Pedigree Puppies Pay Their Own Way, Don't They? Part 2

Read Part One First Here!

This short story is (c) 2000 by Jeannette at Write Purpose

     When I set out to tell the story of how Gideon came into the world, I really had no idea that the account of his mother’s prior litter would demand to be told first.  I don’t think I had thought of that experience consciously for quite some time.  But then all that that might prove is that I tend not to focus on subjects that are tinged with my chagrin. Now that I have shared my memory of that day, I will as promised, and as straightforwardly as possible, tell you about how Gideon made his costly way into the world and our hearts.  If you are a person who believes in learning from other’s mistakes, this story could - well, forgive me, you can figure that part out probably better than I can. But in case you are afraid of sad endings, I will tell you, as Ma Ingalls used to tell her girls in the big woods, on the prairie and by the banks of Plum Creek, “All’s well that ends well.”  

     Well, well, two years after Josie had successfully whelped five healthy pups, my youngest daughter was reviewing the countless photographs we had taken during those happy weeks. “Look, Mom, here’s Josie’s five puppies all lined up and  nursing. Oh, look at them peeking out of their box.  And here they are the first time we played with them under the apple tree.”

     I was able to avoid saying, “And your point is?”  I knew it would do no good.  Stalling the inevitable would not be a good idea either; if we were going to breed Josie again, it should be at the soonest opportunity.  She had just turned five years old.  

     “It’s probably her last chance to have puppies again,” my daughter said. “ If she got pregnant this fall,” she reasoned, “they would be Christmas puppies.” 

     So my daughter had already thought about the timing. And I suppose that I should be thinking about timing too, as I did promise to tell you this tale forthwith.  So suffice it to say that a very convincing daughter appealed for puppies just one more time and the decision was made. Now I might have to send forth this account into the world without any family proofreading of the same, as it could easily depart from any discussions of my grammar, syntax or spelling and focus at great length on who gets the most attached to the puppies, or whose idea was it to do all this anyway? And so alone, with no support from the real instigators of this project, I submit my account.

     On September 9^th, 1998, the expensive journey began.  In all due consideration to the prospective sire, even though Josie is a very proper stay at home girl, she visited her doctor to be screened for communicable diseases. Her clean bill of health stating she was not a carrier of Canine Brucellosis totaled eighty dollars and twenty-five cents. 

     We were disappointed to learn that the sire of her first litter had retired.   He was a champion fellow and- but wait, if I start thinking about him and all his charms that will take us back again to that first episode and we must press on to the tale of the second litter. 

     A likely second father was found.  I know all the reasons I am supposed to say that we picked him; we had read just enough about line breeding, when to outcross, and how to seek virtues while avoiding or genetically compounding faults to be a bit overwhelmed.  Let’s be honest, we liked his looks, he was spunky and he had a pedigree. 

     Not only was the young fellow sporting a name of a large stock brokerage, and running under the nickname of “Broker,” but his sire also carried the name of a very old and large bank. Was I seeing dollar signs?   It was not until we explored back into the previous generation that we found that a Dame named Dark Memory and a sire called The Black Bandit had also contributed their genetic gift to whatever progeny were to be born from the union arranged and paid for with Broker’s groom price of four hundred dollars.  I suppose it is only fair to reveal that Josie herself had a bit of infamy in her background having a grandsire who earned the moniker of Tom Foolery.

     Alas, Christmas came and went and although Josie gained a wee bit of weight from the treats and goodies pressed upon her to compensate for her supposed condition, she was not pregnant and no puppies were in her Christmas stocking or ours.

     When a reputable breeder offers a dog at stud, there is a guarantee that if the mating does not produce two live births, a second mating is offered at her next regular season. So, on April 14, 1999, Josie once again, in consideration of her mate to be, visited her doctor and this time, for a mere one hundred and fourteen dollars, was pronounced both healthy and fertile.  Are you prudent accountants, keeping track of this?  At the time, the running total did not bother me, because everyone knows for how very much we could sell all the puppies; but I think we are now up to five hundred-ninety- four dollars and twenty-five cents.

     This time we were sure the happy day would truly approach.  We had noticed some abdominal swelling around five to six weeks after the honeymoon and sure enough her appetite had increased.  The normal gestation period for a Shetland sheepdog is nine weeks. We made those little purchases that you hardly think twice about; iodine, surgical soap, straw and shavings for the bed, milk replacer just in case, and a new nail trimmer.  Twenty-two dollars and fifty-five cents here, and thirteen dollars and seventeen cents there and five dollars and thirty-four cents later, we were ready for the big day. I think that brings us to a grand total of six hundred fifty-three dollars and thirty-one cents invested in this prospective new little family.

     As the time approached, we dutifully took her temperature from the nether end, every morning and evening. When it dropped we knew that labor would come within the next twenty-four hours.  We clipped the inner layers of her feathering coat from her hindquarters and washed her tummy with surgical soap.  We sterilized our tools; no plastic handles allowed this time.  

     Josie woke up irritable and anxious.  She whined and wouldn’t eat; the day had come.

Whatever appeared in my backyard, skunk, possum, fox, deer, or a fire breathing dragon, you can be sure I wouldn’t be calling the animal control for any help this time. 

     I just love the books about the birthing of puppies that tell you how you shouldn’t worry or disturb your dog, just speak gently to her and show her the nice clean whelping box you have prepared and she will settle in and begin her labor.  My dog was convinced that where she belonged was outside under a bush in a dirt hole she had constructed under the innate guidance and direction bequeathed to her by her creator, but of course we were there to help her and she eventually capitulated probably out of sheer exhaustion.

     And then the really long night began.  She had roamed around and rested throughout the day.  Finally after our dinner her labor appeared to begin in earnest.  She panted and moaned and let us hold her quivering sides. One by one, exhaustion struck us all. Everyone had had a full day of work or school, but we vowed to always have one of us stay awake with her.

     It seemed strange that she had been through so much and her water had not yet broken. When it did break it should mean that the first puppy was in the birth canal and should emerge within about fifteen minutes.  It was now after midnight and if we were to need assistance we would have to go to the emergency animal hospital.  Every time she got out of her whelping box to pace around we had to disinfect her feet before she got back in. 

     I slept for several hours and then my husband shook me awake at 4am and said, “It’s your turn and she insists on sitting outside on the deck.” 

     I turned two cushioned chaise lounges to face one another and Josie and I began the next watch of the morning together.  I had never felt quite so close to her before. Her soft brown eyes were looking at me with such appeal.  “I know girl, I see your plight.  This is the point of no return; you just have to do it.”  I remember thinking that it has been about this point in the delivery of my first child that I wished that I had been a nun in a convent.  I pet Josie’s head in sympathy.  I had a blanket around my shoulders against the chill of the early summer morning.  The stars comforted me. I thanked Josie for getting me out into a time of the morning I usually miss.   An owl flew from one great tree to another and I lifted my head just in time to see him float over me.  It took my breath away. 

Josie's Owl

     
     Josie’s contractions seemed hard, but nothing that was supposed to happen was happening.  My heart sank.  Light began to creep up from the east.  One of the great white heron that nest in the neighbor’s evergreens flew over the deck.  I got the message.  We had to get this girl some help.  I woke my husband and we mobilized ourselves to be waiting at the veterinarian when he opened.  Her water had broken so now things had to proceed rather quickly.

     We were asked detailed questions about how long she had been in labor and how far apart her contractions had been, had there been bleeding, had she kept moving.  “You should have called me last night,” he said.  It’s amazing that she is still alive. How could you let her go so long?  We’ll have to take an x-ray,” he said. “Something is wrong.”

     I hung my head.  When I expressed my fear that an x-ray might not be good for the puppies.  “Neither would missing their birthday,” the doctor had replied.  My husband and I waited alone in the small room while she was taken off for an x-ray.  

     “There is just one puppy in there,” the doctor said, as he clipped the x-ray onto the light panel in front of us.  “I doubt that it is alive.  I will have to deliver her cesarean to save her life.  She is getting weak.  We’re monitoring her right now.” 

     I looked at the x-ray. There was the spine of my brave girl and within her womb, as if lying in a hammock on a summer day was slung one very large puppy.  You could say that he was both upside down and backwards.  He looked so peaceful in there.  His front paws were crossed on his chest. I could see his tiny vertebrae and the line of his tail.  “Oh, please save them both,” I cried.  The veterinarian said he would do what he could at this point in time and asked me to step up front to sign the necessary releases.  

    We waited, watching others bring in their little friends for shots and removal of foxtail burrs and investigation of ear mites.  Oh the ills to which all flesh is heir.

     Finally a smiling doctor called us in. “I saved him,” he said proudly.  But when I asked if I could name the little fellow after him, perhaps his middle name, he declined stating that no one would want his middle name.

     Apparently Josie had developed cysts, so her ovaries were removed with her pup.  The vet said that it was amazing she had conceived even one pup. The cysts had blocked the release of hormones that would have moved her labor to complete birthing.  She could never have survived without surgical intervention.  We ever so gladly took our two doggies home and cheerfully paid the five hundred fifteen dollars and thirty-four cents bill.  If you are keeping track, this little guy now represented eleven hundred nine dollars and fifty-nine cents.  And when a puppy is that valuable, well, you just have to keep him.  

     I am happy to report that the two of them are happy and healthy together.  The only untoward thing that has happened to either of them of late was that Josie ate one peach pit too many this summer.  Gideon is quite a jumper and they had worked out a deal where he would knock them down and then they’d gorge together. I’m not even going to tell you what the bill was for that little episode.  But I will tell you this; pedigree puppies do not always pay their own way.

Pedigree Puppies Pay Their Own Way, Don't They? Part 1 of 2

a Short Story in Two Parts  (c) 2000

Our dog Gideon is truly fortunate to have found his way into the world.  His mother, Josie, a lovely Sheltie in the Banchory line, had whelped a healthy litter of five in her younger days, but Gideon was conceived in Josie's sixth spring.  Unbeknownst to us, she had developed some troubles of a delicate nature.  Her veterinarian later said that he couldn’t understand how she conceived at all. 

We however, had some idea of how she had conceived, having seen to all the expensive matrimonial arrangements with a sire whose registered name was borrowed without interest from a well-known large stock brokerage.  He is a handsome fellow who answers to the nickname of Broker.  I’m not kidding. 

All monetary considerations aside, the expensive honeymoon seemed to go well. Three days later we brought Josie back home and anxiously watched her for signs of pregnancy.  The weeks passed and she did seem to be with child. We fed her extra protein rich cottage cheese and made her chicken broth to nourish all those little puppies within her.

When she was ready, I was ready; after all I was experienced, this was her second litter.  I felt much more ready than I had been for Josie's first litter though I had tried hard to be prepared then too.  I had my emergency directions on three by five cards and studied several instruction books extensively. I bought sharp new scissors and borrowed a hemostat from my neighbor. But I still remember the afternoon of the first litter with chagrin.  I had been boiling my needed tools in a pot on the stove when a skunk weaving around in our back yard distracted me. It was broad daylight.  I was alarmed.  Was the skunk rabid?  I called animal control and ran around closing windows.  Josie was out hollowing out yet another nest in another flowerbed.  Some prospective mothers hang flowered wallpaper, but Josie went for the freshly dug cool bowl of earth with bowers of flowers above her. 

I realized that I better bring her inside before she got skunked, but she didn't want to come in. She was in the pacing and panting stage of labor.  Oh my, I better get ready; puppies really were on their way.  The last thing I needed was for Josie or me to get skunked.  There might not be enough tomato juice in the world to cut the stench of a direct attack. And then there was the possibility that this drunk looking little guy might be rabid. Come on in, Josie, please.

I still hadn’t yet convinced my primally focused mother–to-be to follow my requests when I heard the doorbell ringing.  It must be animal control, I thought, I’d just go meet them outside, in front of the house.  I could hear the phone ringing inside and hoped the children would just let the answering machine pick it up.

At the front of our house was one of our blue uniformed local gendarmes, Officer Sykes.  He said he was responding to the skunk report.  I thanked him, but expressed surprise that he was from the police department and not from the animal control.

"They only work the county.  You’re inside city limits.  I can take care of it," he said, and laid his hand on his sidearm. 

 At that moment my thirteen-year-old daughter opened the front door.  "Mom, the pot smells awful."

Officer Sykes wrinkled his nose and pushed my front door open further.  I stood helplessly behind him on my own front porch.  He looked at my daughter. "What is that smell and why aren't you at school?" he asked.

Before she could answer him, my sixteen-year-old daughter appeared at her side to announce to me that my answering service had a client crisis holding on the line for me.  "And Mom, the pot smells just awful.  Do you have to do that?"

"And you too," Officer Sykes said, eyeing my darling girl with her long blond hair, padding around barefoot in her flannel pajamas. "Why aren't you in school?" he asked, pulling out his investigative note pad.

"We’re home schooled," the girls answered simultaneously.

"And today we are having puppies," my younger daughter added.

"Smells kind strange here.  I'd better check this out,” Officer Sykes announced as he strode in my front door. “This is toxic, we better open all the windows and air this house out.  Get outside girls.”  

I ran in behind him.  "But I just closed the windows so the skunk smell wouldn’t come in.  And I don’t want my children outside with a possibly rabid skunk,” I said. But the air in the house was worse then skunk.  It smelled perfectly poisonous.

"You know there’s a law that everyone under sixteen must attend school," the officer said as he heaved open a window in my kitchen and the unmistakable strong odor of fresh skunk rushed in to compete with the aroma of the melted red plastic handles of the new scissors I’d been sterilizing.

"Mom, your answering service is on the line, some lady is in crisis and holding," my daughter reminded me.

"Sweetie, just tell them to tell her I will be right there, if she could just wait one moment."  Just what I need right now, a client emergency.

I was more anxious than ever to get Josie in away from the skunk as I was totally bewildered about the officer's approach to skunk control.

"How will you trap the skunk?"  I asked him.

He patted his gun again. " I'm not going to trap him, gonna shoot him," he said as he peered into my saucepan of melted whelping instruments.  “What’s the hemostat for?” he asked.  

“To clamp the umbilical cord of the puppies,” I explained. "If you'd excuse me, I've got to get my dog in and then answer this telephone call.  I thought you would just catch the skunk in some have- a- heart kind of trap.  I had no idea you would shoot it. Won't it stink up your patrol car to take a dead skunk off in it?"

"I'll put it in the trunk in a plastic bag," he said.  "I've got gloves.  Well, I'll just go take a look around."

"Let me just get my dog first," I said. "I'll be right back."  I darted out the back door wondering if I could scare that poor stupid troublesome little skunk off without getting sprayed.

As the door closed behind me I could hear the officer asking my daughter if we didn't have a fan we could put on to blow the plastic fumes out of the house. Why didn’t I think of that?  I found Josie under a huge fern in my shade garden and drug her up the stairs and into the kitchen.  The garden was ripe with his odor, but I’d seen no sign of the skunk.

Back in the kitchen, Officer Sykes unclasped his holster and said, "Okay, you’ve got your dog.  I will be having to check up on this home schooling business, but I guess it was just plastic I smelled in here so I will go get the skunk now. You girls stay inside, I may have to shoot it."  

While Officer Sykes patrolled our yard, I took the emergency client call. It was a very tender hearted woman that I had just started seeing who was worried that her husband might be having an affair.  "Sorry, to make you wait," I said.  "What's going on?"

"The skunk," she said, "the stinking skunk, he does have a girlfriend."  I managed to get myself oriented to her point of view and after we both calmed down a bit we scheduled to meet at my office the following day.

Anyway, you can imagine how relieved I was when Officer Sykes returned from our garden and announced that although the smell of skunk was pronounced (that's what he said), he saw no sign of the offending creature and I'd have to call back later if I needed 

more help.  Oh, and he would be in touch about the school business.

That’s what happened the day that Josie and I whelped her first litter.  As  I said, I was much better prepared and more calm the second time, when Gideon came into the world and into our lives.  

*Josie with her first litter of five*

 The funny thing is that retrospectively it was that first birth that was so smooth. It was such a perfect home birth.  Each one of the five pups was strong and beautiful and Josie was a natural at mothering.  Well, she did nip a tiny toe off one little fellow, but all in all, it was a breeze.

Seven weeks later, named and renamed, cuddled and all loved up, we reluctantly said goodbye to all those five puppies who each were sold to wonderful homes.  Even with all the usual expenses of stud fee, extra mama dog food, new scissors, vet bills, shots and food for the puppies, Josie had earned dog chow and vet bill money for years to come.  

*Growing up and ready for their new families*

So the second time around I wasn’t even worried. You might even say that I was guilty of counting my chickens before they had hatched.  But, if you'll forgive me, the annals of Josie's second litter are just going to have to wait until part two of this story.  These memories of Sykes, skunks and scissors and all have just done me in.  And the police sirens are howling and now the dogs are joining in.  But I'll be back, with further tales of my attempts to have pedigree puppies who would pay their own way and how Gideon actually made his costly little way into the world and our hearts.

Part Two...click Here

                       
all rights reserved (c) 2000 Jeannette at Write Purpose

Stop, Drop and Write - First Aid with a Pen

Journaling never ceases to amaze me, not for the product on the page ( handwritten and tucked away, not these public pages) but for the internal trek across the landscape within.  Whether  the initial spark be troubles in the world, the arson of a stranger, accidental fire from a moment of carelessness in ones own camp,  or the spontaneous combustion of a loved one...a little time alone helps me to clean up my own tinder and wet down the vulnerable structures.

Often I start out removed, feeling the heat and not quiet sure I can battle the blaze:
6-26-12

Impartial, imperfect perceptions tangle up with each other and the amalgamations of fragments and dissimilar cultural artifacts pile up like junk yard sculpture. The noise of any channel of communication reduces the completeness and accuracy of the transmission.  To hear the trustworthy still small voice within, not only does the noise out and about need to fall away, quiet needs to well up from within me.

And then I plunge into the personal and descriptive  right after penning " ...but I am almost afraid to write in my own journal. "   But of course I do write in it, and I suppose I can always  do a little redacting with a black pen... process is messy... sorting out what others are up to can be helpful if it ultimately leads to kneeling down and checking out my own heart.

And eventually I wind up able to look out again...

There are wars and rumors of wars and boats on the bay and birds in the trees.  Pelicans fly by and elections take place in distant lands.  Men hold guns and children cower while grain grows in golden fields and bakers fire up ovens in the  early hours of unbroken mornings.  Trucks rumble by and birds cry out from their nests. 

And I get up and do the next thing...

I so often need to hear...."Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees..." ( Hebrews 12:12) and  "Let us not grow weary of doing good..."  ( Galatians 6:9).

Words Escape Me but DNA Prevails

They do...words escape...but butterflies, Monarchs in particular, have captured my imagination of late.

 My only net is  my camera and my desire to understand them a little better.  I am fascinated that every fourth generation of Monarchs is like Methuselah, they live longer.  Most Monarch butterflies live for about two to six weeks, but every fourth generation, the ones born in the fall, live for several months.  They migrate to hibernate in warmer climes through the winter.   I marvel at these little wings and how many miles, they fly; 1000 to 2500 miles in some cases... to come back home.   Even the butterflies who have never been "home" before know how to get there....it is DNA as a relay race organizer. 


Well, you know if you really want to know about butterflies you can google them and read a proper entomological and scientific explanation of what I just garbled out.  As I said, words have been escaping me.    Here is my self portrait that I drew this morn...a bird in a nest of letters, nary a word in sight.



D N A must be in there somewhere...


I haven't written much of late.  I haven't even written to my daughter  because I miss her and knowing she is, off and on, a little homesick, out on her adventure...well  if I say how much I miss her ...
But this blog is for her, isn't it?   Of course.

Okay, here is the truth....I missed her so much that I even played a hand of on-line scrabble with her kitty...
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  
Today I am going to a garage sale of a sweet lady who is returning to her home-land.    The other day I was helping her with a simple task and suddenly she took a phone call...rapid fire she chattered away in her native tongue. I did not understand a word...except I could hear how deep a resonance the mother tongue has in her heart.   She ( my friend's  request to keep her departure a bit quiet on the web has me being impersonal here) has lived in the United States for thirteen years.  This land gave her shelter  from the kidnappings and dangers of her native Columbia.  Many of her friends and much of her family have moved away...but not her parents... and now, like a butterfly, she returns.   She has reduced the accumulation of the years down to four boxes to ship home; that and a heart full of memories and hopes and an awareness of  the truth  that her path did not fully open up here.   She described the dreams she has and that she returns to her land with her dreams still asking.  She says she has created a situation where it is hard to leave but knows she must not stay...
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  
Did you ever  play connect the dots?  You follow the numbers and draw the lines between each numbered dot and then maybe the picture will be a bird in a nest sitting on letters that won't quite make the words she wants.... to express her love and hope for those she loves....

The day calls, I look out the window and see what I see?  There is a little sailboat on the blue. As my dear runaway- to- the-circus daughter says....onward.  I guess if she can write about being homesick, it is okay for me to admit that I miss her proximity here mightily... and this doesn't even get into the much closer but still not quite nearby other "story."  This post is for you too.  

Framing One's Perspective

     There's a dead tree in the view.  It's just as tall as its living neighbor, but green no more.  How one looks at a dead tree, feels about it, may be important.  That tree has held that spot for many years and for now there is a dead tree in a very lovely view.

It has reminded me that life cycles are not neat, the comings and goings are unexpected and then the view is changed.

   

It's important not to consider the view imperfect.  

There are so many young trees striving to get established...

Snippets after Shut Down

I belong in bed.   I had actually shut down my computer.  I have been set to a purpose that is an honor and very hard  but a write purpose task.  To write a eulogy... I know there are all sorts of experts in the field, tips on how to write a eulogy abound  on the internet, but what is needed is heart.  Brevity, clarity, organization and hopefully a voice to read can all come...but heart for he who is gone and for each one who feels  his loss ( and I am such a one myself)   is really all I care about at this point.  And I came to a place where I knew it was time to retire and trust the rest of it to tomorrow.

And then I was told there were two new blog posts from my traveling daughter and I fired this computer back up and ignored the exhaustion ahead signal lights that had been flashing for so long the batteries are almost stone...  One of her posts was so long and so brilliant and painful and funny and convoluted I know I will read it again in the morning.  The other, the latest one was short, a snippet she said...a day that had not held time for writing but she typed out a little marker for the trail...and so both  in support of  her and because I am encouraged by her, I have hereby officially written a snippet too.  Good night.

Boundaries in Blog Land

Ah, time to write...I'll just start a post and even though I 'll have to save it and add to it later, it will be like a  magnet to draw  together some of the thoughts that pass through so quickly unless I  pen them down as able.  Even if capture is incomplete, I stand a chance of some themes coalescing. 

Nothing got posted here in June. 

 I wrote and then typing in the near dark early one morning, deleted one June post I had considered calling "Weeds for Words" about the seasonal mandate of the sprouting earth and how weeding, planting and pruning had usurped keyboard time.  Living in a garden and being outside is lovely and of course it is the keyboard that should be considered the usurper.  My handwritten journal has not suffered for entries but it seems to become more and more a sequestered reality.  A family death, concern for the next generation, strange dreams, stranger encounters, political observations, cultural clashes: I can bring  a proper light to such subjects, but the first dashed thoughts  usually need to at least marinate for a while.  I would never do in the world of journalism  where the rush to scoop beats many factors  of much greater importance.  

Boundaries are important. 

 Often times boundaries are viewed simply as restrictions, look at the implications of the word "sequestered"  used above: to isolate or hide away or to take legal possession  of...  but in fact,  clear boundaries can facilitate clarity and freedom.

I wrote recently to one of  the dear hearts of my life how impressed I was with her increasing ability to use words to describe her inner terrain.  It struck me  what a growth it is to keep the internal terrain in a gentle focus while juggling the multitude of external demands. Boundaries are inextricably tied to one's ability to do and give in the world at large and then retreat to recharge.  There is a difference between giving of yourself and not giving yourself away. 

Although I didn't post here in June, I read many other people's web log entries.  I try to be generous in my willingness to  respond and comment.  I suppose I have scattered an essay or two across the blogosphere at the feet of other's blogs... that's the opportunity available to us: sharing and encouraging and being encouraged and learning from each other.  I hope soon to reference to and highlight of few of the blogs I have found noteworthy.

 While writing and reading blogs I've thought a lot about the  dilemma of personal censorship.How does one  identify internal censors, blinders, screens, misbeliefs? How does one sneak up on one's self to get a good candid shot?  It's a good trick, to lay down some of your defenses while you write about them in all their ardent hiddenness at the same time.

The delight of self encounter in the very act of writing is good stuff.   Balancing requires that one neither be too easy or too hard on one's self...  

 Ironically, our internal restraints, judicious restraints,  are part of potential openness and relaxation, we must say "No" to protect the "Yes" we have already committed to.

And sometimes the best of the candid shots are for our eyes only... and our shots of others...our understandings of others...respect and compassion for self and others...it goes a long way.  But not restraint to the point of not sharing, not giving...

What exactly do I mean by judicious restraints and boundaries?  I don't mean internal police. I don't mean a ball and chain.  I don't mean political correctness.  So many negative stereo types exist...

Trust is an important part of judicious restraint. I see internal surrender that then allows us to be free because we can trust we are barefoot where we should be barefoot and well shod for other terrain. It's the restraint that knows how edgy reality can be and even when I'm not paying super conscious attention to it, it informs me where the edges are. It's a restraint that is at the ready, you can climb mountains with it and when you start to slip the instinct leaps in every muscle. It needn't rob you of moment to moment entering in; in fact I think it gives more energy for doing so.  


Yes, there is a beautiful field of wild mountain flowers that one can reach without  as the old saying goes, "throwing all caution to the wind."

Other adages come to mind, we learn not to throw out the baby with the bath water and  not to overcorrect on a curvy road.

The body is a great teacher of boundaries. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made."  The cells, as I  remember their description from long ago biology classes, have a wall that is a semi-permeable discerning membrane.  A healthy cell boundary knows how to let  the good stuff in and separate and excrete unusable components.


Our bodies know we should try to avoid toxic realities, not over extend ourselves, that we can't safely embrace or hold onto impurities.  There's no room for what doesn't support life as a  pure flowing exchange where it is nutrients in, waste out to build strong cells, strong tissues, further organized as organs of purpose...multiple purposes, co-ordinated with an over- arching goal of letting yourself be a real,vulnerable and safe, available  and composed,distinct and unique person; a valuable existence validated  by God's love.

An art in itself: handmade hand written personal correspondance

I opened a blue box tied with burgundy string.   The storage unit had housed for 5 years many things we could not take with us or sort through before moving for  a new job.  What had I saved?  It must have been something I had put away years before the move itself.

Such funny little cards, made so long ago...I also found a small packet of letters that I wrote to my grandmother.  I won't look at them now.  But I will.  She saved them, then I saved them.

A little box of treasures...worth nothing and everything.   Before the children were making cards and pictures, the box received missives sent to them from loved ones long gone now...dear familiar handwriting sending love to new babies and with little checks enclosed, I am sure.


This last weekend I received beautiful cards...one that traveled across the sea and got here just in time for Mother's Day. Handmade with handpicked flowers from the alps...yes, I got the message.  And another card from the southern boundaries of our land with a thoughtful note and photographs from some of the days memorialized in the old blue box.  What is it that causes us to write the words that say what is  already known?  Shaping and sharing our thoughts and feelings that they may for a time travel and have the weight of matter?   I see how this box came to be; how could I toss these artful little love packets away.

Ephemera only and yet ...

Tangled up in Time : Memory, Loss and Hope Make History -dedicated to 9/11/2001

A Memory offered in Memorium of the Lives Lost and Changed by September 11, 2001

I stopped in the town of Benicia the other day. Popping in there once in a while helps remind me of the child I was before I took my first hard blow.  I never lived in Benicia, but my younger brothers and I were, without our older brothers or parents, once left to stay a few nights with family friends. 

Benicia, California

 Until I was five years old, I had lived in the city, San Francisco,where I couldn't go anywhere without escort. Then I lived in a wonderful valley where I became well versed in the creek that marked the back of our property, the blackberry patches and apple trees in the empty lots, the uppermost climbable limbs of the buckeye trees that grew strongest at the west edge of the valley, the rocky bluffs and caves of the grassy hills between us and Muir Beach on the Pacific Ocean.  I was happy in Tamalpias Valley to roam around on my own.  As often as not I had a book with me.  What more could a kid want?

Visiting the town of Benicia in 1962 I found  no lack of nature to explore and the parents temporarily  in charge of us were content to let us wander about freely.  School had been out for ten days and  I had just finished seventh grade.  The little town was, back in the early 1960s, poor and small, already diminished from what it had been, but for me the small scale of the streets and houses made everything feel accessible. Life felt so available. I ran here and there, a miniature tourist, content to wander from the muddy flats and back up the streets of the town that hadn't yet had its hundredth birthday.

The history of Benicia is one of  greatness passing through and as quickly moving on. Benicia was   established by three men. The year was 1874.  Dr. Robert Semple, who was a newsman from Kentucky, a Bear Flag revolter and a politician and Thomas Larkin, the first United States Consul to California, a traveler, storekeeper, a trader and man of Monterey renown.  Together these two bought land from Comandante General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo who asked that the town be called Francisca after his wife, Francisca Benicia Carillo de Vallejo.  But Yerba Buena had just become San Francisco and claimed the name. Francisca could not be used.  The lady's middle name would have to suffice.  

After the cities of Vallejo and San Jose,  Benicia was chosen to be the third capitol of California and reigned as such for 379 days, from February 11, 1853 to February 25, 1854.  Around that time the founders had a falling out and went their separate ways leaving the town to create its own destiny. 

Inland waterways are an opportunity for confluence. It was at Benicia in the 1860's  that Pony Express Riders who had missed their connection on the Sacramento River Delta steamers could  ferry across the waters blocking their trail. In the 1870's  a leg of the transcontinental Central Pacific Railroad established a major railroad ferry across the Carquinez Strait from Benicia to Port Costa.  Benicia became home to the largest ferries in the world, transporting entire trains across the inland waters of the San Francisco Bay.

It was in Benicia  in 1901, where the world's first long-distance power line was stretched across the Carquinez Straits.  When wheat was the big crop, it was stored in Benicia, but when railroad bridges replaced ferries and the early 1900 wheat crops declined, Benicia declined too, mouldering without economic purpose on the back waters of the bay.

 Not until World War II,  did the little town grow again when it served as a military arsenal. The war boom economy doubled  the population quickly to 7,000 residents.  The arsenal closed in the 1960s.  Later in that decade, oil refineries were built northeast of the town's residences. Eventually, as more bridges were built connecting the bay area's various ports and towns by roads, the little town of no longer as important trains and ferries became what all towns near big cities are destined to become, a  bedroom for 28,000 locals and commuters and a weekend diversion destination for city dwellers. 

But that is not the town that was back in those few days of my summer vacation.  Then it was just a  small modest town with no great current boons, but the confluence of its waterways and flying birds, its child  friendly streets, cushioned me with hospitality while hope and longing opened in me in the first bright days of the summer of my thirteenth year.

  

And then on the third afternoon of our visit, my father and older brothers returned unexpectedly. I blindly ran to the murky waters that day in disbelief, wanting to shake off as dream or lie what we'd 

been told. Our mother had died.

Here I am tangling my history up with the early history of this little town. I don't often tell my story. I know for everyone its often a  struggle to keep clear angles of perspective in this life. I make an effort to pay attention to current events and history.  So I've reminded myself, with a little history lesson of a few of the events that have come and gone and shaped this town, of some perspective, and yet it's true that even at my age, as I briefly walked about the edges of Benicia the other day, what I can see best is what had once  happened there to me. I can't even hear the name of the town and not remember, palpably receiving that first wrenching.

How true might this be for those who lost family and friends in New York, Pennsylvania, the Pentagon. Today is September 11, 2010, the anniversary of a great tragedy of terror and the loss of many lives.  So many people heard that day or the next,  how they would have to go on in  their world carrying love lost; heard that they had entered a forever- changed- reality.  At some level, we all did, didn't we?

I offer this tangled memory of mine in  memoriam with my personal acknowledgement of how deeply the loss of loved ones is, how enduring our losses are.

I was also reminded at the water's edge the other day by these lovely little mallards sunning on a log amongst relics of Benicia's past, that there is One who does have all his little ducks in a row. 

We need not grieve as ones without hope. 

Words for pictures

The temperature dropped suddenly, maybe the rains are over for a few days.  The sky has been toying around with so much water it's been  hard to tell where the sky starts and the ocean ends. 
But some days there is no question as to where the waters of the earth end and the sky begins. That's how the sun set tonight.  The horizon, which I have not been able to see of late, was suddenly a commanding sure line of  tourqouise in the fleeing light and the sky a softeness of blue I'd almost forgotten.  The clouds, not as heavy as they've been, float with golden light from the day's final rays.
 
I could take a picture of it with a simple aim and a click but somehow today that feels like it would be a lazy choice.  You may have heard the popular parenting encouragement given to frustrated or tantrum bound children, "use your words."  That's what I told myself tonight.  "Use your words. Maybe you'll see more or differently if you'll use your words."
 
I mean to co-operate with myself, to listen, to let the words sail toward the inner horizon, but winter time is often a quiet time. The sky and the waters within have been defying distinctions and guidance of the stars is hidden.
 
Yesterday a man told me that he doesn't know what will become of all the digital images that people take anymore.  His parents' generation, he said, they had maybe one or two portraits taken and a few  family shots per year.  A family's photographs could all fit in one album.  "Who will look at all the pictures? " he asked.  Yes, and who will read all the words that are written?
 
Subtle sepia and framed on heavy black paper, I have some of those photographs.  It is true, there are very few of them and they are precious. 
 
Today two stray buttons made me cry. Mother of pearl, an inch and half diameter, two holes to run the thread through, they made me cry. They were my mother's, that's all it took.  I'd look at the pictures. I would read her words.

 Write the words, use your words.  No, I'm  buttoning up.  I have seen my shadow. It's still the dead of winter.