Why, I sometimes wonder, do I love being alone so much. And why, i wonder, do I need it so much. Today, Maria and I walked in the woods together for the first time in weeks – the summer was too hot, too many ticks, too many bugs.
The woods are beautiful and still again, and i am grateful to be back in them, walking with her and the dogs. Today, I was reflecting on being alone. In my life, it is necessary and wonderful to be all tied up in someone else, but being alone is still precious to me, a part of who I am.
Today, I was reading from a beautiful new book about Thomas Merton, it is a collection of his writings on nature, and it is called When The Trees Say Nothing, it explained being alone in nature and being alone for me in a beautiful way.
“Why do I live alone?…I don’t know.In a sometimes mysterious way,” Merton wrote, “I am condemned to it…I cannot have enough of the hours of silence when nothing happens. When the clouds go by. When the trees say nothing. When the birds sing. I am completely addicted to the realization that just being there is enough, and to add something else is to mess it all up..I can only desire this absurd business of trees that say nothing, of birds that sing, or a field in which nothing happens (except perhaps that a fox comes and plays, or a deer passes by. This is crazy, it is lamentable, I am flawed, I am nuts. I can’t help it. Here I am, now.”
I love the honesty and acceptance of Merton’s writing about being alone.
Merton makes no excuses for it, it is just who he is. He was a Trappist Monk, he spent much of his time alone in a hermitage behind his monastery. He said he had no choice.
This is how I feel about me. I am crazy and lamentable, but I am condemned to being alone, I can’t help it, here I am, now.
Today, walking in the woods with my partner in life, I listened closely to the trees, as they said nothing. It was loud and eloquent. I loved the hole above the canopy, it seemed a portal to me of another place, I felt at one moment I was about to be shot through that hole and up into the universe. Maybe one day.
I was happy there, I can’t explain it. It felt like freedom to me.
Donkeys are smart, and they are independent. But there are some things donkeys cannot do for themselves and one of them – a most important thing – is that they can’t scratch their own ears or forehead.
Donkeys love to have their ears and heads scratched, they are tormented for months by small and large flies who get inside of their ears and onto the area above their eyes and bite them.
Our donkeys have defied every mask we put on them, they are brilliant at removing each other’s masks, even if they have to eat them. This morning, Maria scratched Lulu’s ears and forehead, and Lulu went into a state of bliss, lips quivering, eyes closing.
Hey Gus, I was thinking about you this morning, and now, my eyes are filled with tears, and I imagine if you were here, you would be looking at me curiously with a tilted head, as you so often did.
If you were something new and strange for me, I imagine was the same for you.
Somewhere, in the middle, we connected.
I have to write a chapter on your sickness and death for my next book Gus And Bud, A Tale Of Two Dogs In A Time Of Transition. I want to write this chapter this week, as it is an important week in the story of my life with dogs. So you are on my mind this week.
I’m going to write about your sickness and death.
Since I found myself sitting here sniffling, I had the idea to write this as a message to you, even though I have no expectation you will be reading it. I love dogs, but I do not love dogs, if you know what I mean.
Maria and I were both surprised at how much we came to love you, and I can’t speak for her, but your death hit me hard. For awhile, I thought we might pull off a miracle, but that was hubris.
You were just a pup when you were diagnosed, and not even a year old when you died. I’ve seen dogs die, but never a puppy, and never so cruelly. Watching you wither and starve was not something I had imagined or was prepared for.
You’ve been gone about six months ago. We have been looking for another BT for a long time.
We decided to put you down as an act of mercy, as you were clearly starving to death. Our struggle to overcome your megaesophagus, an invariably fatal disease for dogs, had failed. We put up quiet a fight together, you me, and Maria. I tried 100 different recipes and mixes and potions and pills.
I remember mixing and stirring for hours, and I will always remember Maria singing to you while she held you upright for at least 20 minutes a meal to try to get food down into your stomach.
I feel like letting you know about Bud, in case you are up there somewhere watching. I don’t care for the Rainbow Bridge stuff, it always seemed sappy and selfish to me, I hope you are not sitting by some bridge waiting for me to come and play with you for all eternity.
I hope you are off somewhere having sex, chasing mice, digging holes, eating disgusting things, commandeering sofas and beds, charming the world around you.
This Saturday, if all the tests are good, a dog named Bud, a brown Boston Terrier from Arkansas, is coming to live with us. He is what they call a “rescue” dog although I believe that all dogs are rescue dogs in one way or another, so were you.
He has had a rocky time of it, he is well now.
I am more than ready for another dog. I had never had a small dog before you, and even at your sickest, you were a blast, torturing Fate, stealing her toys, jumping up on sofas you were not allowed own, riding Lulu around the pasture. Even at your sickest, you were the King. I loved writing about you, and also about what I call the Small Dog Experience, I’m eager to pick up the story.
I hated to see you suffer so much, vomiting, coughing, spitting up, having so many pills and tablets rammed down your throat. You were a good sport, nothing ever really seemed to faze you.
And look what you started, Little Man. A dog revolution at Bedlam Farm.
The sad news about dogs is that they don’t live as long as the people who love them, the happy thing about dogs is that you can get another one to love. People can’t do that with people.
I suppose one of my favorite moments on Bedlam Farm was when the sheep charged at you full speed, and you simply sat down and barked, and brought them all to a standstill, even Zelda. You had been watching the border collies and seemed to see no reason you couldn’t do just what they do.
I am sure the sheep had never seen anything like you, and neither had I. You came as a small dog, and because of your illness, you never really grew.
The thing about you, is that your spirit was quite large, in health and sickness. You never seemed to grasp that you were a small dog, so you acted like a very big dog, and that was part of your charm and appeal. You might have been gravely ill, but you never showed it, not for a second.
You were always funny, even when you didn’t mean to be.
You made me smile 50 times a day, and how precious is that. I expect Bud will be a very different kind of dog, he had almost as rough a year as you did, but he survived, thanks to an angel named Carol Johnson and her dedicated rescue group, the Friends Of Homeless Animals. I am told he is quiet and peaceable, unlike you. We’ll see.
He is a food thief, apparently, we’ll keep an eye on that.
So anyway, I’m not into being maudlin, the past is the past, and the future is my life, and I will not waste an hour of it on nostalgia or regret. Bud is coming up from the South in a huge truck with 100 other dogs being adopted up North, and we will be meeting him in Brattleboro, Vt., one of our favorite places to visit.
I’m excited, I just bought a bunch of treats for him. I can’t wait to meet him and take pictures of him and write about him, just like I did with you. Wherever you are, I wish you peace and happiness. You were a wonderful dog, and if I don’t care to mourn you forever, I will surely not ever forget you, not even when I get another dog..
There is nothing more content than a border collie with sheep in a pasture. Red and Fate did some vigorous work this morning. Red got the sheep in and out of one of our pastures and Fate ran hard in her widening circles.
The two of them took up bracing positions on either side of the sheep and the flock stood patiently between them. It is always a beautiful thing to see these animals work. We are getting excited about the Open House, now, it will be a special one.
These two dogs love to perform in front of crowds.
I’ve come to see the Blue Birdbath as a mystical presence in the garden, it shows me different visions of the world every time I look at it. The light is always changing, and so are the illusions and reflections in the birdbath.
The images are always different, always surprising. This morning, a window appeared in the birdbath and I thought if I looked through it, I would see a word on the other side. There is so much beauty in the world if I can only see it.
There is something magical about this birdbath, it brings me different messages almost every day.
