I took the dogs out for a late afternoon walk in the deep woods, Maria was tied up working on one of her quilts – we do not see one another generally during the day – and I wanted to check on my wild turkey egg. I saw the great change in the woods. Buds appearing on the trees, the meadow forming on the ground, flies and mosquitoes appearing.
The dogs are busier sniffing, checking out the smells, listening for chipmunks and squirrels, more birds in the trees, the trees themselves seem more alive, they are stirring, talking to one another, bursting with green. The trees are beginning to form a canopy, the light will be thinner, the woods darker and even more mysterious.
The forest reminds me that I think I have grasped the light, when suddenly it escapes, radiating elsewhere. I pursue it, hoping to catch it, but I can’t. I can not bring myself to leave, I keep pursuing it, but it is only visible for an instant, it is gone in a flash, it disappears. I don’t despair, it always returns, it needs to be seen.
I think of Kelly Nolan as the Queen Of The Bog, the biker and community bar formally titled Foggy Notions, her throne. She makes drinks, greets customers, writes out checks, takes orders, busses tables, she glides from one end of her domain to the other, it seems effortless and fluid, I am sure it is not simple, although she makes it look simple.
Kelly has a strong philosophy of life, she is accepting of it and meets it graciously and patiently. I sometimes think her smile is pure power, it seems to come from inside of her and radiates out as a presence. This is the first time I went behind the bar to photogoraph here, I thought it offered a good perspective.
I was at the post office the other day checking my Post Office Box, one of the nicest chores of my day, and I dropped one of the letters as I pulled it out of the box. A young woman entering the post office saw it fall. “Can I help you pick that up?,” she asked, rushing to pick up the letter, and I was surprised to hear myself say “yes, thank you.”
It was a sweet thing for her to do, but it was bittersweet. I realized that she would never have suggested that if I didn’t look older, perhaps too old to bend down that far and pick the letter up. This was shocking to me, it was the first time in my life anyone has ever asked if they could pick up something I dropped, especially a think little letter, and I realized that from her perspective – she was very young – I looked old enough so that she thought she ought to intervene and help me.
She would never, of course, have made that offer to a young man or a young woman. “Oh,” she said smiling, as she walked away, “I love your books.” I was beet red. I was mortified to be the man who couldn’t pick up his own letter.
I am able to pick things up off of the floor or the ground, but it is not as simple or fluid as it used to be, sometimes I need a strategy for it, something to lean on or help me pull myself up. I don’t often look at the photos and videos Maria increasingly puts up of me, but you probably have seen for yourself that I am getting older. Merton said this was the age when we are “beginning to be old.” I always liked that term.
I have to learn to look in the mirror and love the face I see. It is me.
That same afternoon, I went to the hardware store and bought some bags of mulch for Maria. When I went to pay, Bryan, the store manager, offered to help put them into the car. “I’ve never asked for help with that before,” I said, embarrassed. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, “better to ask for help than pull a muscle in your back. That’s why we are here.” He was trying to spare me the embarrassment he sensed, I think, he made it look like he did this for everybody.
But I am often at the hardware store, and Bryan doesn’t make this offer to everybody, most people put their own bags of mulch into their trunks and pick-ups.
And the truth is, I am glad he offered to help, I was thinking about my back, and how it would handle that task. It was difficult for me to accept these offers of help, I literally had to grit my teeth, but sometimes pride does goeth before a fall,or even a muscle pull, and I am needing to see myself in the way that others see me, and accept where i am in life.
Today, I started to go out and mow the lawn. It was 80 degrees and I was determined to do it. Maria gently reminded me that it not a good for me to be out in strong sun, some of my medications don’t respond well to it. It is just too hot, she said, wait for tomorrow. I knew she was right, I was discouraged, unsettled, I went into the house to read and write on the blog.
In my head, I am young, vigorous, able to do all of the things I always did. My body does not always agree. Maria does a number of the chores that I used to do, she gracefully steps in and fills the void that never used to be there. I love farm chores, I am a farm chore addict. I still do many of them, but sometimes, I just take photos of them.
Maria does not see me as old, thank God, or if she does, she shows no signs of it. She insists I am handsome. Maybe love really is blind.
So the truth is, people are beginning to see me as older, in need of help. Grocery store clerks sometimes ask me if I need help getting groceries out and into the car. (I don’t.) I need to understand this, I can certainly do almost everything I used to do, but not everything, and people are beginning to see that in me. And are trying to help.
It makes me angry, but that is not a healthy response to help.
Being mortal means being truthful, and accepting where you are. I have friends who constantly do “old” talk, and I hate it. I don’t do it. The older you see yourself, the older you will be, in your eyes and in the eyes of others. I want to accept being mortal, but it is not a defining element in my life, not yet, and hopefully, not ever.
Old talk nearly killed me, I kept telling myself I was just getting old, that’s why I was struggling to talk to the mailbox. I walk plenty now, and don’t struggle, open heart surgery reminds me to deal with mortality openly and honestly.
I am doing all of the things I want to do in life, even if I need help once in a while. Even if I forget things i used to always remember. My doctors say I am healthier than ever, mentally and physically. But they do not say I am getting younger. Getting help is humbling, and that is a healthy thing.
I know where I am, and I will own up to it. But I will not surrender to it. And am at the age where death is much closer than it is far away. I am beginning to ask and consider the hard questions of mortality, questions I began considering in my work as a hospice volunteer.
How is it that people die so differently? From so many different causes? Why do some people die peacefully and so many die in great pain? Why do so many die long, protracted, obscenely expensive and difficult deaths? Why do so many people die so quickly in nursing homes, and live so much longer at home? Why are we told again and again to avoid hospitals when it is time to die?
These questions speak to being mortal, to our mortal end, especially as it is lived in the United States, where we hide from death all of our lives, and suddenly come face-to-face with it, frightened and ill-prepared.
This is a wonderful time of life for me, not a sad one. I have never lived more meaningfully, more happily, more creatively. My own experience in recent years has taught me that I can shape the nature of my life if I am willing to think about it and consider my choices. There are many things I cannot control, many things I can.
And I will. It is good to sometimes be helped. It is good to sometimes accept help.
Thanks to Lynn, the education director of the Chattanooga Audubon Society, and curator of one of the world’s largest replica egg collections for helping us unravel the mystery of the egg in the woods. And thanks to the many others who tried to help, via e-mail and on Facebook.
She thinks we came across a wild turkey egg.
“It’s not uncommon for them to lay out in the open like that, though it’s a little strange that it’s just one egg. They’re ground nesters, however and they will lay in mossy areas, up against fallen logs, near the base of a tree…and don’t necessarily build much of a nest around it.”
Lynn thinks it’s possible this one was interrupted laying her clutch, or another animal tried to steal it, or perhaps she’s just getting started with her laying.
Wild turkeys are not rare around here, but it is unusual to come across an egg. It is illegal to touch the egg or move it, and we have done and will done neither. We will check on it and see if more eggs are laid or if it is moved.
The egg is hard and sits right in the middle of a path in the woods. Few people go there, but I imagine many animals do at night, when the forest becomes a completely different world. We walk in the woods almost every day, but there is so much we don’t know about the trees and the animals there.
Life is a puzzle to contemporary humans, we have lost touch with the natural world and the real lives of animals. Maria and I are always working to re-connect with both. The Internet can be a difficult thing, but it is also a miraculous tool sometimes.
There Is Only One Way To Get A Dog (First Of Several)
It is quite common today for people to tell us that there is only one way to get a dog. Whenever I announce that I am looking to get a dog, I am besieged moralist dog lovers begging me to get a shelter dog or a rescue dog, there is, they say, only one proper way to get a dog.
Acquiring a dog has become one of those ideological and political and black-and-white certainties, another spawn of the “left” and the “right” shrinking of the American mind. You don’t need to research it, think about it, do what’s best for the people or the dog, you just need to do it one way because that is the only way to get a dog.
Dogs suffer greatly from this unknowingly heartless, even abusive, thinking. Our shelters are crammed with dogs people either returned or gave up because they didn’t know that dogs don’t live moral and absolutist lives, they were not consulted when it came to choosing the only way to acquire them.
Not every dog is right for every person or every home, and not every home or person is right for every dog.
Just ask some of the millions of dogs languishing in animal shelters all over the country. At one time, getting a dog was a private, even personal decision. There are now more than 80 million dogs in America (there were 15 million in the 1960’s) and more than a half-million of them are on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. Dog bites are skyrocketing, according to the CDC (Centers For Disease Control) and the American Pediatric Association, which monitors bites on the faces and necks of children, says these bites are “epidemic.”
There are somewhere between 10 and 12 million dogs in shelters, according to the U.S. Humane Society.
Perhaps it is time to advocate the thoughtful rather than the knee-jerk acquisition of dogs, who are, after all, animals very dependent on us for their survival and well-being.
I am asked all the time how I get dogs, and my answer is always the same: in as thoughtful a way as I can. I get a dog in a way that considers the nature and needs of the dog, and the nature and needs of the human. There are, as every true dog lover knows, many good ways to get a dog. Deciding in advance that there is only one way is not one of them.
We are all different. We live in different environments, have different needs, resources, energies, psyches, families, homes.
I have had rescue dogs and dogs purchased from conscientious and ethical breeders, and I have had a long string of great and wonderful dogs and joyous experiences. I have also made some painful mistakes and missteps. I am, above all, human and human beings make mistakes.
Those mistakes are always mine, not the dog’s, and they have taught me to work hard and think long before I get a dog.
Shelters are great, if the right dog is there for you. There are good shelters and bad shelters. Rescue dogs are wonderful, if the human and dog can know something about each other and match up well. There are very good rescue groups and very bad rescue groups. And there are breeder- raised and sold dogs. There are good breeders and bad breeders.
This should be obvious, but in our polarized world, it is often forgotten. The dog world is not black-and-white. Our narrowing visions are.
If there are two words to use when it comes to getting a dog, I would choose “carefully” and “thoughtfully.” Karen Thompson read one of my books and grasped that Red was a perfect fit for me. I was a little eccentric in my life with dogs, I had sheep and I had and trained hospice therapy dogs. She knew it was a good fit and sent me many videos of Red and talked me through it. She was right. A good breeder is a wonderful way to get a dog. Good breeders keep the very best traits in dogs alive. Where, after all, do people think those border collies on TV come from?
She and I talked about the work here, the life she thought Red could be leading, she wanted to know about the life I was leading. We talked and talked until we got to the same place. It turned out well foe me, and for Red. The same thing happened with Fate, she has sheep, a farm to run around in, walks in the woods, a person to be with all day.
Good shelter workers and rescue group volunteers can do the same thing Karen did. People spent more time and money researching microwave ovens than they do choosing dogs, live animals who will come into their homes, be with their children and family members, spent a decade or more with them on average. Yet it is unthinkable for many people to spend money on a dog. A dog is not necessarily the best dog for you just because it got into trouble in Alabama and was driven elsewhere for adoption, or “rescue,” as is the term now.
A dog is not necessarily the best fit for you because it was rescued off of a Caribbean beach and needs a home. There are plenty of dogs in Newark and many large cities that need homes as well. A dog isn’t right for you just because it’s cute and some breeder is asking $2,000 for it. Rescue is a wonderful thing, but for me it is not the point. Getting the right dog and giving him or her the best possible home is the point.
It is more complex than that, for your sake, for the dogs. I live on a farm with sheep, my choice is fairly clear, I need a well-bred working dog with stamina, intelligence, a gentle bite and working instincts. I need a good breeder for that. Maria got Frieda, a wonderful dog, from a shelter. Frieda was a tough dog to handle in many ways, but she could not have been a better dog for Maria, who walked often in the woods, often worked out of her home and felt the need for some protection from the world.
They were a wonderful pair, two man-haters navigating and uncertain world together, and she turned out to be a wonderful dog for me as well.
If someone told you there was only one way to get married – rescue a man or woman in trouble – somewhere, anywhere in the world, you would think it fatuous and simple-minded. It is simple-minded to choose a dog in that way.
We are blessed with a number of different and very good ways to get a dog, and we are morally and ethically obliged to consider all of them when we bring so complex and individualistic a creature as a canine animal into our worlds. Some breeds are food-aggressive because they come from cold and remote climates where there is little food available to them. Some need long periods of exercise and attention, some need little or none.
Dogs lasted many thousands of years without being medicated for anxiety. Something is wrong with us, not them. We are not choosing them thoughtfully.
Some dogs are disposed to biting children who come near their food, some will let children take food right out of their mouths. Good animal providers have some traits in common, it is good to listen and look for them: they want to talk to you, have a conversation with you.
They want to know about your life, your family, your environment, your training ideas and philosophy. Good dog providers are not looking for reasons to keep a dog away from you (because you are not rich or have a big fence or work hard), they are looking for reasons to get you a dog that fits into your life. With many dogs languishing in crates for years in supposedly “humane” no-kill shelters, there is no reason hardly anyone who want a dog ought not be able to find one.
The Internet gives us a way to do our homework, we can research breed traits and histories, and breed traits matter. A border collie is not a mutt, a mutt is not a Lab. It isn’t that one is better or worse than the other, it’s that they are different. Shelters now love to cal mixed breeds “American shelter” dogs to avoid having to identify their breed traits, I think this is an outrageous abdication of responsibility. They say that vets can’t identify breed traits, there is much evidence that this is simply a lie. People have the right to know as much information about a dog as it is possible to get, especially from vets who have been through six years of schooling.
Border collies are a nightmare in the wrong place, they are among the breeds most abused, abandoned and returned. There are dogs known as Pit Bulls that are wonderful, loyal, gentle and loving pets, there are dogs known as Pit Bulls that can, through no fault of their own, be dangerous. For your sake and for the sake of the dog, and your children’s safety and well-being, you need to know which is which.
Getting a dog is a moral and emotional experience, but not only those things. It is a process. It is a relationship, a commitment, a kind of marriage. More dogs than ever are being purchased and rescued and adopted, more dogs than ever are biting, being abused by frustrated and ignorant owners, being medicated, returned to shelters or abandoned.
Dogs can’t think about where they are going, they are dependent on us to do that. When we refuse to exercise our uniquely human options to be thoughtful and to consider the kind of dog we really want and can care for, they we are just as immoral as the worst kind of abuser. We are sending dogs into peril, not rescue.
My dogs depend on me to think for them and speak for them, and I do believe there is only one way to get a dog: in whatever way works best for you and for the dog. The test is not how righteous we are, but how good a life the dog can live with us.
