Day: August 20, 2014

I was talking to a friend today who was thinking about getting a new dog, she had the sense it might be the lifetime dog she has always wanted but wasn’t sure. We talked about how to get a lifetime dog, how you know.

We had a great talk. Unlike so many people who get dogs, she didn’t have a rigid or fixed idea about how to get one, she was open to a process of self-awareness, thought and some old fashioned homework. Americans spent more time researching cellphones by far than they do thinking about how to get a dog in the right way.

I have often written about the “lifetime” dog, some people call it a “heart” dog, and as often happens, I have changed my mind several times about it. Open minds change. I thought for years that you could only have one. I thought my lifetime was Orson, and then Rose, and now Red. I see that you can have more than one.

I told my friend that first, she needs to give some thought to why she wants a dog, how she wishes to live with a dog, how she wants it to fit into her life and mark the passages of life. Her kids will be leaving in a few years, she is beginning to think about life beyond parenting and domesticity and her career. It is important for her to understand where she is in life, dogs do not come in a vacuum, we need to know about them and how they might fit into our plans for life.

When I got Red, after months of uncertainty, I began to see his role in my life. Herding sheep, a ride-along dog (I bring my dog a lot of places), a dog I could write about on my blog and books, a therapy dog. A smart and responsive and trainable dog. I identified with his story – he needed a home and had been through a rough time. I understand that, I bonded with that in him.

Many people will only get a rescue dog, they seem sometimes to want the rescue as much or more as the dog. Red is a rescue dog, so is Frieda, but that is not enough of a reason for me, I needed to know about his background, his breeding, his temperament. If he were to do the things I wanted him to do, I had to be careful and thoughtful. Getting a lifetime dog is rarely about impulse, it takes some good and hard work – thought, self-awareness, research and training.

Dogs are different, breeds are different, dispositions are different. Dog aggression is epidemic right now, dog bites are up 47 per cent in America, according to the Center for Disease Control (CD) most of these bites are on the faces of young children, who are low to the ground. It is worth taking time and giving thought to getting a dog, especially a lifetime dog, a dog that bonds powerfully to us and marks the most important parts of our lives.

I told my friend she might consider spending some time with the dog, doing it alone, giving the two a chance to bond and see if the bond has any depth to it. Getting a lifetime dog requires a lot of thought, and much of it is about us, and not them. My friend is eager to do good in the world, she is very drawn to a particular dog and that, I thought is a good sign. Every year, millions of dogs are returned to shelters, many more live in conflict and uncertainty with their humans.

There is no one way to get a dog other than this: a dog that works best for you, your life and your family. A dog is not a moral decision, it is a very practical one, and dogs deserve our utmost consideration before we bind them to us for life. I have had three lifetime dogs in not too many years, I am getting strong and confident about how to do it. I was blessed to encounter Dr. Karen Thompson, who sensed that Red and I were made for one another and who talked to me patiently for months until I sensed that as well.

Sometimes this happens in rescue, sometimes at a shelter, often from a good breeder. There are many, and they keep alive some of the best traits in dogs, they are the source of many lifetime dogs.

A lifetime dog is a wonderful gift to dog and person, it is such a comforting thing, a powerful bond. Red has been by my side every minute since my surgery, I cannot say what that has meant for my healing. He walks with me every day, staying by my side, heeding my commands, joining in my work to heal my heart. And in so many ways, he is a piece of my heart.

Red brightens many more hearts than mine. He comes with me to the dentist’s office, the bookstore, the farmer’s market, he is a therapy dog who works with veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, for the past month or so, he has been my therapy dog, he is very good at it.

A lifetime dog is one of the most powerful gifts a person can give themselves, it is worth time, thought and hard work. I no longer believe one can have only one lifetime dog, I think I will  have one until the end of my life. I wish the same for everyone.

I had lunch at the Round House Cafe today with George Forss and his lover, the artist Donna Wynbrandt. George is finishing up his Kickstarter Project, a collection of his brilliant photographs called “The Way We Were,” (I am happy to be working on the introduction) and Donna has begun work on a new book about the life of the writer Virginia Wolff.

I had a cup of vegetarian chili and the egg sandwich with tomato and avocado (and egg, of course) and George had the BLT w/avocado, which he said was the best BLT he had ever had in his life. I had a ginger cookie, as well. I was surprised to learn that George is, like me, an impassioned and lifelong follower of the revolutionary writer and philosopher, Tom Paine, the author of the pamphlet “Common Sense,” which became the country’s first best seller and helped spark the American Revolution.

Paine has always inspired me, I think of him often when i write about the New York Carriage Horses, he would have been right alongside the drivers, fighting the gross injustice being done to them by politicians, millionaires, ideologues and real estate developers. Paine would have been chewing up some streets in protest by now, the carriage drivers are not revolutionaries by nature, at least not yet.

George and I were quoting Paine’s famous words back and forth to one another, and talking about his life, which had a sad and lonely end. Paine was a visceral outsider, and this, I suppose is part of the great connection and love George and I have for one another. George, for those of you who do not know, is one of the most famous photographers in the world, he is a genius of composition, of mastering the technics of both the camera and the darkroom. You can follow him on his very eclectic blog.

George had a rugged life, most of his early years were spent in welfare homes and orphanages, his mother was physically and mentally ill. He and Donna have a great and eternal love, their devotion to one another is always inspiring and moving. George will be at the second Bedlam Farm Open House on Columbus Day weekend, he will be doing portraits. Maria will be selling her art, I will be showing off Red and the sheep and conducting donkey tours. It will be more of a celebration than I thought, I think I may be able to lift things by then, but perhaps not yet able to hug. I am not that big of a hugger anyway.

I love my regular encounters with George, we talk on the phone almost every morning and stay in touch. I brought him a paper dragon from New York City and he put it on his flat screen TV. We talked about our hearts – he has congestive heart failure, and he explained that he has his own philosophy about doctors. He just doesn’t ever listen to them. He said he only listens to the aliens when it comes to his health, and they have done well by him, they are wise and vigilant.

I was very happy to learn that George loves Tom Paine as much as I do, I have a bunch of great books to bring him.

 

There are many beautiful markers and tombstones and flowers in the beautiful cemetery where I walk, but I am often drawn to the very loving display for Floyd and Dorthy Mears, it shows so much love, heart and imagination. From the deer at the top to the floral lettlering and cherubs, I see there are so many ways to show love and to mark love, big and beautiful memorials are one way, the Mears descendants have found another. When I see this marker, I think of love and memory.

I wonder if I will be loved and remembered in that way, I doubt it. For one thing, I plan to be cremated, for another I don’t have a lot of family or descendants to do something like that. And my love has been unpredictable, often disturbed and erratic. I imagine the Mears lives were simpler, a lot of family, a lot of family time. I suppose I am just not that loving. My biological family is scattered and out of touch with one another, I haven’t heard from my brother in years, and my daughter lives in Brooklyn and is not, I think, prone to making such an idiosyncratic display. I think I am not as sweet as the Floyd and Dorthy Mears must have been. I imagine them as warm and generous people, wonderful grandparents perhaps.

I suspect someone in the family was an avid hunter, there is a deer on the tombstone as well.

I suspect Maria will make something funky and imaginative for me and hang it in her Studio. I wish she would make it now I could see it, but she won’t, she says it is morbid and expects me to be around for a long time with my pre-owned heart. In the meantime, I love walking past this display every morning, the monument of a loving family.

When the sun hits the yard, Flo comes out of her safe and hiding spots and take up position in a dirt-filled but vacant flower pot, which she has now commandeered, along with various chairs, settees and hay bales. Flo is definitely the reigning queen of Bedlam Farm, where she once hid in the woodshed, she now reigns over everything. In the cold and stormy weather, she is in the house, on my lap. In the heat, she is in the barn or under the front porch. On sunny days, she is the monarch of the back porch. Now, she is the Queen Of The Pot.

Maria and I were walking in the cemetery this morning with Red, and we were holding hands, and I looked up and saw this very powerful symbol on a tombstone marking the grave of a husband and wife who died more than a century ago. On their tombstone, their hands are clasped in an eternal embrace.

I have learned in recent years that there are messages waiting for me, if I am open to them, and this was such a message, I was deeply moved by it, I told Maria this is how I thought of us, clasped in eternal love that transcended or bodies, went beyond our notions of time and space, a love pure and powerful that would find a way to live through eternity.

How wonderful that I should see it as Maria and I, closer than ever, were walking hand in hand. The surgery has deepened our trust and commitment to one another, she has never flinched or turned from me, not even in the hard hours.  At dinner with friends the other night, Maria said suddenly that I was the first person she had ever fully trusted, and that nearly brought me to my knees, there could be no greater or more meaningful compliment to me. These hands spoke to me of that, of our trust for one another.

This, I thought, was the message of the symbol on the tombstone, what Ezekiel and Martha were telling me, were whispering to me. Perhaps I will meet them one day. We will recognize one another.