Sweet Silence

Mornings after a storm are good for walking, good because the grass, which has not been mowed for a week, is long and is beginning to bend forward over itself, and when you walk through it, catching the moisture on the toes of your shoes, your footprints leave a deep trail behind you like the wake of a heavy ship that has cut through still, reflective water. Only a few scant remnants of last night's gale remain––thunderheads tall and wide but whispy as they dissipate to nothing over the unending grasses and silence of the eastern plains. The storm sent the world to bed early. Duncan and I strolled the grounds before it broke, watching and listening as the little birds swept frantically from dense tree to tree searching for the perfect spot to ride out the winds and the big drops which made a smacking sound as they struck the earth. The lightning rocked the clouds and the thunder was heavy and insistent but high up so the ground never quite shook even though it wanted to. The last of the sun's rays were trapped beneath the dense gray, reflecting off the moisture in the air and painting our faces, and the world, in golden hues.

The sun was not even up yet when we ventured out this morning. The birds suspected the promise of its arrival but only the trees seemed to remember it, their highest branches stretched upward and out, reaching for the first meager beams of light and warmth as they slid over the rooftops. There is a silence after a good storm that only the clouds of morning gnats appreciate as they hover low over the grass and crowd among the bottommost branches of the maples and ash trees that run along the fence-line. But Duncan and I appreciated the quiet as well as we slipped down The Run, ambling side by side, breathing the rich fragrance of morning and moisture and the newness of the day before the traffic sounds, the machine wails of the mowers and blowers and trimmers and the heat of the day sweep it all away.

Sweet silence is such a rapturous thing.

Not One, But Three

At long last I was able to coax this strangely stubborn boy of mine into showing off his new mad skills. It's the one "trick" he's resisted learning after all these years. And he's never been reluctant to show off (he gets that from me), so I'm not sure what the holdup has been, but finally, for your praise and approval I submit Duncan the Rolling Retriever...

Every Precious Moment

My mother lost her Russian Olive earlier this spring. It was an enormous and stately thing, older and taller than any I've seen around these parts. Most young trees are reedy things that look like willowy, untamed and stubborn weeds, but Mom's tree was tall and wide, with branches that swept out low and long over the grass on the northern side of her beautiful yard. It's trunk was thick and gnarled and the boughs swayed softly in the wind, a perfect tree for laying beneath and watching the blue of the sky and the wisps of southeastern Idaho clouds meander lazily above its branches. Mom was heartsick and cried when they had to take it down but its roots had grown so large and had fanned out so wide that they were cracking and splintering the driveway and threatening the foundation under the garage. It was my favorite Russian Olive and looking at the empty spot in her yard when I return home later this summer will be a bit like touching your tongue to the place where a tooth used to reside.

There is one tree here, not far down The Run and on the golf course side of the fence, that has captured my attention. It is not a large thing, and I doubt it will grow much taller, but its branches have exploded in an abundance of dusty green leaves and tiny, yellow flowerlings, their color unmatched by all the other trees, grasses and blossoms combined. When my office windows are open its perfume drifts inside and fills my apartment with its heady lemony, butter-mint fragrance, hypnotic and sweet, never obtrusive. Last night after Ken and the animals fell asleep, I laid awake in my bed, eyes closed while I listened to the quiet slumbering around me and to the soft whisperings of the chimes on the patio as a quiet breeze danced with the tree and lured its scent through my windows where it could flutter softly around my head until I was sated and dreams took me. In the morning the perfume lingered on my pillow and I was a long time pulling myself from beneath the covers and outside where I could sip my tea and watch the color come into the sky from my patio.

Duncan and I strolled past it this morning and I thought, "Certainly it cannot become any more wondrous or beautiful. Surely there is a limit to such things, even in the wilds of nature." But this evening on our walk I could not help but stop and marvel at it again while Duncan sat in front of an open window and panted at one of Jeffrey's stray's kittens sitting wide-eyed on the sill batting playfully at him through the screen. I turned my back on him and breathed and breathed and breathed some more, the kind of smell that somehow manages not to dissipate but to grow stronger and more honeyed with each slow intake of breath. The gold of the petals caught the sun and reflected in my eyes where they were committed to memory.

I have them for only two weeks a year and will relish every precious moment they grace my life.

When I die, I want to be planted under a Russian Olive whose roots can embrace me while the voice of the summer wind can sing sweet lullabies to me until long after my name and the sound of my whistle have been forgotten.

Impressions of the Blue Hour

So let it roll like thunder
With its deafening tones
Let it take away
All the words as they’re spoke
Like the muted voice of the rain
Through the blue hour
I can still hear you

(The Blue Hour, Liza Jane)

After an unexpected nap that crept up on me from the pages of the book I was reading earlier this evening, the three cats curled around me like warm balls of bread dough and Duncan snoring patiently at the side of the bed, I slipped on my shoes and took Roo out into the blue hour, that magical time of night when the world is dim and the light uncertain, when you must trust yourself to senses other than your eyes and allow yourself to be vulnerable to poetry and wakeful dreams.

The street was quiet and so I could hear the soft pad of Duncan's footfalls on the grass and the gentle chink of the tag on his collar bouncing with each slow step we took. Duncan seemed to relish it as much as I and watching him––or the dark shape of him ahead of me and low to the ground––I saw that we were aware of the same things, turning our heads in their direction: the crack of a baseball hitting a bat across the street at the park, followed by the cries of the spectators there, and beneath that, the rhythmic cheh-cheh-cheh of the sprinklers winding back and forth on their springs from the golf course. A bat fluttered overhead, its path spastic and clumsy and the swish of its wings as it swooped low past us impetuous and frantic, an echo of the very small and hurried flight of the ducks in the early hours of morning. The day had cooled and the air was filled with countless flying gnats and mosquitoes risen up from the freshly cut and sweet smelling mounds of grass underfoot, their touch against my face and arms as we passed among their populous clouds cobwebs strung along the hallway of this night. A frog cree-cree-creed in the reeds along the back fence and, unsure of our intentions, splashed into the water and was silenced like a sinking stone. The perfume from the Russian Olives was heady and rich and as devoted as the fragrance of a lover calling from bed. But there was also the scent of today's mowings, the fabric softener sheet air blowing softly from the drier vents on the side of the buildings and the sumptuous scent of the evening barbeques. In the fading light of the west, the dark shape and wide wings of an owl caught the last of the light and slipped into the dark tree-lined horizon.

There were countless other things, too, unseen but sensed, caught and hidden in the day's last blue, things only known when you walk among them, a loyal and kind friend at your side, rising up and fading low around us as we passed, rolling away like thunder.

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.

A Crimson Glow and a Lesson in Patience

I have been keeping my eyes and nose on the blooming Russian Olive trees that line Bowles and the ones that grow up along the trail around the lake. Friday evening Duncan and I ventured down there for a stroll around the unmoving water and were delighted to discover the tiny yellow butter-mint-scented flowers were beginning to bud but had not yet opened up. The sage-colored leaves were dusty and long but offered no smell whatsoever, even when I scooped them up in my hands and pressed my face into them. I figured a few more days and they'd be ready to go. I have waited long months for that fragrance that sustains me throughout the rest of the year, the one that reminds me of driving through the mountains of Idaho with April, of cool evenings sipping peach iced-tea and watching a yellow moon rise over the mountains, of speeding down the long, straight stretches of empty, late-night road on the reservation, following the line of the river and breathing in the intoxicating fumes of the trees that grow like weeds there. A few more days and I'd be good for the next eleven months.

I am like a junkie when it comes to the Russian Olives. I cannot get enough of them. I dream of them in the deep, dark winter months and as Spring begins its slow explosion around us my eyes seek them out the same way Duncan watches the grass for the bunnies and the branches for the squirrels darting overhead. The past two days have been impatient ones for me. As Ken and I ran errands yesterday, the windows down in the car, I could smell them in distant, contained pockets throughout the city and each time we passed through their sumptuous fog I had to restrain myself from jumping out of the car to seek them out and revel in their delight. Patience, I told myself. You have waited this long, another day won't kill you.

Today has been the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures exceeding 90˚. The sky is a searing white due to the fires down in the southwestern corner of the state and Arizona. The light seems pale and far away but the haze is thick and weighty and not easy move through. The shadows we cast are dark but ringed by a crimson glow, making me feel as though we're walking on some alien, red, grassy world where the air is smoke and does not move. There has been no breeze. The Tibetan bells and chimes that hang around my patio have been limp and silent and the water at the lake is as smooth as glass. This is not the June I have dreamed about.

We ventured out this afternoon in the heat of the day. Not even the grass, long and tall and soft because it has gone to seed, was cool. Duncan followed along languidly at my side, the leash hanging slack between us. We crossed the park, which was filled with families gathered for games of volleyball and cookouts, with fathers trying desperately to coax their child's kite into the unmoving, stubborn air, with walkers strolling the lake path like dazed, melting shadows of themselves. I hoped for the yellow blossoms on the trees and was rewarded for my patience, but while Duncan laid on his side, the leash coiled motionless around him and I breathed in the trees, all I could smell was that damn smoke. Over and over I tried but without luck. They are ready for me and I could feel them quaking with my anticipation, but the air would not cooperate and refused to yield even the slightest trace of a fragrance, only the tease of their delicate, golden flowers.

So I will be patient. Again. Perhaps tomorrow, which should be cooler, we can walk there and sit in the grass watching the ducks paddle wakelessly across the evening lake and receive the reward that will see me through the long dark winter, when their memory is nearly the only thing that pulls me through the night.

This Public Park

The soccer hoards are back. With school out and the spring league ended the park has been blessedly quiet the past few weeks and so Duncan and I have spent a great amount of time there, both in the quiet mornings and then in the evenings before dinner. The wide fields, suddenly greener than I remembered them, have been clear of the kids and their refuse, and the sidewalks have been free of the clutter of their cell-phone addicted parents who seem more intent on Angry Birds or catching up on the neighborhood gossip than watching and encouraging their children. We have had it all to ourselves and each day has seemed like a gift because of it. Duncan has chased his ball unhindered and exuberant, we have rolled in the grass together, stalked bunnies and squinted into the darling face of the sunshine, forgetting all the while that the summer league is bigger and badder than its predecessor.

Today was the first day of the summer nightmare. The kids are out of school and that means Soccer Camp, which attracts a seemingly infinite number of participants whose brightly colored, garish jerseys obscure the green while their feet tear and mat the grass, which has grown thick and soft in their absence. The evening bird song is drowned out by their screams and the whistles their thick-necked coaches blow every few seconds. And the parents are everywhere, hovering around the perimeter, fat and bald or overly thin, bleached and tanned into leather.

It is no secret that I loathe them, but my animosity is born of both my respect for the kids who seem abandoned and a fierce love and devotion to the park that Duncan and I enjoy year round, long after summer has passed, when darkness comes bitter early and the tracks in the deep snow are the only indication and reminder of our devotion. But tonight I decided to take a lesson from Duncan, who could care less about the invasion. While not particularly enraptured by them, the scuttle of their bright balls across the field and the smell of their fast food do interest him, although I can tell that he's just as exasperated as I am by their seeming inability to step out of our way when we pass. Nonetheless, he doesn't let them hinder his love of the walk. He presses his cold nose against the back of their knees, startling them, and steps around them, eager to move on to a clump of clover, the sticks which litter the trunks of the trees and the tall, billowy tufts of dandelions gone to seed and waiting to wished upon. 

My resolve was short-lived tonight, though. The woman seemed to be waiting for us in the shade of the crab apple trees near the port-o-potty and the picnic tables. She had a scowl on her face before she spotted us, but when Duncan stopped to sniff the large rock placed at the junction of two sidewalks, a place a parade of dogs have paused and lifted their legs upon, her scowl darkened and she jumped up and hurried toward us.

"That is disgusting," she announced, jerking her head at Roo while he left a message splashed across the surface of the rock. "Children play there."

A million evil thoughts ran through my mind but I took a deep breath and smiled at her. "I understand," I said softly.

"I am so sick of dog walkers disregarding the behavior of their dogs when they're in a public park," she persisted, her face red, a shimmer of perspiration glistening across her brow, curling and frizzing the red hair at her temples.

"I understand," I repeated, never raising my voice or letting my smile falter. "I come here several times a day and nothing makes me more upset than seeing all the water bottles and fast food bags and forgotten socks left behind by these soccer people. It's really sad seeing how little regard they have for this public park we all share."

She studied my face a long moment and realized she'd been beaten.

"Maybe someday they'll learn to pick up after themselves and the dogs will learn to stop marking the territory they love," I continued. "But I wouldn't bet on it." Duncan was sitting at my side, his big, pink tongue lolling out, his eyebrows raised in that quizzical expression I love so much.

She could do nothing but turn away and slink back to her deep shadows under the crab apple trees where her cell phone waited. And Duncan and I turned back into the sun and walked merrily away.

To the Missus

Sheri,

You don't know me, but knowing Christian, and loving him as I do, I'm sure I would instantly fall in love with you. He is a good man, one of the first truly GOOD men I met in my life. His smiling face was one of the first to greet me as I walked across campus at Lake Forest College alone for the first time. His was one I sought out in crowds before we were officially introduced. He was someone who radiated warmth and kindness and generosity and all the things I sought out in people and wanted to improve in myself. I love him very much.

It has been a joy to reconnect with him after all these years on Facebook and I'm looking forward to the day when I can see him again and receive one of his famous hugs, hear that musical laugh of his and see that lop-sided, open-hearted smile he wears. I would do anything for him.

Which is why I'm writing. He recently discovered my blog, While Walking Duncan, a little outpost I keep on the internet that is dedicated almost solely to my Golden Retriever, Duncan. Duncan is my best friend, my rock, my guide and mentor, everything and more you could ever want in a dog. Christian mentioned that he wanted one too and playfully suggested I try to sell you on the idea of letting him have one.

So here I go: you know all those things you love about Christian? his smile and the way he dances and the sound of his voice, the depth of his empathy for others, his sheer, unabashed exuberance for life and all those other things for which we haven't invented words? That is what a Golden will bring you, and even more importantly, that's what it will bring to him.

Several years ago I wrote this post, "After," which, I believe, captures the importance of sharing your life with a Golden, the magic and adventure they can bring to it, as well as the quiet and comfort where salvation hides. Your life can only be improved, your love strengthened, not just for one another, but for the world and all the creatures which share it with us.

Christian is probably the most Golden-like person I have ever known. You are blessed, indeed, to have him in yours. Now go find another to share it with.

Thanks for humoring me by reading this little message. I hope you are well, that you are happy, that you are unable to count your blessings because their number is greater than all the stars in the sky.

Sincerely,

Curt Rogers

The Swarm

It started small, little more than a pancake-sized stain in the parking lot where Duncan and I walked this morning after a good game of fetch in the park. In fact, I didn't notice it until an hour later when I made a quick run to the market for milk for the blueberry pancakes I wanted to make for breakfast. By that time four big orange cones had been set up around it, which a small group of groundskeepers were redirecting traffic around. By then the pancake had grown bigger than a short-stack––beyond even a tall-stack. It no longer even resembled anything you could find on a breakfast plate. No, this was a tire-sized, undulating mass, brown and gold, and the air outside my window was filled with hovering bees, their gossamer wings translucent in the sun. By the time I returned ten minutes later there were two more equal-sized mounds on the pavement and the grounds crew had vanished entirely, leaving the bees and whomever happened by to fend for themselves.

With the exception of the swarms I saw on Creature Feature on Friday nights in my childhood, I have never seen so many bees in my life. I quickly rolled up my windows and slowed as I drove past, marveling at the size and sound and weight of the things. Like clouds the mounds continually changed shape, elongating into strange ovals, then growing taller, like an ant hill, then flattening back out into a thin, oil-stain shape. The air was thick with them and I could hear them bumping gently against the window and bouncing away.

Duncan and I stayed away for the remainder of the morning, but hours later, on our afternoon stroll down through The Wrangle, I paused, well out of the way, to investigate. There were no bees to be seen at all. The air was clear of those yellow-diamond wings, silent and still, and I worried that perhaps someone had called pest control and had them gassed. When I stopped by the leasing office to inquire, I was told they were honey bees which appeared out of nowhere and left as suddenly as they'd come. They'd been spotted down on the east end of the property last week and had vanished again. No exterminator had been summoned. Protected by law they'd been left alone, free to do as they wished. And this morning the only thing they wished to do was interrupt the flow of traffic out of our complex.

While many might see this as alarming, I take great comfort in it. On all my summer and spring walks with Duncan for the past two years I have seen hardy a bee, except for the wasps which sometimes lurk around my patio. This morning's display more than made up for it. It is a good thing that the bees have reappeared or recovered or returned or whatever it is they have done. They are a vital part of this world we live in and the disappearance of their colonies has been deeply troubling, not just to myself and the poets, but to scientists and farmers as well.

Their drone, muffled as it was behind the safety of my window, was music to my ears. This surely means there will be more flowers and fruit for our future walks, and magical yellow and black zeppelins whose work is a marvel and a mystery.

His labor is a chant,

his idleness a tune;

Oh, for a bee's experience

Of clovers and of noon!

(Emily Dickinson)

Killing Curt

I do this thing when I take Duncan outside. Neither of us particularly like it when I put his leash on so I drape it behind neck and over my shoulders, a bit like a very long untied tie. It hangs across my chest and down to my waist. Sometimes jogging down the stairs behind Roo the ends bounce so I tuck the clasp through the handle to keep it all together so it doesn't slip off and trip either of us up. A bit like a very loose noose.

Duncan also has this thing he does when I take him outside. Often, before I've had time to slip the leash around my neck he'll grab the end in his mouth and carry it as he leads me down the thirty-seven steps and outside. A bit like taking his papa for a walk.

It was an early morning. Olive woke me up a little after five with the hitching, gear-stripped sound of her retching at the foot of the bed, then again in the hall and once more out in the living room. I pulled myself out of bed, donned some shorts, a t-shirt and some socks and went to her. She'd already recovered enough to find her food dish and scarf the last of her leftover dinner. While she seemed to be doing fine, the carpet was not so I quickly sprayed it with cleaner and covered the spots with paper towel in case Duncan ambled out of his bed and down the hall and mistook her leavings for a pre-breakfast snack (he eats a strictly raw diet so I can see where cat puke might confuse him). Just as I finished he appeared, bleary-eyed and with a tousled mohawk adorning his head. He bowed and stretched and looked at me as if to ask if it was too early to be taken out. I turned the kettle on, scritched behind his ears, slipped into my shoes and grabbed the leash. I secured it around my neck and bent to tie the laces of my shoes and just as I opened the door Duncan grabbed the handled end of the leash, thus tightening it like a noose, and dragged me out the door, into the breezeway and down the stairs.

I choked and sputtered, laughed and didn't know if I should attempt to save my life or grab my camera to preserve the moment. Needless to say, I grabbed the camera but only managed a shaky, blurred shot of my calf and arm as I was whisked down the stairs, Duncan's tail merrily swishing against my face and into my laughing mouth, causing me to choke even more.

Luckily I've trained him to stop at the foot of the stairs before heading into the parking lot. He always gets a treat and this morning was no different. He came to a dutiful halt, dropped the leash and waited for his purple, panting papa to fetch a coconut cruncher from his pocket.

Good boy.

Maybe Tomorrow

Duncan rolls almost constantly now. He's always been fond of rolling in the grass, especially when it's wet and he's just had a bath, but now that he's mastered the command he can't seem to get enough of it. When we're practicing his tricks and he gets very excited he has a tendency to do them all at once. For instance, if I ask him "Who do you love?" the correct response is a short series of barks that sound like "I love you," but sometimes he gets carried away and will offer a high five, then a bow, then he'll lay down, jump up, bow again then up the ante by giving me ten instead of the usual five. He's now started throwing in a roll or two for good measure. He's quite the master.

Except when someone else is around or the camera is on. He'll roll and roll for the fun of it, but the minute I give the command with the camera ready to go, or even acknowledge that he's rolling as a means of marking the command, he stops.

See what I mean?

We'll keep trying. Maybe tomorrow.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Jeffrey's stray cat is getting at the baby bunnies and I don't like it one bit. This is the time of year when Duncan sits in the windows and on the patio staring down at the grass below us so he can keep his eye on the bunnies which emerge from their nests and roll across the yard like small brown balls, their ears tucked down low against their backs, their hops sudden and full of exuberance but lacking in grace and style. They are awkward, fumbling things which haven't quite figured out who is friend and who is foe. And sadly, because of it, this year there are fewer of them dotting the lawns like misplaced stones than I have ever seen before. And the cat, beautiful and tenacious and deserving of my respect after surviving the bitterly cold winter, has been spotted lurking around their shrubs. Duncan whines and barks when he spots her down there and on occasion has startled her away from her prey, but even Dunc can't keep her at bay all the time.

Thankfully there are bunnies to play with near the grounds-crew office at the park. Yesterday one little bunny––a short fat one with a dark brown smudge on his chin and a white belly––mistook Roo for one of his playmates, albeit a larger and more drooly one. He squatted in the grass not far from the new lamp posts which have been left on the grass and are waiting for someone to install them. He let us approach and when Dunc was only a few feet away and leaning toward him, his big tongue lolling out of his mouth, the bunny gave a quick jump and lunged at Dunc, who startled and took a few cautious steps back. The bunny hopped at us but stopped once his mother appeared from her vantage under the shed. He seemed to understand exactly what she wanted to tell him ("That's a dog, you idiot!"), spun in a frantic circle then scrambled down the long narrow pipe of the nearest lamp post where he crouched, a dark shadow against the light coming through the far end.

Duncan darted after him, stuck his nose in the tube and huffed and snorted like a fat pig, hoping to lure the thing back out, alternating between one end of the pipe and the other.

Needless to say, the bunny did not reemerge and it was twenty minutes before I could talk Roo into forsaking his efforts and continuing our walk through the blessedly deserted park.

Panic

It came suddenly, the storm that rocked our neighborhood this morning, shaking the apartment and igniting the sky south and east of us with tall lightning that razored the dark morning with brilliant streaks like outstretched fingers. It was not the kind of storm I remember from my days in The Shire-like Midwest, and it wasn't even the worst I've experienced here, but it was enough to make me nervous. Pip scrambled under the couch to take comfort with his gang of dust bunnies while Winnie hunkered down deep among the pillows on the bed. Olive was hardly fazed and slept through it in the center of the floor throughout the entire thing. Duncan, however, did not do well at all.

He began whining long before I heard even the first distant rumbles––little more than the sound of heavy trucks on Bowles––but by the time it arrived he was pacing and panting and trying to climb into my lap. I moved my computer to the couch so he could crawl up next to me and take comfort by leaning his full weight against my body, but even that wasn't good enough. He wanted to crawl onto me, maybe even push himself all the way through me.

I am no stranger to anxiety. I have been well-acquainted with the terror it brings since the Spring of 2005 when it changed my entire life. I remember driving to work and feeling the horrible flush of adrenaline course through my body, grabbing me by the knees first, then moving upward, flooding my joints and muscles, terrorizing my stomach and bowels, finally grabbing me by the brain and shaking me until it was all I could do to keep from passing out. That Spring was the worst of my life because we did not know what the problem was, but even now that we know and I have been trained to manage it, behind the safety of therapy and prescriptions, it occasionally has its way with me. Duncan was there with me through the worst of it, still only a puppy, less than a year old, but courageous and wise enough for the two of us.

Pressed against me as he was this morning I could feel his heart racing and every muscle of his tight little body quivering. He big, pink tongue lolled out of his mouth and desperation ignited his eyes. I kept hugging him, pressing my lips to his cheeks and brows, whispering soft words of encouragement and comfort. It was the least I could do after the days he laid with me, leaned against and supported me when I was so dizzy I couldn't walk to the bathroom, or the time he stood on my chest, stared straight into my eyes and matched his breathing to my own until he eventually calmed me down.

When I finally had to climb into the shower (something I rarely do because of my not-entirely irrational fear of being electrocuted while bathing) Duncan followed me to the tub. My voice was not enough, nor my constant conversation with him. I showered as quickly as possible while he continually tried to climb in next to me, peeking around the curtain and sliding it away, lifting his paws onto the edge in an attempt to pull himself in.

I know that fear and know there is little reassurance anyone can offer. Ken was with me during many of my attacks and tried his hardest to comfort and calm me, and while I knew I was not going to die, I wasn't entirely convinced of it. There was little I could do for Duncan except hold him and offer him two droppers of Animal Apawthecary Tranquility Blend herbal tincture which Chelsea at Hero's Pets had recommended for our long road trips to Idaho. It's foul smelling stuff, brown and syrupy, and I don't even want to imagine what it tastes like (we always wash it down with a nice treat afterward) but it does the trick. Duncan soon found a cool spot on the linoleum in the kitchen and relaxed.

I left shortly after that for a meeting and when I returned home two hours later he was fast asleep next to Ken on the couch. I understand the exhaustion that follows such episodes of anxiety, so I curled up next to him, around him, whispered in his ear, held his paw and took a brief nap alongside him, matching my breathing to his.

It was a tough morning for Roo and although I felt helpless to ease his fears I know I did all I could, which was not half of what he has done for me. We give each other what we can when we need it and that is why we are best friends.

A Familiar Face

Last night, after the rapture of a perfect sunset, a good meal and a bath for Duncan, I was sitting down on the couch for an evening spent with a good book when I heard a familiar whistle outside my door. It was a short burst, quick and high-pitched, a tone I have tried many times to mimic with my own two lips but have been unsuccessful at matching. I stood up, turned down the lights and very slowly opened the door. It was as I'd hoped but somehow was better because this time it seemed magical, as if something in The Universe wanted me to be a witness and trusted me to stay out of the way.

Perched atop the bright red fire alarm, just as it had been all last summer, crouched a tiny mud swallow, its eyes alert and bright, its body firm and compact, the gold of its belly warm against the red alarm. It turned and looked at me, ordinary in every way. Just a bird. A dark little bird with an ordinary song and a drab name, but something magnificent because it had found me again and decided that my doorway was the best place––a safe, trusted place––to fulfill its promise to the world.

Duncan was at my heels and when I gasped at the sight of the thing, he pushed forward to investigate and then sat when he heard me coo softly, "Hi, little bird," as I did climbing the stairs every afternoon last summer.

It didn't ruffle or tense, but merely stared at me a bit, as if trying to place my face, then looked away.

My old friend is back, and even though it may seem an inconsequential thing, a silly thing to get excited about even, it means a great deal to me because, as I have said a thousand times, God is in the details, and this little mud swallow, is a fine detail indeed.

Rapture

Things got bad and things got worse
Half like blessing, half like curse
It's these blessings so hard to see sometimes
Gotta little clearer about dusk last night
Ain't nobody got a blessing like mine
Ain't nobody got a blessing like mine

It's a red sky night and I'm doing alright
It's a red sky night and I'm doing just fine

("Red at Night," Gaslight Anthem)

While many in this world spent the day huddled together awaiting the moment when their God would elevate and save them, and many more laughed at such fear and delusion, I spent the afternoon under a sunny sky and a canopy of thick new green, walking my good, red dog, watching him stop to sniff the dandelions or chase the bees across the grass. He did not care one way or the other if the world ended, only that he be allowed to revel in the moment when the clouds made shadows across the fields, the kind he could chase and pounce on, rolling in the grass beneath them as though trying to pull them around him. And in watching him, running alongside him and rolling with him, I found myself caught up in the moment as well, the possibility of calamity and my utter bewilderment at those who had faith in such a thing became forgotten things, less important than the sun igniting each and every hair of Duncan's head or the way his face turns upward at the song of the birds in the trees.

Rapture came this evening as the clock struck six laying next to my dog in the tall grass on a hillside, the kind sun on our closed eyes, the wind playing harp in the branches and leaves overhead. That is all the salvation I need. 

 Thank God for a good dog.

Roll

Do you remember on Sesame Street, way back in the early days, when Mr. Hooper was still alive, long before Elmo, before Kermit had broadened his horizons and met Miss Piggy and Fozie, when John John used to play with Grover? Back then, Mr. Snuffleupagus wandered the means streets of the hood and Big Bird was his only friend. They spent hours together playing games behind Oscar's can and hanging out in the alley where Big Bird slept in his enormous nest. The only trouble was no one else ever saw him. Every time people approached, Snuffy got shy and wandered away leaving Big Bird confused and frustrated because his friends didn't believe him and were actually convinced that the enormous, talking, hairy elephant was all a figment of their friend's imagination.

That is how I'm starting to feel about Duncan's new trick. He'll do it in the park, he'll do it in The Glen, he even did it last night in the living room before Ken got home, but he simply will not roll over for anyone other than myself. To date he has done it dozens of times (and gotten fat on the blueberry Pumpkin Crunchers he gets as a reward, I might add) and yet I'm the only one who has seen it. I've praised him up and down and we've practiced it endlessly, but he simply won't perform except for an audience of one.

That is a firm "NO" at the end there.




He is a butt, but with a face a like that, I don't think he cares.

Like I said, maybe tomorrow. After all, eventually the whole gang on The Street did finally meet and embrace Snuffy, vindicating Big Bird and setting the world right again.

Indeed

This was the day the rain stopped, February retreated and May came back, if only briefly, to this corner of the world. The last of yellowing grass decided to green and the buds on the Linden trees, many of them still bashful and unsure, threw caution to the wind and unfurled themselves in magnificent splendor. This was the day sun reappeared and ignited the droplets of water that had gathered on the foot-tall, bending blades of grass that grow along the fence, just out of reach of the mowers. My frog, the one that hides among the cattails behind the building and loves to sing, rediscovered his voice––a clunky, wooden sound––and slipped into a perfect, chirping harmony with the creek and the rustle and sway of the narrow, twine branches of the willows sliding against each other. This was the day the world turned green––a hundred thousand different shades of it––and I noticed the scent of the lilacs drifting up from thick purple and white clumps in the neighborhoods all around.

 

And this was the day, after six years, that Duncan finally agreed to learn how to roll over. He did it in the grass at the park, turning this way and that on his back, pushing his feet against the sky as though trying to force himself down through the dark earth, down and down past the worms and the rocks, straight out the other side where dreams were still real and morning a few hours away. He did it over and over, an enormous grin on his face, eager to please, joyful and proud of his new trick.

This was a good day. A good day indeed.

A Gift of Spring

I spent one of the first truly remarkable days of the season in the car with two work colleagues driving down to Pueblo and then back up to Colorado Springs for meetings. The sky was the kind of frenetic blue that only comes in May, a color that signals he birth of bunnies and boils the blood of high school and college seniors, alerting them to the ferocity of the coming summer only a few weeks away. What I saw of it, between the walk from the car to the dark cement and stucco community college buildings where our meetings were to take place, was from behind a sealed window, traveling at 75 MPH. I watched the ragged sweep of The Rockies rush by on one side and the budding washed out green and yellow plains on the other, wishing I was working from home, where I could sit in the sunshine on the patio with Dunc and work on my laptop in-between walks.

It was nearly a twelve hour day by the time I finally got home. The sun had begun to move down the horizon and the light had settled and cooled. The heat of the day had burned off and cool air was rising up from the grass. Ken had started dinner and fed the children and I could feel weariness creeping into my muscles. As I gathered my things and locked the car I looked up into the open window from which the music of Glee was drifting out and saw Roo's face, ears perked up and head cocked, waiting for me. His shoulders gave a little wiggle and I could hear the soft, trembling whine of his voice. Almost immediately my spirits were lifted. I bounded up the thirty-seven steps, my bag bouncing against my hip, the remnants of that morning's tea sloshing in my mug. He was waiting at the door for me, dancing and chirping, eager to take my wrist in his mouth and pull me inside. I barely had time to set down my things before he'd grabbed the tail of my shirt and was pulling me back toward the door.

It took no energy at all t walk him. It was a beautiful evening, with a soft, warm breeze sifting through The Run, the last of the white blossoms raining down around us from the crab apple trees, alighting like thumbnail-size snowflakes on the long, moist grass. The birds were singing loudly in the willows while the mourning doves were lowing from the eaves above us. I could not have asked for a better homecoming and Roo could not have granted me a better gift.

Return

After a terrible year in Milwaukee, Ken has finally returned to Denver. He's been staying with me while he looks for the perfect job and an apartment of his own. The family feels complete again. We have been walking Duncan often and together, something we rarely did in the past. And the cats have been overcome with joy. Olive, who was always his girl, has decided to leave her safe spot on the pillow in the bedroom and spends a great deal of time following him around or nuzzling his chin and cheeks. Pip, who I thought had perfected the art of cuddling, has outdone himself, and spends every moment he can on Ken's lap, or curled up against his chest throughout the night. Even Winnie, who is so composed and a proper lady, has been celebrating, stretching out in a long thin line down his legs. There is a hardly a moment he's home when he's not being adored by the children.

It is a wonderful thing to watch and I have been happier these past two weeks than I have been in a very long time.

The Silver Vein

It snowed over the weekend, which is not as unusual at it sounds. Springtime in The Rockies can be a test of will, and this one certainly has been no different: cold and wet one day, sunny and warm the next (but almost always with a treacherous and hateful wind). It's been exhausting to say the least.

The one good thing about it is that snow and ice over grass and blossoms and new leaves can be a beautiful thing. So while Duncan ambles along the slick grass, his weight cracking the thin layer of ice that congeals across the surface of the sharpening green each night, I keep my eyes on the billion suns reflected on the countless blades and in the melting run-of. The mornings are aglow and as the sun slowly creeps up the sky a vein of silver runs through our world, reminding me that all good things are worth waiting for and that the return of summer is one of the few promises that cannot be broken.

Forgiveness

I'm going to tell you the truth, and that is never an easy thing. But I'm going to do it because I've never really admitted this to anyone and my friends, who all know, have been kind enough not to say it.

I am not always a very good person. In fact, I would go so far as to say that sometimes I can be downright petty and mean-spirited, vengeful and bitter. More often than not my rashness leads me to overreact. Most of the time I'm able to quell my initial instinct but the fact remains that I am capable of some very nasty and treacherous thoughts that teeter on the very fine edge of becoming actions. It's always been something I've despised about myself because such things lead me to question whether I'm a good person at heart.

For instance, there is this woman who lives midway down The Run, a strange little thing with silver hair she tries to conceal behind a gloss of maroon dye. She has eclectic tastes and decorates her patio with odd trinkets, bizarre art rendered in bright, almost garish primary colors, things with eyes and many arms, or shapes unknown to the natural world, invented entirely by the mind of Man. When she first moved in last fall, shortly after the departure of The Wretched Hyenas, I was intrigued and wondered if we'd strike up a conversation as Duncan and I passed by two or three times daily. I wondered if, like Jeffrey, we'd develop a routine and if she'd ever confess the secrets of her strange taste in decor. But that never happened. Shortly after our first pass-by, she appeared on the patio to lecture me about cleaning up after Duncan after he took care of business. The odd thing was that I was already carrying a bright green bag filled with his inner goodness. And anyone who knows me here on the property knows that I am a tireless advocate for cleaning up after your pet. It infuriates me to discover someone is not. And here was this woman––this stranger––accusing me of doing the very thing I have fought so hard against. I politely assured her that I was very mindful of cleaning up after Roo and held up my bag as proof, but the next day and nearly every day after that she appeared on her patio, arms folded across her chest, a scowl scratched across her face, to watch us and make sure I didn't leave anything behind, which, of course, I hadn't.

We were blessedly free of her for most of the winter months, but she has appeared again recently. This morning I noticed she's planted a patch of tulips in the red-tinted mulch at the edge of her patio. Duncan noticed them, too, and as he trotted among the shrubs, he stopped to sniff each in turn and then move along to the trees where the squirrels crouch. She was sitting at her couch watching us, her back straight and tense as though ready to spring forward and scold me. But Duncan, intrigued briefly, ambled away, his tail wagging happily behind him, his curiosity leading the way.

She was waiting for us on our evening walk. I was whistling an Indigo Girls song about the joys of being out in the world in the glow of the sunshine while Dunc jogged here and there, pausing to sniff or just raise his curious eyebrows at the discovery of something new. She practically careened through her screen and called after me. Before I could even speak she began to lecture me about her delicate flowers and how Duncan was destroying them and how she'd worked hard to plant them and wasn't about "to let some dog run them under." My mouth snapped shut and I felt my cheeks redden as my heart rate picked up. "Do we agree?" she asked. There was nothing I could say except, "I'll try."

But, oh, what I was thinking. And if my eyes were capable of melting her with those thoughts she'd be little more than a puddle, dusted over with the sad maroon remnants of her thinning, pink hair. We walked away, Duncan completely oblivious to the situation, but inside I was seething. I'd tolerated her scorn and suspicion for months and now she was practically accusing my dog of desecrating her precious tulips, which he clearly had not. My walk was ruined. Inside I had all sorts of thoughts, and each time Dunc paused at my side to nuzzle his nose against the cup of my hand where I hold his treats, I'd say, "She needs to move. I need to find a way to make her move." And then my mind would race with things I will never type out. I even went so far as to envision myself sneaking out in the dead of night and stomping all over her flowers, uprooting them, crushing the fat bulbs under my heels and leaving them on her patio. I had skipped anger and gone straight to evil.

After an hour of walking through the park, my anger spilled over into the soccer hoards and their parents, who crowded the park and will undoubtedly leave the remnants of their water bottles and fast food wrappers behind them when they depart. I seethed at the traffic on Bowles and the foul odor of the exhaust left behind in clouds along the edge of the road. The wind picked up and I raged internally at its presence and how after three weeks of enduring it I wished it would just blow itself straight to Hell.

There was no way Duncan could not notice my state of mind. Rather than walk this way and that he stayed close to my side, often leaning against me as though to say, "C'mon, she's a harmless, sad old woman. All she has is her flowers. It's not that big a deal." I patted his head absentmindedly and walked on, my steps sharp and quick, my thoughts and heart sharper. But finally he couldn't stand it any longer so he took control and led me across the park to a quiet, secluded spot where the crab apples blossoms have exploded into dazzling white, sweet-smelling clouds hovering in the low trees just above our heads. Days of wind had loosened the petals and a light downy bed of them coated the ground. He pulled against the leash and tossed himself onto his back into the short greening grass, only just beginning to take on the rich fragrance of Spring. He rolled and growled deep in his chest, snorting and huffing as he did, his thick red fur catching the grass and ivory petals and holding tight to them until he was covered. He paused, looked up at me a moment then rolled again.

I am smart enough to know when he is instructing me and offering up another of his life lessons, the ones I seem to constantly require. So I laid down next to him and rolled, the cold of the flowers igniting the nerves on the back of my arms and neck, the grass, still slightly damp from yesterday's morning snow. We rolled together and when we were done he rested his head against my ribs, breathing heavily, one paw pushing against the top of my head.

And then, like that, I understood. I had to let it go, and not just this anger but all of it. He was right. She is a sad, miserable old woman who lives alone and rarely, if ever, has company. All she wants to do is plant flowers and enjoy their blooming in this blessed time of year. Is it so wrong for her to want to protect them? They are simple things, but important nonetheless. Perhaps just as important to her as Duncan is to me.

And with that realization came shame. I hated my thoughts and the venomous places they'd led me. I had grandmothers once and it would kill me to think anyone had thought as ill of them as I had of her. Over flowers, which are beautiful and remarkable living things. Flowers.

Now don't laugh when I tell you that just last week I was ordained in the Universal Life Church, which believes that "we are all children of the same Universe" and "that every person has the natural right (and the responsibility) to peacefully determine what is right." I was "ordained" because my sister and her fiance, Christian, asked me to conduct their wedding this summer in Idaho. I have delivered three eulogies and have spoken at all sorts of events, delivered insightful stories and more than one killer toast, but this will be my first wedding. And as Duncan and I walked home I couldn't help but feel that perhaps I was the wrong person to do it, that maybe Dunc would be a better choice, with his big, open heart and patient and forgiving spirit. But we paused and he sat before me, watching me carefully before leaning forward to touch his nose to mine and to lick my cheek. In that instant I knew that all was good, that I'd forgiven and was forgiven and that flowers in Spring are a priceless thing and that even the best of us can sometimes go astray.

So this Spring, in preparation for Casey's wedding, I am going to make a concerted effort to control my anger, to see things for what they are and not just what I perceive them to be and to let Duncan lead me to the kinder places I sometimes forget exist within myself. I am going to protect the flowers.