All of us sometimes wonder why the world is so harsh, why innocents get hurt seemingly needlessly and why we can't all just be a little more rational.
It can make you crazy. Especially if you have a natural tendency for obsession as I do. So one of my releases is to let go of the big whys and spend some fun time with the little whys. Quite often, they involve my dog, Rusty.
Observing him is one of the great and small pleasures in my life. He and I have only been together since last summer, and he's still growing up. So the changes and behaviors are often new to us both.
An example is his reliance versus independence. Almost all of the time, Rusty is exactly at my side one step back. While I'm doing the mundane or the important, that is the post he chooses. He's fairly wise about avoiding my sudden moves and his apparently tender feet. It's a good thing because something about his golden retriever breed makes him almost silent. I have no idea how something about 70 pounds and a big swishy high tail can appear and disappear without a sound. But I don't get much space. Just enough.
Until fall approached. And I noticed the other side. He wants that back door open to ensure his ability to return to his post. But he'd rather be outside again and again exploring a small space he ought to have down pat by now. If I'd join out there, he'd be in heaven. He could fulfill his duty and curiousity all at once.
I don't understand his sense of obligation and alternate sense of freedom and adventure. But I recognize it.
And then there's his sense of organization. Regularly each day, he has to put his toys away - by his order, not mine. Sometimes they are gathered and placed on my bathroom floor. He has a couch upon which he can sit before an upstairs window and watch the world go by. Most often, it is upon that window sill the toys are stored. A squeaky ball, what's left of the end of a rope chew and whatever current chewbone he has been provided. Nothing he steals, only what he is given and shown is his. If you take them down and play with them, they will eventually be returned to the spot by him.
On the other hand, Rusty fulfills his need to chew with fireplace logs. Like many people, there's a log pile in the back corner of the back yard. He chooses his logs from there. Drags them into a shady spot under the big oak where he can keep an eye on everything and sharpens his amazingly white teeth on a hardwood. In comparison to his other belongings, however, these logs never get put back. In fact, when oak stops tasting so good, cedar becomes a new challenge. But within a few feet of the oak log. This changes at least four times over a couple of days. The wood pile is soon a wood strewn. And even when I go and reassemble the pile, he repeats the sloppying process.
Today I was smirking at these seeming dichotomies when it struck me. He's not confusing. Rusty is Rickie. Not in the exact behaviors, but in the incongruities. I am never middle of the road, aware I choose the bar ditches to see what surprise is hidden there. And I switch from left to right constantly. I do some things consistently because I believe it is my duty, my responsibility. And every now and then I say screw it and do whatever I want completely upon whim. Because it feels right to me.
I sometimes feel guilty about my inability to be consistent. But then I laugh aloud at the silliness that is Rusty's behavior. And see how his doing those things make him do the Goofy Dance, straight up in the air, body twisting and tongue lolling. He doesn't try to understand them, he just does them and finds it makes him happy.
I'm going to come up with more little whys and just enjoy them. Hell, maybe even find myself in a Goofy Dance every now and then.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Demon dance
"Devils and demons dance in my head"
I wrote that line when I was 18. Wrote it without understanding that I might recognize the struggle going on, but I still hadn't looked the characters in the eye. And that meant they would continue their disrupting dance for decades.
The blog post immediately prior to this was to remind me that point again. Inside the commentary, I can see ongoing actions that would be detrimental for way too long. And the unpublished memory of that same day adds to that understanding.
I come from a family and world where dealing with feelings was not taught, not displayed and not respected. That's tough on a highly sensitive man. But I learned the lesson of taking the feeling and shoving it farther down. And down. With whatever weight was required.
The prior post is my finding a feeling I couldn't hold back. The unpublished part is that after that funeral, I had to drive across the Texas Panhandle to the family burial site. It's a landscape where you can see any oncoming vehicle on the tiny two-lane ribbons literally miles and tens of minutes before you cross. So I loaded up on beer feeling invincible on those roads and too vulnerable inside.
It was the latest lesson I'd learned. If you need help getting those feelings out of the way, drown them, anesthetize them.
Here's the problem with any method of ignoring - it doesn't work. Never. For decades I put away feelings, jammed them way down until I couldn't see them anymore. But they kept knocking and probing until some incidental thing happened that created a crack. And while it seemed the incidental thing was being way overblown, in reality it was just pressure spewing everywhere and all of the sudden.
It never failed. I got a reputation for having a quick temper. But it wasn't really that. It was the voracity of the temper when it came out that made it seem so full blown and sudden.
The physical result was I've found years later I've repeatedly broken my hands and wrists. I've never seen a doctor over that specifically, never worn a cast, but only learned of the breaks and heals from a body scan looking for something in my back. Valuing people, I'm almost always hit inanimate objects - walls, trees, signs.
The emotional results is deeper and more prevalent scars. Those closest to me could never tell what was coming. Because I didn't know. But I had no idea how I felt at any moment, even in the midst of rage. And for anyone who cares about you, that's a precarious place to be. When it came to my emotional punches, I threw them right to the face of those who least deserved it.
I feel almost fortunate to have known people who were strong enough themselves to reach a point of refusing those emotional blows. With losing them, I have learned.
These days, I try to recognize what I feel. I try to let it be. Those around me still sometimes don't like it. But they get it in more bite-sized pieces that mean they can digest it and we can all move on. And I can feel at peace much more often, instead of having so many things fermenting inside my psyche.
If you're one of those who gets my bluntness, my uncomfortable honesty, who I tell I like immensely even when it makes them a tad squirmy, believe it's for the better. Better than dancing with the devil in the dark with no idea where the edge of the stage is.
I wrote that line when I was 18. Wrote it without understanding that I might recognize the struggle going on, but I still hadn't looked the characters in the eye. And that meant they would continue their disrupting dance for decades.
The blog post immediately prior to this was to remind me that point again. Inside the commentary, I can see ongoing actions that would be detrimental for way too long. And the unpublished memory of that same day adds to that understanding.
I come from a family and world where dealing with feelings was not taught, not displayed and not respected. That's tough on a highly sensitive man. But I learned the lesson of taking the feeling and shoving it farther down. And down. With whatever weight was required.
The prior post is my finding a feeling I couldn't hold back. The unpublished part is that after that funeral, I had to drive across the Texas Panhandle to the family burial site. It's a landscape where you can see any oncoming vehicle on the tiny two-lane ribbons literally miles and tens of minutes before you cross. So I loaded up on beer feeling invincible on those roads and too vulnerable inside.
It was the latest lesson I'd learned. If you need help getting those feelings out of the way, drown them, anesthetize them.
Here's the problem with any method of ignoring - it doesn't work. Never. For decades I put away feelings, jammed them way down until I couldn't see them anymore. But they kept knocking and probing until some incidental thing happened that created a crack. And while it seemed the incidental thing was being way overblown, in reality it was just pressure spewing everywhere and all of the sudden.
It never failed. I got a reputation for having a quick temper. But it wasn't really that. It was the voracity of the temper when it came out that made it seem so full blown and sudden.
The physical result was I've found years later I've repeatedly broken my hands and wrists. I've never seen a doctor over that specifically, never worn a cast, but only learned of the breaks and heals from a body scan looking for something in my back. Valuing people, I'm almost always hit inanimate objects - walls, trees, signs.
The emotional results is deeper and more prevalent scars. Those closest to me could never tell what was coming. Because I didn't know. But I had no idea how I felt at any moment, even in the midst of rage. And for anyone who cares about you, that's a precarious place to be. When it came to my emotional punches, I threw them right to the face of those who least deserved it.
I feel almost fortunate to have known people who were strong enough themselves to reach a point of refusing those emotional blows. With losing them, I have learned.
These days, I try to recognize what I feel. I try to let it be. Those around me still sometimes don't like it. But they get it in more bite-sized pieces that mean they can digest it and we can all move on. And I can feel at peace much more often, instead of having so many things fermenting inside my psyche.
If you're one of those who gets my bluntness, my uncomfortable honesty, who I tell I like immensely even when it makes them a tad squirmy, believe it's for the better. Better than dancing with the devil in the dark with no idea where the edge of the stage is.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The importance of a bologna sandwich
(This was written in 1989 and is transcribed unedited)
It was only a bologna sandwich, didn't even contain mustard. But it was one of the best tasting things I've ever had.
The sandwich was served at the small, sticker-infested Lefors, Tex., park. The park was just a concrete picnic table, a couple of swings and a marble state historical marker of an 1800s army attack on some Cheyennes which recovered two kidnapped white women.
It would seem the vistas couldn't have led to the sandwiches' exquisite taste, but that was a large part of it. The bread was slathered with sweet West Texas sunshine and the entire sandwich was sprinkled with the mystery and history of the small canyons winds had dug into the slight rolls of the land.
It was also a specially prepared sandwich, made by my Grandmother. I had been kind of dumped on her most of the times between my second and fifth birthdays. We were a strange team, a woman in her forties and a child still forming trusts and beliefs. But she took me when no one else did, and even at that early age I seemed to realize it.
The reason the sandwich comes to mind is a return visit to the park today. It's almost 30 years later and I've returned to Lefors to bury my Grandmother.
Wandering around the town alone just before the services, I was drawn to some regular stops - the water tower we hiked to each day of Vacation Bible School and the muddy fork of the Red River.
But for some reason, for the first time, I was drawn to return to the park. The taste of that sandwich came to me immediately, but it seemed like a small memory to demand my subconscious to make the trip.
As I looked across the little canyons though I found the trip's reason. Moving across the road at the top of the ridge was the vehicle bringing my Grandmother's body from the nearby larger town of Pampa.
Although my Grandmother was a church woman, that building filled with mourners wasn't where she wanted to say goodbye. This park, those times, the taste of that sandwich, were her farewell.
Finally, I cried.
It was only a bologna sandwich, didn't even contain mustard. But it was one of the best tasting things I've ever had.
The sandwich was served at the small, sticker-infested Lefors, Tex., park. The park was just a concrete picnic table, a couple of swings and a marble state historical marker of an 1800s army attack on some Cheyennes which recovered two kidnapped white women.
It would seem the vistas couldn't have led to the sandwiches' exquisite taste, but that was a large part of it. The bread was slathered with sweet West Texas sunshine and the entire sandwich was sprinkled with the mystery and history of the small canyons winds had dug into the slight rolls of the land.
It was also a specially prepared sandwich, made by my Grandmother. I had been kind of dumped on her most of the times between my second and fifth birthdays. We were a strange team, a woman in her forties and a child still forming trusts and beliefs. But she took me when no one else did, and even at that early age I seemed to realize it.
The reason the sandwich comes to mind is a return visit to the park today. It's almost 30 years later and I've returned to Lefors to bury my Grandmother.
Wandering around the town alone just before the services, I was drawn to some regular stops - the water tower we hiked to each day of Vacation Bible School and the muddy fork of the Red River.
But for some reason, for the first time, I was drawn to return to the park. The taste of that sandwich came to me immediately, but it seemed like a small memory to demand my subconscious to make the trip.
As I looked across the little canyons though I found the trip's reason. Moving across the road at the top of the ridge was the vehicle bringing my Grandmother's body from the nearby larger town of Pampa.
Although my Grandmother was a church woman, that building filled with mourners wasn't where she wanted to say goodbye. This park, those times, the taste of that sandwich, were her farewell.
Finally, I cried.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Antithesis
I have lost my identity. Not to some Internet thieves, but to a 65-pound ball of play called Rusty the Goofball.
I had a friend tell me once that I was remembered though small encounters because I'm somewhat gregarious. But that seems to have been overwhelmed by Rusty.
Someone stopped me at the gym one day to ask if I owned a red retriever. "I saw you sitting in the median with what has to be the best behaved dog on Earth." Well, at times.
If we go to restaurant patios, pretty waitresses bring Rusty a bowl of water. My chances of getting a refill are much more limited. Friends question his well being before mine. The homeless guys working the nearby street corners know him. A neighbor greets me with "how is the happiest puppy on Earth?"
He is hard to overlook. He needs to greet everyone. I mean everyone. When he does cross a street, our system is he must sit, wait and then when I say go he turns around to put a portion of his leash in his mouth, do a vertical leap and then cross. The vertical leap is fairly common. All feet in the air, tail slashing, body twisted. The goofiest dance you've ever seen. Pure joy.
He eats lemons, tomatoes and tree logs. He steals paper money, tears it into pieces, but doesn't eat the pieces.
All this is actually a life reminder. It was one year ago today, I lost my best friend at that time. Often, he had been my only friend. It left a gaping hole. One I honestly questioned I'd survive. Not just from that single incident, but that it was the topping on a series of blows that brought me to my knees and now lower.
Months later, Rusty came along in happenstance. It just turned out he was the right personality with the right instinct for me. Not a me that was with the previous friend, but the me right now. In fact, he helped create the me right now.
In the reality that true loyalty goes both ways, I don't forget Sam, sometimes miss him. I remember the pain he was in the final days. The look of abject fear when he was taken in for the final decision I had to make is emblazoned in my consciousness. Yet I also remember the experiences we shared, the times we went through together and the support Sam provided.
As importantly, I look at then and now and realize how one day in life can be the antithesis of another. For the feelings of one year ago today, I get to view the wild abandon with which Rusty rushes across a yard, bounds into the air to pounce on a football with a full growl and then come back at me like a fullback at a goal line. I am daily amazed at the hours he can spend sitting on a couch in an upstairs room looking out the window, nose awiggle and eyes vigilant for whatever the world brings by. I can absorb some of the ecstasy that comes with getting to go for a walk, even though it happens every day. I can appreciate how he wants to hurry to a street corner so he can do his sit, wait, go process and prove his behavior.
You know what today is like. Sometimes that's not all that good. You can't ever guess what tomorrow will be. Sometimes that's better than you could ever imagine.
I had a friend tell me once that I was remembered though small encounters because I'm somewhat gregarious. But that seems to have been overwhelmed by Rusty.
Someone stopped me at the gym one day to ask if I owned a red retriever. "I saw you sitting in the median with what has to be the best behaved dog on Earth." Well, at times.
If we go to restaurant patios, pretty waitresses bring Rusty a bowl of water. My chances of getting a refill are much more limited. Friends question his well being before mine. The homeless guys working the nearby street corners know him. A neighbor greets me with "how is the happiest puppy on Earth?"
He is hard to overlook. He needs to greet everyone. I mean everyone. When he does cross a street, our system is he must sit, wait and then when I say go he turns around to put a portion of his leash in his mouth, do a vertical leap and then cross. The vertical leap is fairly common. All feet in the air, tail slashing, body twisted. The goofiest dance you've ever seen. Pure joy.
He eats lemons, tomatoes and tree logs. He steals paper money, tears it into pieces, but doesn't eat the pieces.
All this is actually a life reminder. It was one year ago today, I lost my best friend at that time. Often, he had been my only friend. It left a gaping hole. One I honestly questioned I'd survive. Not just from that single incident, but that it was the topping on a series of blows that brought me to my knees and now lower.
Months later, Rusty came along in happenstance. It just turned out he was the right personality with the right instinct for me. Not a me that was with the previous friend, but the me right now. In fact, he helped create the me right now.
In the reality that true loyalty goes both ways, I don't forget Sam, sometimes miss him. I remember the pain he was in the final days. The look of abject fear when he was taken in for the final decision I had to make is emblazoned in my consciousness. Yet I also remember the experiences we shared, the times we went through together and the support Sam provided.
As importantly, I look at then and now and realize how one day in life can be the antithesis of another. For the feelings of one year ago today, I get to view the wild abandon with which Rusty rushes across a yard, bounds into the air to pounce on a football with a full growl and then come back at me like a fullback at a goal line. I am daily amazed at the hours he can spend sitting on a couch in an upstairs room looking out the window, nose awiggle and eyes vigilant for whatever the world brings by. I can absorb some of the ecstasy that comes with getting to go for a walk, even though it happens every day. I can appreciate how he wants to hurry to a street corner so he can do his sit, wait, go process and prove his behavior.
You know what today is like. Sometimes that's not all that good. You can't ever guess what tomorrow will be. Sometimes that's better than you could ever imagine.
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