This post was going to be all about our new puppy. I wanted to introduce her and explain why a long-time, cat-only person decided to try being a dog person. And I was also going to grouse about some of the puppy drama we've had. But I woke up this morning and I guess what I was writing just felt wrong in the face of even more horrible news. A mass shooting in Las Vegas at a concert. Of course the wretched situation in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands after Hurricane Maria. Texas and Florida recovering from their hurricanes. The earthquake in Mexico. News from Syria that September had the highest civilian casualty toll of the year. Add to that whatever number 45 might have to say - or tweet - about any of it, and things seem bleak.
Not that I'm directly affected by any of it. Because I'm not. I'm sitting pretty in my secluded country home, with my sweet, healthy daughter and our sweet, goofy, slightly annoying new puppy and two annoyed cats. And the most noteworthy thing that has happened to us recently is we've had to live with a puppy bashing about and sulking in a cone for two weeks.
Since Nettie came along, almost all my love and attention has been focused toward her. I felt like I didn't need anything else in my life as long as I had her. Which is full of problems; you don't have to tell me. But most of all, I think, it limited me, narrowed my range of what I could love and care about. Getting a puppy was hard for me. Honestly, what I thought was that I already have mother guilt every way to Sunday, always thinking I should be doing more for Nettie, or doing it better. I haven't even been giving my cats the attention I should be. How could I give a dog the attention it needed?
The answer is that I'm not doing it perfectly. I know little Leonard (figuratively speaking) would spend as much time getting belly rubs as I would dedicate to it. All day. I can't do that. But I found that I do have moments in the day to sit with another living being, besides Nettie, and give them some love and attention. I'm probably not the dog owner that I should be - yet - but I'm working on it.
As I sit here, Leonard is chewing the face off her comfort animal and scratching her cone in the next room. Nettie is having fun at Grandma's house. An old combine is harvesting the corn in the field south of my house. Without any news on, which is how I like it these days, it's easy to get sucked into an alternate reality where having a puppy that doesn't want to eat its lunch and a toddler who doesn't want to eat her lunch ruins your afternoon. That can feel like a big deal to me. Really. I pulled my hair out the first week Leonard had her cone and stitches and sutures. I had stress headaches, couldn't sleep. My family tried to help me, did help me, but I wasn't easy to console.
I guess sometimes I get invested in the idea that my life is hard, and that no one can help me. Maybe it's something that introverts do to keep themselves isolated. Maybe it's a protection mechanism. Or a neurosis. I don't know. But the truth is that today, I don't have anything to complain about. My loved ones are all well. My home is comfortable. I have all I need. So does my daughter and my puppy. Which is more than many, many people around the world can say. I don't know what I or any of us can do about that, except to continue to reach out to one another in the ways that we know how. Through word and song, through painting and cooking and gardening and crocheted blankets and snuggles and belly rubs; however we can give to and love each other, let's all do that.
Summer's end
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Why, then, do we have to be human
and keep running from the fate
we long for?
Oh, not because of such a thing as happiness--
that fleeting gift before loss begins.
Not from curiosity, or to exercise the heart ....
But because simply to be here is so much
and because what is here seems to need us,
this vanishing world that concerns us strangely--
us, the most vanishing of all. Once
for each, only once. Once and no more.
And we too: just once. Never again. But
to have lived even once,
to have been of Earth--that cannot be taken from us.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
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You wake up one morning in August and the air feels cooler and thinner than it has, and there's a sweetness, like the smell of alfalfa hay - sweet, and just a little rancid. It happens every year, and I'm never ready. It's the smell of summer ending, and I think of it as the smell of death. Okay, that's dramatic: it's really just a few dead leaves, a build-up of grass clippings, some spent flowers, and of course, my bad attitude.
I intended so many things this summer. I wanted to find a way to do them all, but a week into June I realized I'd put too much on my plate. I was stressed and anxious and feeling bad about everything, so I got rid of pretty much all of it. After all, I work for myself, and since I'm not being paid to suffer - not being paid for anything, as it happens - I might as well do what I feel like doing. I spent the last two months' spare time needle felting and keeping up my flower garden. I didn't write. I didn't submit. I've been getting up early most mornings, while there's still an hour or so before sunrise. I sit in my untidy studio in the quiet with a mug of tea beside me, and poke out little creatures or sew tiny clothes. To what end, I'm not sure. But the process makes me happy, so I'm going with it. The rest of my life, well, it hasn't seemed as serene as the few hours a day I spend in my studio or the garden.
This is the third post I've written this week, the first being self-indulgent and dramatic, the second being rambling and over-confessional. I've decided that after not writing most of the summer, there were things I needed to get off my chest and out into the world before I could move on. But you don't necessarily need to see some of those things. I'll just share that this week has been about trying to move forward and focus on what we managed to accomplish this summer, and what we can still accomplish. In other words, I'm trying to suck things up and move on. Just like a vacuum. Suck crap up and move on. The main problem for me is that I haven't figured out how to empty my canister yet. Badum-ching! See, this is where my mind is right now, so it seems best to let some photos do the talking.
Partial pictorial update on the summer follows.
Dave started work on the chicken house, a project we've put off the last few years. It's an investment, and I don't have any idea if it will ever be put to the use I'd like for it, which would be as a larger studio/shop space for art, and a guest house. I would love to have more space to create and perhaps space for others to create with me. And Dave and I have always wanted to have a place to house family or friends, but also maybe people needing housing for one reason or another.
Walks to see Pa's cows, and to the lake.
And a few times a week, our kitchen looks like this. Except add about 100 pounds of tomatoes and 20 more eggplants and cucumbers to that which wouldn't fit in the picture. Because Dave insists on planting a "truck-farmer" garden even though we aren't truck farmers.
Finally, Nettie has been helping me with some vegan baking. We've tried several new recipes this summer which we really liked, and I hope to share those soon.
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And if you're in the mood for it, the song Nettie and I have been singing for most of the last three days.
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