Running In the Street with a Dog

I've been running with a friend three times a week for more than a decade, but our schedules don't allow for it anymore. My three dogs take turns playing surrogate, so I won't have to run alone. This blog post sets down for posterity our progress. First up: Ollie, the Monday partner.

On the sidewalk, Ollie poops approximately three blocks from my home, too far away from my own garbage cans to deposit the poop right at the beginning. So, I run with the poopy bag swinging from my wrist, wafting odor like incense at a religious parade.

My passion is running. Ollie's passion is smelling pee. I don't even notice the spots other dogs have left behind, so it always surprises me when he darts across the front of my running feet to sniff a fencepost, and then back the other way to press his nose against a tree. I could think of it as low hurdles, or even an uneven game of jump rope, but I don't. I think he's trying to kill me.

My human buddy never once did this. The closest she came was to occasionally bump my elbow with her own. So, Ollie and I run in the street, where there are no fence posts or trees. Ollie doesn't sniff anything. He runs behind me in a dejected manner, but we're both a lot safer.

I get that most drivers don't like runners in the street. I get it. They don't want to hit me with their car. I don't want them to hit me with their car, either. But, seriously, I trust them not to dart across the lane a lot more than I trust Ollie.

Ollie drags to such a slow rate that I stop running and walk alongside him. He's almost twelve now, so he might not have the stamina to run for long. Ollie notices I've stopped and slows down even more. He can't be that tired. In a few minutes, I take off running again and he speeds up alongside me. Still, he keeps the leash taut as he hangs back.

I plod along, hoping he'll get in better shape if we keep doing this. Halfway home, another dog walks past on the sidewalk. Like a much younger dog, Ollie slips out of his collar and runs to play. Well, that won't fly. I slip him back into his collar. "Don't try to tell my you're too tired to run. Come on."

I'm not sure Ollie is smart enough to fake fatigue. If he was faking, I'm pretty sure he doesn't realize he's been busted. He creeps alongside me, and I wonder what, if anything, is going on in his mind. He's not much of a conversationalist.

Then I notice the poopy bag is no longer swinging. Not that I notice it's holding still. I notice it's gone. Somewhere on our four-mile run, I've lost it. A truly stellar person would go back looking for it, but I don't. Ollie is pretending to be short on energy and I'm short on patience. Hopefully, I'll find it Wednesday.

Walking in the Dark

When I go camping with my family, my husband always carries a flashlight to the bathhouse at night. I never do. Usually, there are enough electric lights that you can see where you're headed even if you can't see what's under your feet. My daughter and I walk together, eyeing the dim, buzzing light ahead. We feel our steps. There is anticipation during the journey, a sense of fulfillment when we creak open the bathhouse door.

I learned young the beauty of walking in the darkness. In my childhood, campgrounds in State Parks rarely had more than a few electric lights. My parents shunned amenities, partly on principal, and partly due to the expense. Our little pop-up camper stood in the darkness. My father ran a cord attached to a lightbulb around  the metal arm that supported the canvas over his bed. He clipped a lampshade to the dangling bulb and stayed up late reading while moths danced around the light.

Later, when he went to sleep, the camper sat silent, dark, and mysterious while the insects played muzak in the background. I woke and took a trip to the bathhouse to use the bathroom. The click of the camper door seemed magnified in the night, though I closed it as quietly as I could. In a campground, everything seems loud in the dark and you have to take care not to disturb the neighbors.

When I looked up, I saw no stars, only blackness. Thick trees blotted out the sky. I could hear the wind in their leaves, but I couldn't see them, either. I held my hand in front of my face and saw nothing. I believed the trees were there, but my own body felt unreal. I had no body to see. I was the darkness. Absence of flesh met absence of light. I could reach out and hold the dark in my disembodied hands.

With each step, I felt the ground and the air. I held my formless hands out so they could taste the darkness like a reptile scented the air. When my feet crunched pine needles and sank in the soft earth, I knew I had left the path. I felt thick-veined roots under my feet and knew I had found it again. Each step was magic.

Then I saw the dim blue light on the bath house. When I could see my destination, the spell was broken. I followed my eyes.

The world is brighter these days. Even in the wilderness, it is hard to find true darkness. Intuitively, my daughter yearns to feel the magic. She walks sometimes with her eyes closed. She asks me to keep her from walking into anything and I wonder how she feels. With me beside her, she can hear my steps, feel the nearness of my form. It's not the same as being alone with the darkness.

And I wonder, what was it that I found in the darkness? What mystery followed me? Could I give it a name and call it friend? That moment shines in my memory, but I was all alone and I didn't see a thing.

Thoughts on a Kumquat

I went snack shopping with my teenage son today. He chose two large frozen pizzas and a little plastic carton of kumquats. Since nobody seems to know what a kumquat is, I'll describe them briefly. A kumquat is like a tiny orange, about the size of the last joint of a small adult's thumb. In the car on the way home, the boy couldn't wait. He started to peel a kumquat. He got through the peel, but not the pith. Soon it became more amusing to squeeze the kumquat than to peel it, and he squirted kumquat juice all over the dash and windshield. This amused him. At home, he cut the kumquats in half and sucked the juice out. He gave one half to me so I could taste it. A kumquat tasted like a combination of orange and lemon, and the drops of juice inside are quite tasty if you like sour. I do like sour, so I'm not being sarcastic. Next, my son asked me if we had a juicer, and I cringed at the thought of juicing those tiny kumquats on  a juicer meant for a full-sized orange. Plus, I would have to wash the juicer after he extracted the teaspoon of juice from the whole package. As luck would have it, we don't own a juicer, so the kumquats and I were spared.

I talked to a friend about the kumquats. In an election year, you have to stick to the really important issues, after all. She didn't know how to eat them, either. Once you get the peel off, there's not much left. My friend suggested that the kumquat is a good example of what not to be as an individual--all exterior and no substance.

So, if anyone out there knows what to do with a kumquat, I'd love to hear it. For now, this is the wisdom I have to offer. Kumquats can provide moments of mild enjoyment to teenagers and adults alike. Go out and buy a package today. Unless you're hungry. If you're hungry, buy something else.

I have a long haired miniature dachshund named Theodore. Twice a day, he has to take two different medicines for epilepsy. At first, we gave him medicine in peanut butter, which he loved. Peanut butter doesn't love him, though, and we eventually switched to canned pumpkin. All three dogs get a treat of pumpkin, only Theodore takes the pills like sprinkles. He never spits them out or licks around them. About his medicine, he's a trooper and I often wonder if he knows what the sprinkles are for.

One day I was sitting in bed with my laptop, my favorite writing space. All three dogs can snuggle on the bed--no crowding or shuffling for position is necessary. Theodore climbed over the keyboard and up onto my chest. He does this a lot, frequently pressing his chest into my nose and mouth to lovingly smother me.

I thought about pushing him away, but I noticed he was drooling. The seizure started then, with his wild-eyed stare and rigid little body. My laptop rolled onto its back in submission and slid onto the mattress. After a while, Theodore was able to move his eyes. I talked to him and petted him. The kids came and sat with us. Theodore threw up, like always. We managed to get to the garbage in time, which was a minor victory.

When my kids were little and one of the dogs had a really stinky gas episode, I told them we have to love everything about the ones we love. The wagging tail, the soft, silky ears, and the toxic farts. Everyone is a package deal.

Theodore's epilepsy gives us a daily ritual, a treat the dogs all love. It gives a tremendously assertive and demanding little guy a weakness--or his knowledge of his weakness causes him to overcompensate. None of those things makes his disease a good thing, but epilepsy is a part of who Theodore is.

This is what always happens when I buy rawhide bones. I put the bag on top of the entertainment center and rip a hole in it. All the while, the guys bark and jump around my feet. I give the first to Ollie, the rat terrier. He's ten, the oldest and biggest, and always goes first. Ollie runs to the couch and immediately begins to gnaw. I give the two mini longhaired dachshunds, Theodore and Levi, their bones simultaneously. They each grab their bone, but drop it and run over to steal the other guy's bone.

Theodore prances off to hide his bone. There's no other word for his gait. His back legs are about one-third longer than his front legs, so they always want to drive his nose into the ground. His nose, however, flies high. He's so stinking cute, I can't stand it, and his walk is the cutest thing about him.

Levi sits down right where he is. He chews for all he's worth. He's only two, the youngest and smallest of the guys. His face looks like a precious moments figurine, winsome and teary-eyed. The minute he comes up for air and lets go of his bone, someone else will take it.

I watch them carefully, rescuing Levi's bone before someone makes off with it. He keeps dropping the bone to look around. When my attention wavers, he noses me and looks up with those droopy eyes. Ollie has two bones.

"Ollie, give that back. You can only chew one at a time anyway."

Ollie lets the bone go. He wouldn't think of snapping at me. Levi takes the bone with adoring eyes and goes back to chewing. He works with a vengeance. Meanwhile, Theodore comes back. If you look hard enough, you can find his bone in a laundry basket, an open drawer, or tucked at the back of a closet. He sidles over to Levi.

Theodore cuts his eyes at Levi, glancing around his massive ears. He'll go in for the bone in a minute, and Levi won't protest. Theodore knows better than to take Ollie's bone. It's taken him five years to concede the fact that Ollie is bigger and stronger. But he can get it away from the baby.

Once Levi realizes Theodore wants his bone, he drops it. Little wimp can't bring himself to chew something he knows Theodore wants. I take the bone away at this point, and both guys pout. Ollie even stares at the confiscated bone, ignoring his own sticky, slobbery one.

I hide the bone in my armpit and continue working. Theodore comes up to sit with me, but I'm not fooled. Those eyes are on the bit of bone sticking out behind me. He grabs the nub of bone from time to time, but I'm not letting it go. I notice that Levi has gone. In moments, he returns with Theodore's hidden bone.

Theodore looks stunned that Levi would steal his property, but he never takes the bone away. I give him the bone hidden in my armpit, the one I offered him in the first place, and he runs to hide it. This is the scene at my house until someone comes home and they all drop their bones and run for the door.

On the news this morning, I saw an interview with the last man who walked on the moon. I don't recall his name, which is embarrassing, but I wasn't really paying attention. The news depresses me. However, this man caught my attention when he objected to being called the last man to walk on the moon. He asserted that a young man or woman living today would walk on the moon again.

I don't hear people talk like that often. With assurance that something big will be accomplished. As a nation, what lofty goals do we have? What aspirations do we work toward?

We bicker. We focus on petty things.

Our people walked the moon. Unlike Icarus, their wings didn't melt. How much nearer the sun could we have gone? How much farther could we still go?

I'm no scientist. I don't understand the rules of space travel, but I've been on a swing. I love best that breathtaking moment, just before the swing falls, when you leave the seat and float in the air, hands holding tight to the chain.

It seems to me that we, as a nation, are at that point. An exhilarating moment. What if we spread our wings and let go the chain? We've been to the moon, so we know we are capable. Just let go the chain and free our hands for what needs doing.

But what's the point if we have no particular place to go? Might as well sit on the swing.

The Antioch Writers Workshop has come and gone. I attended this year for the second time. I learned a lot before, and this year, I expected reminders of things I knew. I hoped to discover something I never heard before. The thing about expecting something entirely new, is that, when it happens, it still surprises you.

I chose the afternoon session led by David B. Coe. I did not know him as an author before I chose his group. I picked him because his books seemed most interesting to me when I read through the bios. David led the sessions, but he managed be one of the group, a member with authority. My experience on these afternoons was extraordinary, but it was due to much more than his teaching.

 Twelve writers brought their manuscripts forward for assessment. Each of these twelve offered critique of one another's work, plus David's comments. They gave genuine and kind affirmations, clear and reasonable criticism. I tried to maintain this quality when my turn to speak came around.

My manuscript would be critiqued on the very last day. I tried to savor the anticipation and not to panic. I focused on doing my very best for the people who came before me. I gave them what I wanted myself, and what I saw they gave each other: heaps of deserved praise and honest criticism.

Some things unexpected began to happen right away. These writers saw one another as friends. Some knew each other already, but this group of thirteen developed solidarity. Despite my pathological reserve with unfamiliar people, they even drew me in.

On the final day, I felt emotional. Nerves played a part. My time for critique had come close. I still expected to hear something unexpected. I just knew someone would find some huge problem with my manuscript, an issue which would force me to dissect what I had written. I wanted to make my story better, but facing those twelve people scared me.

I felt emotional for one other reason. I didn't want to leave these people. I didn't want to lose the magic they had spun the last six days.

My critique began and I heard praise and honest criticism. I felt honored to be told by these people how they reacted to my work. I suppose it sounds hokey to you reading this, but I felt closer to them all when they critiqued my manuscript. I had expected to be pushed away.

The huge and unexpected that came to me had nothing to do with my manuscript. Yes, I learned new things. I see a clear path ahead, and for that I am thankful. But this is the epiphany. In only seven days, I became part of a we. For me, that is an unheard of thing.