Sitting in Oregon, listening to rain pummel the roof, I'm reminded how much I like silence. I cherish the chance to listen to sounds not made by humans. This trip finds me in a lovely home in the country. The sounds I hear are made by wind, rain, or animals. Occasionally a car goes by, but the unpaved road is distant and drivers are few.
Last night I heard an owl tap its soft telegraph into the blackened air. Then I listened to chickens, turkeys and a pig settle down for the night. It was an intriguing sonata. I couldn't see them, but could just hear their rustling, grunting, and pipping. During the night I heard not a thing: a delight. This morning I listened to a rooster crowing. It was a cheery greeting, not a wake-up call since I'd been up for two hours, but a jubilant declaration of the newness of the day.
Later in the morning I heard birds eat. Debonair juncos flashed their white and grey garb along the ground, chipping as they discovered seed. Blue flash of jay from one tree to another tracked sharply in the quiet air. Robins bobbled their joy at discovered bugs. Far off, geese vees brayed their flight plans.
I'll be at this quiet retreat tomorrow and the next day and will cherish each hour of quiet. The place has sophisticated TV / dish / sound equipment. Don't care. Don't need to figure out how to use it. Can do without human sound just fine, thank you very much.
Years ago my late husband and I paddled into Canadian wilderness and, for three joy-filled days, heard no human sounds other than ours. No planes, no trucks, no cars, no radio, no TV, no chatter. Just us and the loons and the fish and the chipmunks. We couldn't believe how therapeutic the silence was. We could hear our hearts. We could hear our breath. We could hear our thoughts.
Few places on earth offer such silence. We are bombarded by the rattle of humanity, wherever we turn. And so I cherish these days spent in silence, spent oddly enough with a small white dog who is deaf. Each hour of this quiet time will be stashed in my memory bank so that, when inundated by the din of my tribe, I can make a small withdrawal and savor these sounds of silence.
Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dogs. Show all posts
Friday, March 4, 2011
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Prey: The Sequel
So earlier I wrote about hiking in the woods with my dog in an area shared with big predators: wolves, cougars, bears. I chickened out (NOT taking a gun, mind you, just not trekking by myself with my dog there). Now I'm not sure about the wisdom of that choice.
Don't often tear up at the headlines on MSN, but did today as I read "Tigers Nearing Extinction." The ensuing video showed an infared shot of a rare Siberian tiger approaching the camera at night and then, after the same site was razed by a bulldozer, a tiger again approaching the camera. What's going on? Huh?
Maybe the timing was ripe. I'd earlier read a piece about the sad fate of grizzlies in the West, given changes in their wild realm (including those related to climate), human movements closer to them, and states' rights in addressing the "problem." I'd seen earlier a televised interview with the intriguing writer, Doug Peacock, about the importance of predators in the larger scheme of themes, that is, our relationship with the entire planet, the globe that some say we should conquer. My gosh, after all of this, after all of this, I don't know what else to do but cry.
Of course I empathsize with the family of the biologist killed by a grizzly and the sleeping family attacked by the hungry, cub-laden griz sow, and the dog-walker mauled by a black bear in a subdivision. Of course. But the justice of it all seems wrong to me. What were those creatures guilty of besides trying to survive?
I look at my dog. She lives here, comfortably, serenely, arrogantly. She knows all will be provided by the two-legged critters that inhabit the same den. But what about those others, the creatures with DNA not all that different from hers, who are supposed to somehow learn the drifting rules they must follow?
How do they know what they're supposed to do or not do? Not just talkin about the rules of predator/prey; talkin about the rules of land management agencies, depridation payments, hunters' game populations, et al. How do the creatures know that, in years when berry harvests are slight, they should not enter subdivisions, but should high-tail it to the deep woods and find another way to get by? How do they know that humans do not want to be inconvenienced by their ongoing survival needs, even though the means for fulfilling those needs have been changed significantly?
I'm not comfortable being a human being when I read about the line of demarcation of human and predator, not comfortable at all. I live with a golden haired predator and I would hate to think of her being forced to make a survival choice that could result, not in just her demise, but that of her species. I don't know what else to do but cry.
Don't often tear up at the headlines on MSN, but did today as I read "Tigers Nearing Extinction." The ensuing video showed an infared shot of a rare Siberian tiger approaching the camera at night and then, after the same site was razed by a bulldozer, a tiger again approaching the camera. What's going on? Huh?
Maybe the timing was ripe. I'd earlier read a piece about the sad fate of grizzlies in the West, given changes in their wild realm (including those related to climate), human movements closer to them, and states' rights in addressing the "problem." I'd seen earlier a televised interview with the intriguing writer, Doug Peacock, about the importance of predators in the larger scheme of themes, that is, our relationship with the entire planet, the globe that some say we should conquer. My gosh, after all of this, after all of this, I don't know what else to do but cry.
Of course I empathsize with the family of the biologist killed by a grizzly and the sleeping family attacked by the hungry, cub-laden griz sow, and the dog-walker mauled by a black bear in a subdivision. Of course. But the justice of it all seems wrong to me. What were those creatures guilty of besides trying to survive?
I look at my dog. She lives here, comfortably, serenely, arrogantly. She knows all will be provided by the two-legged critters that inhabit the same den. But what about those others, the creatures with DNA not all that different from hers, who are supposed to somehow learn the drifting rules they must follow?
How do they know what they're supposed to do or not do? Not just talkin about the rules of predator/prey; talkin about the rules of land management agencies, depridation payments, hunters' game populations, et al. How do the creatures know that, in years when berry harvests are slight, they should not enter subdivisions, but should high-tail it to the deep woods and find another way to get by? How do they know that humans do not want to be inconvenienced by their ongoing survival needs, even though the means for fulfilling those needs have been changed significantly?
I'm not comfortable being a human being when I read about the line of demarcation of human and predator, not comfortable at all. I live with a golden haired predator and I would hate to think of her being forced to make a survival choice that could result, not in just her demise, but that of her species. I don't know what else to do but cry.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Smarts
I just read an article on animal intelligence, learning a lot. An amazing bonobo (a primate similar to a chimpanzee) has an extensive vocabulary and can communicate complex ideas by pointing to symbols of ideas he has learned. For example, he named kale by pointing to two visuals he knew: Slow and Lettuce. This conveyed the idea that kale takes longer to chew than does lettuce. Impressive.
The article got me thinking about my golden retriever's intelligence, whether Sadie's "cognitive rheostat" is working well, all the time. My roomie asked me once "Do you ever look at her and see that the lights are on, but wonder if anyone's home?" And indeed that is the case with Sadie. A few weeks ago, she spent quite a few minutes studying a shoe. Why? Who knows.
Yesterday, in a lovely mountain town, she clearly conveyed her annoyance with my mom and me, as we watched her from a restaurant window, while she sat in the car parked in front of the restaurant. At one point, she looked at us and we waved to her. She raised her snout even higher in the air, then turned away from us, in an act that appeared to be regal indignation.
She has at other times conveyed her disgust with human behavior. After I took her to a dog groomer who shaved her so awfully that she morphed from a long-haired golden to a creature that looked like an multi-toned pit bull, she appeared to be mad at me for a very long time. She avoided me, wouldn't play, would reluctantly respond to my instructions. I learned my lesson and never went back to that groomer.
Though Sadie is smart about some things, like expressing her feelings and like looking for me when we play hide-n-seek in the house, with her earning a sugar snap pea treat when she finds me in a closet, she is not so smart about others. For example, all her toys have the same name: Baby. She really doesn't know the difference, name-wise, between her stuffed lobster, pony, elephant, and bunny.
She is not like my wonderful yellow lab Aja (named after the Steely Dan tune). Aja had a lot of toys and took very good care of them. She also knew their names. If I told her to go get her "burger," she would go get it. Sometimes it would take her awhile to find it and sometimes it might be on the second attempt ("No, Aja. That's your birdie. Go find your burger."). But Aja knew the names of her toys and could match the name and the toy. Can't see Sadie doing that at all.
Aja's smarts were astounding to us in their own right but also because her father, Idaho Tycho, was among the least intelligent dogs I'd ever seen. Tycho was a huge and handsome papered yellow lab, but not a very bright one. He tried to mate with a horse, carried the full carcass of a sheep into camp once just to show us, and consistently ran full bore through the six-strand barbed wire fence behind our mountain home. My favorite example of his dimness occurred once while he was sitting next to my late husband, Mike, who was lying on the couch. Tycho's head was about ten inches from Mike's head. Mike said something to Tycho and the dog turned to respond to him. Tycho could have simply turned his head 90 degrees to the right and had full eye contact with Mike. Instead, he lifted his chin in the air as high as he could and tried to see Mike directly behind him. It was an amazing demonstration of AKC breeding gone all wrong.
At the other end of this realm was the fun black cockapoo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, that my daughter and I had years ago. This little guy was so smart and thoughtful that, if we left him in our apartment so long that he had an accident, he would pull throw pillows off the couch and cover each dropping with one. Now that's an act of intelligence that I found less than cute, but I did admire the thought that went into the task. He was very small, the couch was very tall, and the pillows were as big as he was. Smart little guy, that Obi.
I like reading about studies of animal intelligence. I like watching Sadie to see if anyone's home. I like being reminded that, though we think we're the smartest critters on the block, that may not be the case after all.
The article got me thinking about my golden retriever's intelligence, whether Sadie's "cognitive rheostat" is working well, all the time. My roomie asked me once "Do you ever look at her and see that the lights are on, but wonder if anyone's home?" And indeed that is the case with Sadie. A few weeks ago, she spent quite a few minutes studying a shoe. Why? Who knows.
Yesterday, in a lovely mountain town, she clearly conveyed her annoyance with my mom and me, as we watched her from a restaurant window, while she sat in the car parked in front of the restaurant. At one point, she looked at us and we waved to her. She raised her snout even higher in the air, then turned away from us, in an act that appeared to be regal indignation.
She has at other times conveyed her disgust with human behavior. After I took her to a dog groomer who shaved her so awfully that she morphed from a long-haired golden to a creature that looked like an multi-toned pit bull, she appeared to be mad at me for a very long time. She avoided me, wouldn't play, would reluctantly respond to my instructions. I learned my lesson and never went back to that groomer.
Though Sadie is smart about some things, like expressing her feelings and like looking for me when we play hide-n-seek in the house, with her earning a sugar snap pea treat when she finds me in a closet, she is not so smart about others. For example, all her toys have the same name: Baby. She really doesn't know the difference, name-wise, between her stuffed lobster, pony, elephant, and bunny.
She is not like my wonderful yellow lab Aja (named after the Steely Dan tune). Aja had a lot of toys and took very good care of them. She also knew their names. If I told her to go get her "burger," she would go get it. Sometimes it would take her awhile to find it and sometimes it might be on the second attempt ("No, Aja. That's your birdie. Go find your burger."). But Aja knew the names of her toys and could match the name and the toy. Can't see Sadie doing that at all.
Aja's smarts were astounding to us in their own right but also because her father, Idaho Tycho, was among the least intelligent dogs I'd ever seen. Tycho was a huge and handsome papered yellow lab, but not a very bright one. He tried to mate with a horse, carried the full carcass of a sheep into camp once just to show us, and consistently ran full bore through the six-strand barbed wire fence behind our mountain home. My favorite example of his dimness occurred once while he was sitting next to my late husband, Mike, who was lying on the couch. Tycho's head was about ten inches from Mike's head. Mike said something to Tycho and the dog turned to respond to him. Tycho could have simply turned his head 90 degrees to the right and had full eye contact with Mike. Instead, he lifted his chin in the air as high as he could and tried to see Mike directly behind him. It was an amazing demonstration of AKC breeding gone all wrong.
At the other end of this realm was the fun black cockapoo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, that my daughter and I had years ago. This little guy was so smart and thoughtful that, if we left him in our apartment so long that he had an accident, he would pull throw pillows off the couch and cover each dropping with one. Now that's an act of intelligence that I found less than cute, but I did admire the thought that went into the task. He was very small, the couch was very tall, and the pillows were as big as he was. Smart little guy, that Obi.
I like reading about studies of animal intelligence. I like watching Sadie to see if anyone's home. I like being reminded that, though we think we're the smartest critters on the block, that may not be the case after all.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Knit One
Knitting has been a special hobby of mine for awhile. I've made lots of scarves, baby clothes, hats, sweaters, and even a coat. I've written poetry about the precious gift of knitting:
Each stitch is infused with hope,
not just to become garment,
not just to warm or grace,
but another kind of hope,
a prayer,
a wish,
a memory,
to be preserved in fiber.
from "Knitting," The Silence of Bright Star
www.eloquentbooks.com/TheSilenceOfBrightStar.html
But last weekend I was blessed to work on the most important piece ever and to work with the most precious yarn ever. I knitted a laprobe for my daughter out of yarn spun from the hair of her stunning dog Marilyn. An Audrey Hepburn of a dog, Marilyn was pure grace, with a ladylike prance and a model's posture. She would delicately cross one paw over the other as she reclined. Incredibly beautiful, she turned heads, with her glossy black fur and electric blue eyes. When my daughter and I helped Marilyn cross over the Rainbow Bridge last June, this planet lost one of its elegant queens. She was royalty, through and through.
So knitting something for my daughter, something that was part of Marilyn was a thrilling prospect. I couldn't wait to see and feel the yarn that Christine O'Hara (spinningstrawintogold.com) created. Christine posted a picture of Marilyn (shown in this blog) while she was spinning Marilyn's hair. Surprisingly the yarn was dark brown, even though Marilyn's coat looked black. The undercoat was lighter than the outer and that must have comprised most of the hair combed from Marilyn. The yarn was very soft, like angora or cashmere. I was anxious to transform it with my needles.
And what an ideal setting for me to do so! My daughter's current dog, Trudy (described in an earlier blog), and I spent almost four days together at a blissful hideaway, a house tucked among twelve acres of pinot noir grapes in the wine country of central Oregon. We had perfect knitting weather in this edenic spot: lots of rain and one day of blissful sunshine. Trudy and I sat in the living room enjoying the view and the quiet or lolled in the grassy yard enjoying the birds and the trees and the vista and the quiet. I knitted and Trudy sniffed and snoozed.
Knitting Marilyn was magic. Each stitch was special. The yarn was supple and fine to the touch. Each row brought new sensory pleasure. I was able to knit a laprobe about 18 by 28 to keep my daughter warm. I found a light blue mohair wool mix for trim, echoing the striking light blue of Marilyn's eyes. I liked the result: a fuzzy dark piece of love, looking much like a bearskin, edged in pale sky. Trudy liked it too; when I spread it out on the carpet she stepped onto it, laid down, and closed her eyes. It was sweet seeing the white dog asleep on the hair of the dark dog.
I was pleased to help transform a memory into a momento. Marilyn's presence was all around me as I knitted, a continuation of her insistence on being with my daughter all the time. "The apron strings on this one are short," my daughter used to say. This dog wanted nothing more than to be with the precious creature who rescued her and, even after she left this realm, she was able to be with her. I am so blessed to have helped.
Each stitch is infused with hope,
not just to become garment,
not just to warm or grace,
but another kind of hope,
a prayer,
a wish,
a memory,
to be preserved in fiber.
from "Knitting," The Silence of Bright Star
www.eloquentbooks.com/TheSilenceOfBrightStar.html
But last weekend I was blessed to work on the most important piece ever and to work with the most precious yarn ever. I knitted a laprobe for my daughter out of yarn spun from the hair of her stunning dog Marilyn. An Audrey Hepburn of a dog, Marilyn was pure grace, with a ladylike prance and a model's posture. She would delicately cross one paw over the other as she reclined. Incredibly beautiful, she turned heads, with her glossy black fur and electric blue eyes. When my daughter and I helped Marilyn cross over the Rainbow Bridge last June, this planet lost one of its elegant queens. She was royalty, through and through.
So knitting something for my daughter, something that was part of Marilyn was a thrilling prospect. I couldn't wait to see and feel the yarn that Christine O'Hara (spinningstrawintogold.com) created. Christine posted a picture of Marilyn (shown in this blog) while she was spinning Marilyn's hair. Surprisingly the yarn was dark brown, even though Marilyn's coat looked black. The undercoat was lighter than the outer and that must have comprised most of the hair combed from Marilyn. The yarn was very soft, like angora or cashmere. I was anxious to transform it with my needles.
And what an ideal setting for me to do so! My daughter's current dog, Trudy (described in an earlier blog), and I spent almost four days together at a blissful hideaway, a house tucked among twelve acres of pinot noir grapes in the wine country of central Oregon. We had perfect knitting weather in this edenic spot: lots of rain and one day of blissful sunshine. Trudy and I sat in the living room enjoying the view and the quiet or lolled in the grassy yard enjoying the birds and the trees and the vista and the quiet. I knitted and Trudy sniffed and snoozed.
Knitting Marilyn was magic. Each stitch was special. The yarn was supple and fine to the touch. Each row brought new sensory pleasure. I was able to knit a laprobe about 18 by 28 to keep my daughter warm. I found a light blue mohair wool mix for trim, echoing the striking light blue of Marilyn's eyes. I liked the result: a fuzzy dark piece of love, looking much like a bearskin, edged in pale sky. Trudy liked it too; when I spread it out on the carpet she stepped onto it, laid down, and closed her eyes. It was sweet seeing the white dog asleep on the hair of the dark dog.
I was pleased to help transform a memory into a momento. Marilyn's presence was all around me as I knitted, a continuation of her insistence on being with my daughter all the time. "The apron strings on this one are short," my daughter used to say. This dog wanted nothing more than to be with the precious creature who rescued her and, even after she left this realm, she was able to be with her. I am so blessed to have helped.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Too Cute
So fourteen pound Trudy the Cutie has been staying at my house, intimidating my sixty pound golden retriever Greenleaf Sadie Sue. It's too funny...this little white bit of fuzz curling her upper lip and making the big ole dog back off, down the hall, back off, there you go, no need to even think of coming down the hall when I am lying mid-way between dining room and Man-Cave. Don't even think about it. You stay down there. I'll preside here. I will let you know when it is time for you to move.
It's so funny because, to look at Trudy, one would think this creature is nothing but fluff. All white: the best color for cute dogs. Lots of soft-looking hair: no hairless, red-skinned, boney carcass here: this is angel hair, drifty white blur all 'round. And there are the eyes! Coal dropped into the snow-drift of face. These are phenomenal in their intense contrast. The ears? Diminutive papillon butterfly ears, delicate, fringed, pointy, cute elfin ears. Who could resist such a creature? Then Trudy sits primly, crossing one front paw coyly over the other and we're all suckers, taken in by a tiny dominatrix, determined to make us all mind.
Okay, maybe I'm being melodramatic. But Trudy the Cutie is no coy ingenue, trust me!
Trudy makes me think about what it means to be cute. Decades ago my parents thought I should cultivate my drawing skills and provided me with wonderful drawing manuals. One book about drawing animated creatures taught me that the best animations are infantile: these beings have over-sized heads, with the top half of the skull swelling way beyond normalcy; these beings have huge eyes, big, round eyes, with long, alluring lashes; these beings have undersized bodies, with minimal limbs and certainly no sign of musculature! These animated "babes" harken back to the cradle, helping viewers feel at ease at the cartoon critters' vulnerability, cuteness and harmlessness.
Watching Trudy the Cutie, I think of these instructions for creating cute animations. I also think of my golden retriever Sadie as a pup. My sister said young Sadie was so cute it hurt and that was true. I'd never seen a puppy cuter than Sadie. She was perfect! I took pictures of her daily and bored my colleagues with her images. I built a Power Point to memorialize her incredible sweetness! I sent e-mail after e-mail with images of this blonde, big-headed, dark-eyed softy. And what was that all about?
The "cartoon" image of Sadie was very different from the reality of Sadie, a dog so driven toward self-gratification that she bore the nickname "Doggie Terrorist." She could block out all instruction, all human guidance, if her goals required that focus. Just this weekend she proved, yet again, that her precious exterior is only veneer, that under the "cute" exterior of fluff and dark eyes is another creature, a steely mercenary who will not be stopped.
Looking at Trudy the Cutie, thinking about Sadie the doggie terrorist, I'm re-evaluating my assessment of cuteness. I may want to be more cautious when branding a creature the title of "Oh, So Cute!"
It's so funny because, to look at Trudy, one would think this creature is nothing but fluff. All white: the best color for cute dogs. Lots of soft-looking hair: no hairless, red-skinned, boney carcass here: this is angel hair, drifty white blur all 'round. And there are the eyes! Coal dropped into the snow-drift of face. These are phenomenal in their intense contrast. The ears? Diminutive papillon butterfly ears, delicate, fringed, pointy, cute elfin ears. Who could resist such a creature? Then Trudy sits primly, crossing one front paw coyly over the other and we're all suckers, taken in by a tiny dominatrix, determined to make us all mind.
Okay, maybe I'm being melodramatic. But Trudy the Cutie is no coy ingenue, trust me!
Trudy makes me think about what it means to be cute. Decades ago my parents thought I should cultivate my drawing skills and provided me with wonderful drawing manuals. One book about drawing animated creatures taught me that the best animations are infantile: these beings have over-sized heads, with the top half of the skull swelling way beyond normalcy; these beings have huge eyes, big, round eyes, with long, alluring lashes; these beings have undersized bodies, with minimal limbs and certainly no sign of musculature! These animated "babes" harken back to the cradle, helping viewers feel at ease at the cartoon critters' vulnerability, cuteness and harmlessness.
Watching Trudy the Cutie, I think of these instructions for creating cute animations. I also think of my golden retriever Sadie as a pup. My sister said young Sadie was so cute it hurt and that was true. I'd never seen a puppy cuter than Sadie. She was perfect! I took pictures of her daily and bored my colleagues with her images. I built a Power Point to memorialize her incredible sweetness! I sent e-mail after e-mail with images of this blonde, big-headed, dark-eyed softy. And what was that all about?
The "cartoon" image of Sadie was very different from the reality of Sadie, a dog so driven toward self-gratification that she bore the nickname "Doggie Terrorist." She could block out all instruction, all human guidance, if her goals required that focus. Just this weekend she proved, yet again, that her precious exterior is only veneer, that under the "cute" exterior of fluff and dark eyes is another creature, a steely mercenary who will not be stopped.
Looking at Trudy the Cutie, thinking about Sadie the doggie terrorist, I'm re-evaluating my assessment of cuteness. I may want to be more cautious when branding a creature the title of "Oh, So Cute!"
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Bolts
My dog Sadie and I just sat in the doorway of the sunroom to witness a ferocious spring storm. It was a superb performance. Gigantic roars coursed across the grey ceiling of cloud. I envisioned Jack saying something to really, really annoy the Giant, spawning these monstrous booms. They rolled across the high desert valley that hosts my city. I winced a couple of times, they were that fierce.
And the sparks! White hot rips of energy slashed the southern sky over and over and over. Only one was so close that I counted...just to make sure the huge shade-provider in my backyard would not be a charred stump come morning. My sighed relief met the one-two-three of a distant strike.
I'm thrilled to share this springtime treat with my dog. Her predecessor, angelic Aja, the slender yellow lab, hated lightning, hated thunder, hated fireworks, hated backfires, hated loud slaps. She'd cower in late June and July as the neighborhood punks flung their cherry bombs and Roman candles into the night sky. If she could have made a den behind the furnace or washer/dryer, she would have. Not funny, the loud noises, not one bit entertaining.
This dog, though, doesn't mind. Sadie celebrated her first New Year's Eve on the cliff's edge in our back yard, tracking local fireworks across the starred dome. Fascinated she was by these strange lights that moved. Noise? What noise? Sadie didn't seem to care. Tonight she was similarly intrigued. Hmmmm, quite a bit of wind. Oh my, seems to be some heavy rain. Yes, more of that loud, deep sound. Curious. This dog likes to observe, often with a bit of a scowl. Anthropomorphizing, I'd say she's doing some deep pondering. But I know her better than that. Deep thinking is not one of Sadie's traits. It's more likely that she was trying to connect the flashes and noise and wind and rain with the dispensation of dog treats or fuzzy toy animals. They could be connected; yes, they could!
A splendid evening, this. Rain still wallops my sunroom's metal roof. I like the snare drum sound that makes a light drizzle seem pretty darned fierce. I like the wildness of spring weather. I like sharing it with my sort of thoughtful dog, Sadie.
And the sparks! White hot rips of energy slashed the southern sky over and over and over. Only one was so close that I counted...just to make sure the huge shade-provider in my backyard would not be a charred stump come morning. My sighed relief met the one-two-three of a distant strike.
I'm thrilled to share this springtime treat with my dog. Her predecessor, angelic Aja, the slender yellow lab, hated lightning, hated thunder, hated fireworks, hated backfires, hated loud slaps. She'd cower in late June and July as the neighborhood punks flung their cherry bombs and Roman candles into the night sky. If she could have made a den behind the furnace or washer/dryer, she would have. Not funny, the loud noises, not one bit entertaining.
This dog, though, doesn't mind. Sadie celebrated her first New Year's Eve on the cliff's edge in our back yard, tracking local fireworks across the starred dome. Fascinated she was by these strange lights that moved. Noise? What noise? Sadie didn't seem to care. Tonight she was similarly intrigued. Hmmmm, quite a bit of wind. Oh my, seems to be some heavy rain. Yes, more of that loud, deep sound. Curious. This dog likes to observe, often with a bit of a scowl. Anthropomorphizing, I'd say she's doing some deep pondering. But I know her better than that. Deep thinking is not one of Sadie's traits. It's more likely that she was trying to connect the flashes and noise and wind and rain with the dispensation of dog treats or fuzzy toy animals. They could be connected; yes, they could!
A splendid evening, this. Rain still wallops my sunroom's metal roof. I like the snare drum sound that makes a light drizzle seem pretty darned fierce. I like the wildness of spring weather. I like sharing it with my sort of thoughtful dog, Sadie.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Hiding Out
I ran away this weekend. I ran away to write. It seems odd to have to do that. Shouldn't a writer---one who writes about things connected to other humans, like dogs, art, and the natural world--be able to write among her peers? I don't think so.
There are so many distractions. Hardwood floors: spotted and dotted with dust bunnies. Answering machine: LED light commanding me to answer that person's message. Television: how can one NOT watch Olympic competition? Front yard's berm: yes, those shrubs need to be cleaned up.
So if I stay at my house, with my canine and human roomies, I'm not going to get the desired number of words turned out. Won't happen. Just won't happen.
What's a writer to do? That's easy. Run away. Find a place where the dust bunnies and the answering machine and the TV and the yard can't find me. Hide out. For me, this weekend, it was in a little two-bedroom house in a mountain town. There was no internet. There was no cable. There was no Starbucks with WIFI. The laptop awaits. Gotta write. Gotta hide out and write.
The monastic tendencies of writers intrique me. Lots of religions have hermits, who hide away to gain spiritual insights. In fact, the voluntary separation from society is a human archetype, behavior imbedded deep within all of us. It's something that mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote about frequently. In "A Hero with a Thousand Faces," he said a hero, after receiving an important spiritual message, has to leave his society and head out on a solitary trek. The journey will be filled with threats, most often head-on encounters with death and sexuality. A safe return means the hero has been victorious in challenging these huge life-truths. Campbell compared the motif to the steps in human psychological development; we leave the safety of our parents, head out on our own and, if our encounters with dangers are successful, come back home, bringing great gifts to our tribe.
So, I fancied myself a heroine, heading out on this writing trek. My intent was to encounter, once more, some of the darkest moments in my life. Because one of my projects involves responding to the loss of a spouse, when I work on it I'm immersed in sorrow and anger and reverie and anguish. It's not the kind of thing I can do most effectively surrounded by the distractions of my daily life.
The decision to hide out was a good one. The laptop, the dog, and me made a fine team. Words poured out of the keyboard. Chapters were outlined. Query letter to publishers was polished. An Excel spreadsheet was even built, categorizing publishers who might offer the most promise and highlighting critical information about topics like simultaneous submissions and agents.
I returned from the escape feeling satisfied. I made some progress on my writing goals. So what if I had to run away to do so? There's a long, long history of humans having to escape their tribes to make spiritual progress. I'm in good company.
There are so many distractions. Hardwood floors: spotted and dotted with dust bunnies. Answering machine: LED light commanding me to answer that person's message. Television: how can one NOT watch Olympic competition? Front yard's berm: yes, those shrubs need to be cleaned up.
So if I stay at my house, with my canine and human roomies, I'm not going to get the desired number of words turned out. Won't happen. Just won't happen.
What's a writer to do? That's easy. Run away. Find a place where the dust bunnies and the answering machine and the TV and the yard can't find me. Hide out. For me, this weekend, it was in a little two-bedroom house in a mountain town. There was no internet. There was no cable. There was no Starbucks with WIFI. The laptop awaits. Gotta write. Gotta hide out and write.
The monastic tendencies of writers intrique me. Lots of religions have hermits, who hide away to gain spiritual insights. In fact, the voluntary separation from society is a human archetype, behavior imbedded deep within all of us. It's something that mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote about frequently. In "A Hero with a Thousand Faces," he said a hero, after receiving an important spiritual message, has to leave his society and head out on a solitary trek. The journey will be filled with threats, most often head-on encounters with death and sexuality. A safe return means the hero has been victorious in challenging these huge life-truths. Campbell compared the motif to the steps in human psychological development; we leave the safety of our parents, head out on our own and, if our encounters with dangers are successful, come back home, bringing great gifts to our tribe.
So, I fancied myself a heroine, heading out on this writing trek. My intent was to encounter, once more, some of the darkest moments in my life. Because one of my projects involves responding to the loss of a spouse, when I work on it I'm immersed in sorrow and anger and reverie and anguish. It's not the kind of thing I can do most effectively surrounded by the distractions of my daily life.
The decision to hide out was a good one. The laptop, the dog, and me made a fine team. Words poured out of the keyboard. Chapters were outlined. Query letter to publishers was polished. An Excel spreadsheet was even built, categorizing publishers who might offer the most promise and highlighting critical information about topics like simultaneous submissions and agents.
I returned from the escape feeling satisfied. I made some progress on my writing goals. So what if I had to run away to do so? There's a long, long history of humans having to escape their tribes to make spiritual progress. I'm in good company.
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