This farmhouse, not far from my own, is a beautiful and gracious place, I often take photos of it, it is, to me a place in balance, the trees stand like sentinels, marking each major building on the farm property, it speaks to me of a life in balance – love and work, friendship and connection, creativity and change, loss and gain.
Life is not one thing, it is many things, it has many parts, each changing, adjusting to the other, affecting the other. Success without connection is meaningless to me, loss defines gain, suffering defines health. We are perpetually shocked by death, we hide from it and stave it off, not seeming to realize it and birth are the two universal human experiences that bind us into one.
In my life, I have taken a vow of balance. I seek love in my life, and friendship. I seek community and connection. I seek security in self-awareness and authenticity, not in bank accounts of long-term insurance plans. I seek not a perfect life but a life of grace and acceptance. I am not afraid to die, I am afraid to live poorly. I do not dread the loss of loved ones, I dread a life without loves ones, I do not agonize over the death of my dogs, I am grateful for every day I have them. I mean to live meaningfully, not forever.
John the chimney sweep came to the house to clean our creosote-ravaged wood stove fireplace, and he is a friend and he loves to talk about his dogs and he told me his dog is sick and he will never, ever get another one, the pain of losing him is just too great, he just can’t bear it. John kept talking about his dying dog, telling me every detail, how hard it was for him, how he never wanted to go through it again.
“John,” I asked him, putting my hand on his shoulder,”what about the joy of having him for 13 years? Does that count for anything? Why do you dwell on the one and not the other, how much weight do you give the 13 years against a week of suffering?” He looked at me as if I had fallen from the sky. “I never thought about that,” he said. I hope he does (I handed him a couple of books to move him along.) As he left, he was talking again about how much pain his dying dog was causing him.
For me, as a writer and a human being, John had gone astray, lost the very meaning and joy of animals. Dogs have always been a metaphor for life, their real significance is not just in what they do but what they do to use and make us feel. Animals have always suggested balance for me, they live and they die, they come and they go, most do not live as long as us, they do not suffer for themselves the way we suffer for them. They are a joy to me, a gift, I will not make them a misery and a cross to bear, it demeans their purpose, to walk with us through life and bring us comfort.
They teach me that life of balance is a life of acceptance, for me, there is no value or meaning in railing against the very nature and meaning of life. I am not surprised by death, I would be stunned at its absence. What, after all, do we expect from the world? We all come from one place, we are all going to another, it is the ultimate case for connection and fellowship, the irrefutable proof that we are all one thing.