning his head into the cobra.

I peeked through the vertical blinds and saw it was snowing, soft small flakes brushing past the window. I shook my head and sat up, scattering the cats as I dropped my feet to the floor. Duncan brushed against me, his cold nose on my naked calf raising goosebumps across my body. I shook my head as I pulled on my socks and jeans, telling him, "If it weren't for you, Roo, the snow would never touch Papa."

There are two things I have no use for: football and snow, and it just so happened that today was a day for both. We walked this morning, me tight and huddled up into myself, Duncan joyous and grinning as the flakes alighted on his face, bleaching his eyebrows and long snout. We walked again this afternoon while the laundry spun. And again tonight while the rest of the world sat transfixed before their televisions.

It was a quiet night and the snow continued to fall as we moved through the darkness and down the street, the soft crunch of it beneath our feet the only sound. There were no cars out and in the silence I couldn't help but feel as though it was Christmas Eve, when my hometown shuts down and no one ventures out. The snow was still coming in flakes that could hardly be called flakes. I could barely see them unless we passed beneath a streetlamp where they wafted about like gnats on a summer night, or like brilliant golden dust moats that dance in a sunbeam, the kind my grandmother told me were angels fluttering about us, keeping us safe. I could feel the snow on my face, though, cold and minuscule on my cheeks, refreshing on my eyelids. The air was clean and Duncan and I could not help but stop and turn our faces upward into the clouds, into the lazy fall of snow, into the vast quiet night spread out above us.

There is a use and purpose for all things, even those we are quick to dismiss, and especially those we strive to avoid.

Season of The Goose

With last night's abundant snow came the geese. They have gathered like a blanket upon spread out upon another blanket in the golf course behind my apartment where their bodies melt warm shapes into the snow and their feet leave strange, alien tracks. They were kind enough to whisper amongst themselves throughout their arrival last night. I imagined as each new group alighted on the far side of the drift-laden hill they murmured and gathered like family coming together in a hospital room, anxious and relieved to see familiar faces but pensive, almost afraid to breathe. They awoke early, though, and were unable to contain their silence any longer. Their voices rose over the deafening hush of the snow, which falls louder than you think if only you listen. The sound of it blowing and catching the air, then striking the earth, bending the grass, folding over the naked tree limbs is almost thunderous.

Their voices pulled me from sleep early this morning when the light was still too weak to venture far into the room, but seeped in timidly through the slats in the blinds. With my eyes closed and my face half buried beneath two pillows and a pile of blankets I felt certain I'd dreamed my life, that I was three or four and curled up in Grandma's bed on Christmas morning, the sound of Grandma, my mother and The Aunts drinking their coffee and planning the Christmas dinner a pleasant and glorious call from bed. I blinked awake, the voices from the past slipping into goose chatter from the hollow, snowy morning outside.

It is a deep snow and as Duncan and I struggled through it, I wondered how the geese were fairing, if their bodies were submerged beneath waves of white with only their long, periscope necks and wicked little faces visible above the drifts. As the light came on and the falling snow began to wane their babbling increased, almost desperately, and then suddenly from the north came a surge of wings and echoed cries as they took flight, breaking through the low clouds and then coming back down in a long, sweeping arc. Duncan and I stopped on the hillside and watched them as they flew low overhead, three or four hundred of them, their voices occasionally joining into a single long note, then shattering like glass which fell around us, mixing with the snow washing up against our feet.

We heard them long after they passed and in silence we seemed to come to the same resigned conclusion: Autumn is gone. The time of winter is upon us. Our walks will not be easy.

A Walk with Grandma

It was warm today with a donut sky, a big swath of blue ringed by a wide band of clouds which seemed content to swirl around us without ever quite swallowing our patch of sunshine. It was windy, however. A cold wind, the kind that left the fetal folds of my ears feeling bruised and as heavy as stone while the tender pink insides stung and throbbed as though they'd been filled with sand or angry bees. It was a grimacing wind, forcing a pained and rabid smile across my face and my teeth still ache as though I've bitten straight down into hard vanilla ice cream. Even the bottoms of my feet, which were covered by heavy socks and thick rubber soles, are cold, especially the very tips of my big toes. I wonder, on walks like this, when the wind has stripped and plucked the weakest branches from the trees, scattering them across the brittle yellow grass, how Duncan can love it so much, how his tender paws––which feel like soft, stern pillows against my cheeks when we cuddle or wrestle–– can be strong enough to endure the rough cold of the road or the bite of the twigs as they snap beneath him. But there is joy in each step he takes, joy and work, and that's what got me thinking about the hardest walk I've made.

Today would've been my grandmother's eightieth birthday. As Duncan and I trudged across the park, leaning into and cursing the wind even as I said a quiet blessing for the sunshine, which has only recently reappeared on our evening walks, I thought of my last walk with Grandma, which was probably the most important walk we shared. She was an expert at walking and taught me an appreciation for the slow journey and all the unfoldings it can offer our senses. Unlike the rest of my family, I never really enjoyed fishing, unless, of course, I landed one. On most of our family outings Grandma kept me occupied, making the best peanut butter and raspberry sandwiches I've ever had, telling long stories about my mother and uncles, the farm they'd all lived on when the family was young and new, the animals they'd loved and cared for. And we'd walk. While Grandpa was fly-fishing downstream of us, Grandma would lead me down a rutted dirt road, the thick smell of mint rising up as loudly as the horse flies and cicadas which droned insanely from their unseen perches in the trees and undergrowth. It was on those walks she taught me to be vigilant for the deer, which became a sort of trademark of our bond. She taught me to listen and to hum and to tell stories with her.

Her death was a very difficult experience for me but when I was asked to deliver her eulogy I was able to take the lessons she'd taught me and share them with the rest of the family. It was an excruciatingly hot July day so I retreated to my special spot in the mountains south of Pocatello, climbed a hill and settled down under a tall pine on a low rock with a bed of cracked and broken shale spread out around me. With only the sound of the bees and the breeze running down the valley before me, I found the kind of words I think Grandma would've been proud of, words which as hard as they were to speak, brought a silent and tremendous joy to my heart.

It was the last walk which was the most difficult. I hadn't expected to be a pallbearer, and was shocked to see my name included on the list of cousins at the bottom of the program. It was not something I wanted to do and rebelled at the thought. Writing and speaking the eulogy, keeping my composure when all I wanted to do was shout and cry, seemed more than enough for one person to do. I could not imagine carrying her coffin to its spot on the hillside which overlooked the valley where she grew up. I refused and threw what was the last tantrum of my adult life, until my friend Mike called and explained that I should look on it as an honor, to carry her on the last walk we would share. And so I did it, my cousins at my side. We lifted the casket from the car and moved solemnly across the grass to her spot in the shade under a tall tree. I remember each and every step we took and the weight, not just of her dazzling white casket, but of every memory and emotion I carried with me on that hot afternoon, of the faces gathered around watching, the hands clasped tightly together, the heat and perspiration running in a straight line from my collar down my spine.

Duncan entered our lives shortly after my grandmother died and I have been walking nearly every day since, not with the same heaviness of heart, but with the same attention to detail Grandma inspired in me on all those walks all those years ago. And on days like today, when the sun is bright but the wind in our faces is bitter and ornery, when every thought somehow finds its way back to the absence of her, I can take comfort in the details, in humming a little song as I go, in the light dancing through and playing with the wild hair at Duncan's ears and the curls across his back. There is solace and peace in every step we take.

While Walking in Dreams

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life? (Mary Oliver)

The grass is golden and tall, reaching nearly to my hip, and in some places where perhaps water has pooled and trickled through shallow channels, it rises even taller, to the middle of my chest, reaching with spindly fingers to the soft place just beneath my arms where it hopes to coax and tickle a smile from my lips. But I am not smiling, not entirely, only the smile of one who walks with his face pointed directly into the sun, squinted and necessary, almost uncomfortable were it not for the joy of the heat kissing my cheeks and lips. The sky is blue, cool and frosty, not Summerish in its delight, but tinted and artificial, distant, something that clings, like dust motes in the thick air of a tightly cluttered space. My hands are flat out at my sides and my passing stirs the long grass around me, the tall blades reach up to brush against the flat warm terrain of my palms, a map of valleys and canyons, wide plains, forgotten winding paths that end subtly, vanishing as the last song on an album fades further and deeper into silence. There is a soft wind, and although the field around me stirs and undulates, rising and falling in wide waves, there is no sound, just the sound of my feet on the earth and my breath in my ears. My pocket is heavy and deep with a few of the things I hold most precious. When I reach into it my fingers are able to discern the names of the things without pulling them free for my eyes to dance across: the sound of a flock of night-flying geese skimming the upper surface of a low cloud beneath which I stand, the silver shimmer of mist caught in low clumps of wet morning grass, the fat round face of a full moon peeking through the clouds on the eastern horizon, the spearmint and perfume scent of my grandmother's purse, a photo of Ken's shadow-dappled face taken on the bank of the river up Boulder Canyon, the color of my mother's yard under the Christmas lights, the rabid laughter of Kevi when she's on a roll and the gentle hmmmm of Ruth when she listens to me talk of fears and sadness, every word written by Mary Oliver, the steps of the kittens when they climb onto my back, turn in a circle and settle down in tight little balls between my shoulder blades. The other pocket is empty so there is plenty of room for the scent of the Linden and Russian Olive trees, the bounce of the road on my bike ride to work, the feeling of Ken's hand in mine, the bubbled laughter and songs of the children I may or may not get to have, shooting stars and the wishes bound to them. When my fingers fumble in all that empty space my pace quickens, the walk becomes a jog and then a crouching run and from somewhere close by I hear a steady rush, movement through the grass, which seems to whisper my location and give me away. I smile and run harder, one hand clutching the pocket, careful to keep the call of the geese safely tucked inside. I stumble but the grass catches me, is cool against my face, a thousand tiny fingers massaging my scalp, the back of my arms, stealing peeks down my collar. The rushing is close, coming faster and I give up crawling and hiding and roll onto my back, the blue of the air obscured by the gold of the grass, and then Duncan has found me, his tongue big and pink, his eyes brown and joyous as they push through the field, dragging the rest of him behind. He sees me, does that little leap of his where his front feet leave the ground for only a moment, as if dancing, and then falls onto my chest, the long red hair at his neck pushing into my face, his scent filling my nostrils, the cold of his nose a chill across my neck into my ear.

And as the dream ends I think, there are many things I want, and may even need, but for now I am content in the love of such a good dog.

Something Happened

The wind on the edge of the foothills is not kind. Even in the Summer, when the air is hot and feels like a force pushing against each step you take, the wind will rise up, lash the clouds and blow searing dust and grass clippings into your face. But now, when my corner of the world is comprised of varying shades of yellow and gray, the wind is merciless. We have new snow, a dry pebbled kind of snow, each flake a chip of sharpened rock whittled into a fine razored and blood-hungry point and the wind loves nothing more than to toss it about, fling it with haphazard precision in every direction imaginable, so that even when I walk with my back to it, the crystals still find their way into my face and down my collar onto my neck and chest, defying all my careful zipping up and buttoning and scarf wrapping. It is a curious wind and wants to know every inch of me, its fingers reaching out and touching me all over as though to form a recognizable image on its blind eyes.

There is so little to love about this time of year. Color has been bleached from the world, taking with it all the joy and glory I worked so hard to stockpile last May. Walking and breathing are painful and only the sky––clearer than at any other time of the year––offers consolation, however distant and removed. I hate January, with its geese and their gummy green shit and the wind and bland skies, air devoid of even the most pleasant of scents, the brief days and endless nights, for my cold feet, aching back and dry skin.

After the sun had set and darkness had returned we ventured across the street to the park. On the far side of the baseball diamonds, we turned directly into the wind and Duncan's tail flapped above him in time to the flags mounted on the fences which lashed loudly in the wind over our heads. The snow crept over the sidewalk and rushed at us like clouds or waves and I had to turn my face down, shut my eyes and clench my teeth just to keep going. Duncan pulled on the leash, leading my through it, and with each step I found myself thinking, "How did I get here? How did this happen? This is not the life I imagined, water skiing behind a dog in blowing snow in some Denver suburb after working all day at a ridiculous job for embarrassingly incompetent students at a community college, all the while dreaming of flying and never quite getting my feet off the ground. Something must have happened. I must have been pushed because I would not have chosen this for all the world." The voice in my head sounded like the narrator of Joseph Heller's second novel Something Happened, a painfully relentless and unforgiving book about a man who sees absolutely no joy in his life and is not only unable to change it, but refuses even to acknowledge his responsibility in its outcome. It's the kind of book I urge people to read when they think they can't feel any worse. "There's rock-bottom," I say, "and then there's Something Happened."

Duncan led me to the long, wide soccer field which runs parallel to Bowles. A very crisp but fine layer of snow rushed across its surface, erasing my feet as I plodded through it, shoulders hunched, chin pressed against my throat. I dropped Duncan's leash and without a pause he darted away at a full run, threw himself into the wind, his head raised high, a smile pulled across his glowing face. He spun in the air, came down on his side and rolled right into the blowing snow, pulling it over him, robbing it of its bite. I watched, startled, as the world around him lit up. The snow became clouds and the dark stationary yellowed grass turned into a barely visible earth far-below, speeding beneath us as we soared overhead. The sky erupted with stars, first Venus, then Orion and then the myriad others whose names and shapes I don't know. I turned my face skyward and even though the night was dark, I caught sight of a large flock of geese flying high above the hill, turning only briefly toward the lake, then splintering into two groups who battled for supremacy over the other as they headed over the fields and across the street toward the golf course. They were high, their bodies buffeted by the wind, only their pale bellies visible, painted electric orange by the street lamps glowing beneath them. As they struggled and twisted, turning back on themselves and plummeting momentarily before finding their way again, they looked like burning cinders riding the currents of air as they floated and faded away. I caught my breath and watched long after they had gone, not even their voices catching in my ears. Duncan ran circles around me, his leash bouncing behind him, so I spread out my arms and ran after him, flying in my own way, chasing and being chased,

The truth is I am not as happy as I imagined, but who is? I am still happy. I am about to celebrate my thirteenth anniversary with Ken. We have four beautiful children, a safe home and memories and dreams we have built around one another. I do not have the job I want, but I am thankful to have a job, especially in these uneasy times. I am healthy and have good friends and a wonderful family and would wander aimless without them. I am earthbound, but my dreams are not, and my dog taught me tonight that running through the wind and snow can be more like flying than I ever would've thought possible. Something did happen, and even though it is January and there are no safe places to walk amid the goose droppings, I am thankful for every breath I take.

"I know at last what I want to be when I grow up.
When I grow up I want to be a little boy."
(Joseph Heller, Something Happened)

Softly, Deer

Last night after a good meal made by Kevin, warm family chats in front of the fire and Mom's Christmas lights glowing all around us, the hum of the road faded from my back and palms and Duncan and I slipped into the back room to sleep. Mom had loaded the bed with extra blankets because she knows I like to sleep warm while my face is cool above the covers. After I changed into my pajamas she knocked on the door and whispered, "Curt, if you look out the window there's a herd of deer in the backyard." I turned out the light and very softly, without making a sound, pulled the blinds. Six deer had arranged themselves in two tight clusters across the slope of the hill directly behind the house, not ten feet from my window. Their heads were down as they sifted through the snow in search of grass and the last of mom's summer and fall plants.

I watched them a moment, thinking of all the times Grandma and I had cuddled on the top bunk in her camper watching the deer move through the camp. It was a special thing for us, keeping our eyes on the hillsides or along the edge of the road in the tall sage or amid the lodge pole pines where they stood nearly invisible. Deer were always a special bond between Grandma and me. In fact, when I was born she made me a blanket on which was sewn a butterfly dancing in the air inches above Bambi's twitching tail. That film became a favorite of ours and she even bought me the soundtrack on vinyl, which I still have. Even when I lived in Chicago, where the deer are plentiful--and even a bit of a hazard--on the north shore, I always marveled at them, even when they galloped across narrow Sheridan Road in front of Cleo, my little red Nissan Sentra. Deer are symbols of gentleness and grace, unconditional love, the power of gratitude and also alternative paths to a goal. Those gathered in the yard outside my window, with their white bottoms and big ears, were my reward for the journey we made yesterday, Grandma's joy at my return home to celebrate the holiday she loved so much in the mountains where we were born.

Duncan had already curled up on the pillow where I planned to sleep, so I nudged him and called him to the window. He climbed to his feet with a soft groan and leaned forward, resting his paws on the sill where he watched them in rapt attention, his own ears raised, his tail swishing softly against the comforter from side to side. I stood next to him, my hand on his shoulders, and we watched them for more than an hour, the pale glow of the moon washing across the mountain, bathing the backyard in powder white. Finally I climbed under the covers and as I fell asleep Duncan stood guard, whining very quietly when they took cautious steps around the saplings, growling once or twice when they approached the window to peek in. And when I awoke this morning he was curled up next to me, spooned against my back, one paw draped over my shoulder.

Unconditional love and graitude.

Grandpa's Poetry

My grandfather is the kind of man by which I measure all others. It seems there was nothing he could not do or figure out. As a child I was fascinated by him, by the stories he told and the sound effects he injected throughout, the beeps and toots and whistles. He is a natural musician, playing the guitar, singing in his smooth tenor voice, learning the harmonica in only a day. It was my grandfather who taught me to whistle, and despite the fact that I whistle almost constantly, I will never be half as good as he is in his sleep. He knows how to fix things like cars and sinks and showers and toilets. He is an outdoors man and many of my earliest memories of him are centered around camping trips and fishing excursions or the places in-between, when he would set me on his lap and let me drive the turquoise green truck we took on so many of those trips, keeping a careful finger at the bottom of the steering wheel as I was hardly big enough to see over the dashboard. Grandma was kind enough to feign fear and cover her eyes as she squealed. But it thrilled me and Grandpa always made me feel capable and brave and I loved nothing more than when he'd rest his heavy hand on my shoulder and call me "son." He is a hunter with a tremendous love and respect for the wild places of the world. For as long as I can remember, when asked what he'd want if I were to become rich and famous he's said he wants a helicopter to take him to the most beautiful and remote places in Alaska where he could stand in a cold stream and fly-fish all day. When I was very young and got to spend a week with my grandparents, Grandpa and I had a routine that began the moment he walked up the front step. I would hide somewhere in the house and he would spend long minutes, tired and smelling of grease and the bus he rode across the desert to and from the I.N.E.L. where he worked, tromping back and forth through the kitchen and living room, down the hall to the narrow closet where Grandma kept the vacuum, peeking behind couches and under tables looking for me. I'd stay put, giggling into a clenched fist and chirping like a bird or squeaking like a mouse to attract his attention, and he would pretend not to see me, standing almost on top of me until I leapt out at him. He'd stumble back in shock and then hug me tight, tickling my ribs as he held me. And then, after he'd cleaned up, changing into a simple white t-shirt, he'd carry me downstairs in his arms and lead me through the family room to the stuffed antelope and deer heads mounted on the wall, which I would pet somewhat apprehensively, staring at my own reflection in their glassy black eyes. Then he'd lead me to the bobcat hide, tanned and hanging above the couch, which I would run my fingers through while Grandpa meowed softly in my ear. Then he'd set me down on the bearskin rug and let me peer into the eyes and open mouth of the thing, poke at the place its tongue should have been, trace the lines of its teeth. That mothball-scented basement family room is where I learned to love my grandfather and I think that was because it was his space. Grandma could do whatever she wanted with the rest of the house, changing and rearranging the furniture, making new curtains and drapes, painting, buying new lamps and fixtures, but the basement was his. It was where he kept his trophies, his hunting equipment, including the elk calls he'd occasionally let me blow into. Most importantly, though, it was where he kept the jars.

There were shelves and shelves of them, mostly old peanut butter jars, the glass kind, family-sized and heavy, thick so that when you peered into them their contents blurred and warped and refused to reveal themselves except by the red or green punch labels Grandpa had made and attached to the places where Grandma had washed away the paper Skippy or Jif labels. Elk, grouse, pheasant, skunk, they read; beaver, mule deer, roadkill, on and on, every manner of creature. And in those jars were bits of hide, colorful feathered wings, tails he'd collected. I spent many hours leaning over the arms of the rough-textured couch behind his work station, watching him open them and withdraw bits which he always let me stroke or caress with the back of my hand, fascinated not only by what they'd once been but also by what they were about to become. I don't know how he did it, but he spent hours extracting pieces of fur or strands of feather which he wrapped around a hook and mounted on a vice and spun and spun until after long hours he'd produced a bright and beautiful lure for his fly-fishing trips. My eyes lit up at the transformation and I wanted to throw my arms around him and congratulate him on his magic. Nothing was more wondrous than his ability to change one thing--something so alien, disconnected as it was from the thing it had been--into something luminous and more alive than all those heads and skins hanging from the walls around us. My grandfather could spin gold! And there is nothing I wouldn't give to sit in that basement and see him do it again.

This morning at the park Duncan followed close, almost behind me, near to my body, watching me as though waiting for something, his eyes wide and head slightly cocked, ears up. His ball was at home where he'd dropped it in all his excitement and bum-shimmying in front of the door while waiting for me to leash him up. I had nothing to throw his way. and held out my empty hands for him to see. He did a little prancing hop at me as though I was hiding something which he'd discovered and wanted. But I had nothing. Scanning the ground I spotted a large branch which had broken free of the naked and sickly elm above us. Moving quickly I snapped off the last brittle four feet of the thing. Duncan plopped down hard, his tail wagging beneath him, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Hardly able to contain themselves, his front paws danced in place as I worked, peeling the smaller leafy twigs off the main branch, shucking them and dropping them at my feet, until I'd finally fashioned the perfect throwing stick, smooth and nearly nub-free. As I tossed it across the park, watching it spin and arc in the air while Duncan chased after it, his head craned back and his tail sticking straight out, I thought of Grandpa and his flies, his taking and making, the way he taught me, without knowing it, how to write poetry and how to move through this life, looking at things exactly as they are but also seeing them for what they could be, should be. In my mind those flies, those scraps of long-dead animals and birds, are still humming and darting over the speckled lakes and rivers of southeast Idaho, more alive in their tethered flight than I could have imagined peering into their peanut butter jar-kennels.

I do not know how to tie flies, and despite Grandpa's best efforts, I never managed to catch anything fly-fishing next to him on the south fork of the Snake River. There are many things my grandfather knows which I will never be able to do but his whistle is not the only thing I've inherited. I can turn branches in flying toys and fulfill the dreams of my own "son."