With love from your little peony.
Katey Doodle
On Friday, we agreed to amputate Katey’s front left leg, as the first step of controlling the osteosarcoma that was diagnosed this week. (She’s been limping for a couple of weeks, and from the very first x-ray, it looked like bad news.) Gathered in the vet’s office to discuss the fate of Katey’s long, powerful limb – an exquisitely engineered component of a racing machine, once capable of propelling her body to speeds upwards of 40 mph in bursts lasting around a minute – my former spouse, his mother (Grandma) and I squeezed together on the banquette seat for humans, uncomfortably intimate in our forced reacquaintance. The veterinary oncologist got right to the point, addressing Katey’s quality of life. “We see tripods all the time in oncology,” she said, “It’s very common. 99% of dogs do very well after amputation.” She said, “Katey is probably already living like a three legged dog; bone cancer is very painful.” I imagined all the three-legged dogs bouncing through the hallways of the university clinic on their way to chemo; imagined how Katey was already losing the full use of her leg, and in pain because of it. Unless we were prepared to put Katey down very soon, she needed this amputation, if only to prevent her from suffering a traumatic fracture as the cancer invades her bone and weakens it.
I had expected myself to say no, expected choosing a peaceful death for Katey over a diminished life without her leg . But I said, “Yes,” without much resistance.
Perched at the dutch-door at Grandma’s house, Katey was waiting for us afterwards. She doesn’t know the risk we are taking, on her behalf, trusting that her life is worth living on 3 legs. Seeing Katey’s huge ears and deep sparkling eyes filled me with pure delight. For a moment, I relished the hope that our time together is not quite over, and that more mornings like this one, languid in a sunny spot on the carpet, close to her humans, is what she would choose for herself.
Work After Work
I’ve been trying not to write this post for a while, but I just keep writing it, so here it is.
This is quite a lonely time for me, but the problem is not the time I spend alone. Rather, the time I feel alone surrounded by others, is the loneliest. More or less every week, lately, I have come up short in my people skills, disappointing people who let me know with unexpected vehemence, or observing from the periphery as others enjoy a level of easy, casual connection which both stuns and excludes me – connections which I seem to break and ruin by my very effort to participate. I try to be a grown-up about it, but I am only human; I can’t help wondering where my blind spot is or if I have a kick-me sign taped to my back.
These concerns have been my companions as long as I can remember. (The story of me getting expelled from pre-school is true; too unruly even at 3.) It’s strange. I’m a pretty sensitive soul, much concerned with demonstrating kindness and alertness towards the feelings of others; somehow this trait has made me harder to be around rather than the life of the party. Maybe misinterpreted by some, maybe unwelcome by others – certainly I am the last person to ask what accounts for the dynamic. All I know is, just like lady cramps, it is not all in my head.
Even if I could, I don’t think I would “un-be” whatever it is that causes the grief; but I’ve lived a pretty long time without much of a survival strategy for coping with the repercussions. That gift has finally come in to my life through the lens, some thing I can do each day and see a mark, a change, a reality which needed me to be there to occur. I fully accept Steve Pressfield’s stipulation that the fruits of our labor are not ours, that credit for our work goes to the Muse. But I think it is a joint custody; she shares her pleasure at our willingness to open the door, and to listen when she whispers her strange stories and urgent secrets in our ears.
And so being actually alone becomes being present. And being present becomes filled with roses and light for a few minutes before sunset, beside the window in my room, where I can see and know whatever work today was meant for.
It’s Mother’s Day
A Poem for Mother’s Day Titled Oh, Honey, B.
Thee offered me a rose, and free;
The rose was offered, thee to me,
But scorned it me
So harsh to thee,
Blinded so, with Me
Not Thee;
And now, I cry.
Forgive me, Thee
I know what it was sent to be;
But you are gone.
Forgive me, Thee.
I know now
what was meant,
and see.
And You, and you
are Rose and Free.
Forgive me, Thee.
Forgive me, Me.
Word(s) of the Day
Writer’s table, Cafe Leila, Berkeley. Pam, Dor, Elizabeth. Getting their Words for the Day.
Rosebud
There is an abandoned apple orchard on the road into Verona, on the grounds of the old County Home, which was razed last fall. About a dozen trees linger there, covered in gypsy moth tents, each sprinkled with only as many blooms as serves its own inscrutable purposes; apples for apples-sake. The contractor’s mobile office is parked at the edge of the first row, overseeing the construction of someplace newer, cleaner, saner.
Up the crumbling asphalt path, a ways behind the orchard, the bird songs are plentiful and varied. Here is the edge of the prairie preserve; unquestionably the air belongs to them. If you follow this path a little further, you emerge back in civilization, at the driveway of Farm and Fleet, heralded by a distant loudspeaker calling the team roster at the softball park across 4 busy lanes.
Stranded among the bird song, beyond the fruit tree sanctuary, something was growing I had never seen before: a rosebud tree.
Imagine that.
Looking Up
Walking under the branches of this tree today reminded me how seldom I look up at the underneath of things, now that I am all grown up. It was so cozy and wondrous, and soothing, to see the world from below for a while, and have something taller than me taking care of all that tall people stuff.
I felt the need for some shelter today. This is where I found it.
A Prayer for Brenna Meany (and a very long post, indeed)
After finishing my morning due diligence yesterday, filling my etsy store with chotchkes (not latkes), I found myself anxiously avoiding the decision of what to do with my afternoon. Since I have so many competing aspirations (if not inspirations), the pressure to make the right decision is often uncomfortable enough to drive me to paralysis. “What to do? What to do?”
Cleverly, I thought, “Oh, I will have a meditation break and investigate this a little,” and plopped me down on the $1 shabby rose needlepoint foot-stool which serves as my meditation bench. And there, dear friends, I proceeded to tumble very close to the edge of the Cliffs of What The Hell? For it turned out that this superficially modest sense of uncertainty was a secret tunnel to the Lair of a Very Large Dragon, who guards my anxiety about earning a living. Recently, I’d thought he and I were better friends, but he must have gotten a new fuel delivery yesterday, because the blast of fear and judgement he sent my way singed my new mindful-super-hero cape. Just in the nick of time, I heard myself say, “Brenna, open your eyes.” And here I was, back in my own Backyard.
Where did the dragon fuel come from? The book I’ve been reading was, I think, making me too vulnerable; so I’ve put it away and I’ll stick with my other practices. We don’t have to be super brave to win; outwitting depression and anxiety is a long con, after all. The main virtue is to stay in the game. One practice in this book, though, did unhinge me in just the right way, and my heart dictated these words to me this morning, in safety, encapsulating what I needed to know. I hope I can remember it all:
letting go of suffering, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of fear, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of judgement, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of separation, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of aversion, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of knowing, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of attachment, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of the future, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of the past, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of security, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of my schedule, I allow kindness to emerge;
letting go of letting go, I allow kindness to emerge.
If one is feeling more positively minded, one could also say:
trusting in happiness, i allow kindness to emerge;
trusting in peace, i allow kindness to emerge;
trusting in oneness, i allow kindness to emerge;
trusting in patience, i allow kindness to emerge;
trusting in the present moment, i allow kindness to emerge;
trusting in clear seeing, i allow kindness to emerge;
trusting in clear listening, i allow kindness to emerge;
trusting in lovingkindness, i allow kindness to emerge
trusting in trust, i allow kindness to emerge.
Normally, I don’t like praying because it validates the concept of a withholding Universe that seems implausible to me. The Universe is certainly unfair and unjust, but withholding? That’s for human beings. Hence, I am not asking, I am telling. Why should we have to beg for qualities such as trust, patience, clear seeing, lovingkindness, which are free for the taking?
And so, this morning, I decided that I can, and I will.
Magnitude of Pink
Pretty happy about this picture. Pretty happy about the pinkness. Pretty!
Shedding Petals
Ranunculus petticoats.
what is beautiful remains 