Puppy Love

Musings from yesterday…

In the park the dogs lead their people with leashes and invisible strings of love – toward the nexus of freedom, the open field, that spot where the sun turns everything to magic.  The collie’s coat is grass green from fresh cuttings, the dauschund a darker shade of brown when he joyfully emerges from the puddle hidden behind the rhododendrons.  The goldendoodle finally flops, spread-eagled with happy exhaustion, laughing at the guy who keeps trying to throw the orange ball.  He’ll have to fetch it himself, for now.  And though I have a cuddly warm cat at home, who will greet me with the plume of her glorious tail stroking my legs, I am content for the moment to be a watcher of dogs: proud, goofy, strong, beautiful dogs, the world revolving around their play in the last of the afternoon sun.

And of note today…

It is the sixth birthday of one of my favorite dogs.  Happy Birthday, Demian!

 

Moments After the Move

Stranger’s house,

vacation cabin -

finding the pots where the plates should be.

Chow mein, cat food, maple syrup

sharing a kitchen shelf.

None of us quite belong, yet.

But how quickly the stove is stained,

the television remote lost,

the old apartment buried.

How slow the silent night -

no tenant steps on the stairs,

no sirens pulling up in the half light

of the hospital on Cherry Street.

It is just us, here…

and the ants and moths,

and the new neighbor singing opera

as he tills the soil next door.

Salt on the wind -

just over that ridge, the blue bay.

Just under the skin -

home.

Seeing Double

Let me introduce someone. Her name is Karen. She is my evil twin. Karen hits the sleep button too many times. She gets grumpy about doing the dishes. She runs into walls and hits her head on cupboard corners. Erin, on the other hand, is sophisticated and punctual. Karen wears her makeup to bed and wakes up looking like a raccoon with a vendetta. Erin smells like apricot scrub and rises with rosy cherub cheeks. Karen is sassy. She sometimes makes snide comments about other people’s hobbies and tasteless attire. Sweet Erin might want to reel those words back in like stinky fish, but Karen doesn’t give a damn. She’s going to say what she thinks and not apologize. Karen is also the one who gets down on herself. Erin is optimistic and sunny; Karen looks out at the world and then hides under the covers. There are monsters out there, and decisions to make. Ick. Did I mention that Karen bites her fingernails and eats fast food? The problem is, Karen looks exactly like me. She stares back at me from the mirror with those raccoon eyes. When I see Karen on a rainy morning I just want to crawl back in bed. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up as Erin – I’ll remember to bring reusable grocery bags, buy organic, and drink tea instead of coffee. And then the next day I’ll have pizza and a latte and watch cable television all night long. And I’ll like it. So there (says Karen).

Belly Up

There is a Frontline documentary on PBS tonight called “Poisoned Waters” about pollution in U.S. water systems, particularly Chesapeake Bay and the Puget Sound.  I’m sitting here thinking about two things: the terrible stomach sickness I got last year after eating Chesapeake Bay crabs in Maryland (were they contaminated with agricultural waste?), and the privilege of growing up on Puget Sound – exploring the tidal flats, discovering jellyfish and starfish and all other sorts of magical creatures in my own backyard.

I love the Sound.  I was on a rowing team for a few years in high school, and instead of practicing on a lake, we would row out into the bay, where silky-headed seals bobbed along behind our boats and we could breathe in the fresh salt air and watch herons take off from the pilings.  But the Sound is unhealthy.  Because of PCBs and other contaminants in the sound, we may see our Orca whale populations disappear within a decade or two.  We have one of the largest Superfund sites in the country along the Duwamish River because of industry pollution over several decades.  Fish are dying in droves.  When I was helping Prof. Gary Chamberlain research his book “Troubled Waters,” I learned about the toxic run-off from the bridges I often use to cross Lake Washington.  Pollutants from car brake pads end up in the lake and later the Sound, and the salmon, and us.

Since helping Gary with his reasearch, I’ve tried to do my small part to raise awareness about some of the many problems that collectively have created a major water crisis.  But it is hard.  My showers get longer and longer again.  And the issue of water pollution is huge, involving industry practices and politics and lots of money.  Solutions can seem remote when you look at the big picture and it is just so big.  Yet, on this Earth Day eve, I am reminding myself that there are a lot of little things each person can do to minimize her own impact on the Earth.  I live in the gorgeous natural arena of the Puget Sound, cradled between the Olympic Peninsula’s rain forests and the rolling Palouse hills of Eastern Washington.   It is a place that has taught me a lot about awe and respect for nature.  I hope more people will realize that Earth Day should be Every Day.  The Orcas are counting on us.

Happy Earth Day

Today, and Yesterday, and Tomorrow

The poem below is a few years old – complete with an old couch that is no longer in my living room and the memory of a beloved cat, before Neko entered the scene and became part of the new fabric of my life (figuratively and literally, as she blends now into her niche on top of the new couch).  In many ways though, I am in the same place.  The same wide horizon looms… so large that sometimes I can’t catch my breath.  When the idea of taking another career step or personal leap seems overwhelming (though no doubt exciting), I lean back on books and photography and good food, and the delightful people around me – all my necessary nourishment.  I remind myself to delight in the moment.  For there is just this cup of tea.  This morning alarm clock (a pink cat tongue on my nose).  This cherry branch catching the sun.  Each a small poem – as Billy Collins says, a small perfect grape you can eat again and again.  Beautiful.

What is more perfect than this evening,

Murakami and Mary Oliver sharing the coffee table,

classical radio and a candle flaring

in a blue tin camping mug?

But, after all, it is ordinary -

this life I have somehow made,

unless I belong to it like each object does,

thrown together in a quiet living room

by the happenstance of my taste

and particularities.

I drank the last of the apple tea with honey,

the last swallow grown cold in my cup.

And here is my bookcase, swollen with stories,

some of which I haven’t gotten to,

and won’t for a long while.

The two guitars like twins are perching

in the corner, one the wild child

with its string ends all awry at the head,

the other growing dusty because it’s mine,

and I don’t know how to play.

This is my couch, growing yellow;

these are snags from Morning Glory’s claws,

though now he’s long been buried

in what is no longer my parent’s backyard.

These are my shoes and my umbrella,

my drum and my bowl full of pens,

and this is what it means to be content,

for a moment, even though my head

has swirled lately with thoughts

of what could be and what’s to come

and all the things that haven’t happened yet.