the dog days are over

Today my dog killed a chicken, and fatally injured another. Once a dog gets the taste of blood, he will always kill again. They were our own chickens, not some belonging to an irate, country neighbor, but it is a grief filled event, a turning point in my sense of self and family. While waiting to see if the second one will pull through, my heart is thick in my throat and my bowels unsettle my stomach far to much for the dinner I so carefully prepared. The grief and anger of the lost chickens will pass, but letting go of my dog is a tragic event that propels me further into a sense of isolation and abandonment, a sense that has been growing inside of me for a a long slow descent of years now, into unknown territory.

This is the only dog I have ever owned, The only pet to be with me through thick and thin besides to many cats to count. I love cats, but they come and go. This dog has been with me a while, he outlasted one marriage, five major moves and three extreme life transitions. He isn't even very old, merely seven years, six of the hardest ones I have ever lived through. This dog is MY DOG! My only dog, ever, not some animal I befriended because of a sister, spouse, or child. Not a temporary favor to a lost or couch surfing friend, but MY dog. I even had a doctors prescription once to keep him in my apartment building because he calmed my anxiety and motivated me to get out of bed in the morning during the depths of depression.


Lets dissect the effects of this monumental decision:
The dog has been such a mixed blessing all along, but he helped me to escape the isolation of being alone when first my daughter then my husband left me holding the pieces of the life I had tried so hard to build for us all after numerous, financial disasters. The Dog still loved me, was still excited about the craziest little things and still stuck his cold nose on me to get me up when the cat wanted in.

The dog held me together in the darkest days, and over the years helped me make new friends everywhere I went. My eventual popularity was largely due to my very out going and friendly dog who could melt the coldest most uptight seeming colleagues into instant allies. The dog is the last of my deepest, sense of family. The dog was a rescue with abandonment issues of his own, and abandoning him again leaves a hole in my chest that abandons a part of my self as well. Giving up my dog, feels like giving up ON my dog, having him taken away creates a further sense of alone-ness inside of me, a place no person fills. Dog spelled backwards is God. I feel I owe him more.

On the flip side:
In many ways letting go of my dog is one more link to a past I am more then ready to move away from and cut the remaining ties too. I am in a new life now, with a new and loving partner, whom I adore. I often feel the shadow of His hurtful past looming between us, I certainly don't want anything else contributing to that insecurity. Sending the dog to the next loving owner, someone who has the time and resources to care for him frees me to pursue the things I have felt calling my spirit, tugging at my sense of longing. It suggests the ability to pursue the fickle mistress of adventure whenever she calls me to travel, or chase a rainbow for my writing, or explore some new and exotic experience in my own backyard.

Letting go of the dog takes the pressure off my partner to care for both of our dogs when I go on an art binge!During those times I barely eat or sleep for days because I simply must write, or paint or chase ghosts and aliens, or walk weird lines on the road, and count stars, or headlights, or pine cones to better understand some obsession that has fired my imagination. When this state of mind overtakes me everything else in life falls to the wayside, the housework, dog walks, food preparation; anyone living with me counts themselves lucky if we actually have toilet paper in the house during those brief bursts of gestation and productivity. Having one less, very demanding dog could be a blessing. But what about the other lonely dog?

Nothing lasts forever. Everything in this life is temporary. Having been through two failed marriages, and reinventing myself and my identity and my persona almost as many times as Madonna, I of all people know this. But as a sentimental person with no sense of having been valued or nurtured as a child, I have no sense of roots other then the ones I have attempted to create myself and had ripped away time and time again. The child in me resists and objects, but then gives up the fight and simply goes numb. Reflecting the feelings of any child faced with repeated loss and no sense of control, "why care about anything? everyone leaves. Why care or be vulnerable to anyone at all?"

This train of thought brings me to a deeper and more direct understanding of what is happening in the head and heart of a special little girl that I know. And as I make that association I cannot help but think this tragic seeming event might just be the answer to a prayer I made recently. A prayer to somehow help her find peace and relieve the grief and anger that weighs so heavy on her and lies between her and the people in her world. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. The Divine works in ways that surpass our limited understanding but the odd idea of it all at least brings me back to an odd sense of hope, and purpose in the universe. I should know better then to resist change by now.

Jasper has helped to answer so many prayers from the first day he came to me. Beltane. April 30th at dusk. A deliberate gift from Hecate' the goddess energy of crossroads, transformation and change. A powerful and sometimes dark goddess, but one that wears the three faces of fate. Fate tells us that the only constant in life is change, and it is the only thing we can really count on. We can count on it but we cannot control or really even direct it. All we can do is get good at surfing the wave. Thank You Hecate'. I surrender.

BALANCED SENSE OF SELF

How to do it. How to let myself enjoy and bask in the wonder of new found love and the simple organic, hearty goodness of such a healthy and robust thing, while maintaining that part of myself that is separate and whole and growing, striving, changing and yearning for recognition in my own right. I have often given up myself for the love of another, a husband, child, or parent. It is something we learn as children to survive and attempt to get our needs met in the face of poverty, abuse, trauma, grief, neglect and circumstance. Most of us have this tendency in modern life, depending on the amount of independence that was deliberately fostered by our parental units. Usually they wanted our cooperation so, independence was not always valued as highly, depending on our individual family groups, heritage and circumstance.

My goal now is to learn and practice newer, healthier ways to see, appreciate and relate to my partner, while exercising the discipline, and judgment I need to meet my individual goals and achieve my independent hopes and dreams within the context of a larger shared life, shared goals, shared dreams. There is so much to learn, and relearn, so many skills to polish and dig out from the trenches of bygone days and old coping patterns. There are so many options for communication, listening, respecting and functioning to dust off and brush up on. A new relationship is yet another new beginning, another opportunity to reinvent oneself, ones ways of relating to an intimate other, and to exercise both generosity and boundary setting. Respect and self-respect. The ultimate thing we all struggle to find balance with. Selfishness and generosity, graciousness and a healthy sense and expression of loving.

Some ideas. While our goal is to share a domicile making our silly twice weekly trek to one another’s homes, less ludicrous, there are some advantages to several days together and several days apart. For one I can focus only on the senses and how very much I like my new man, as a person, as a friend, as a lover, when I am with him, and then completely immerse myself in my own world and work and social circle when we are apart. I don’t have to worry about how late I stay up, or what time dinner should be when I am on my own, and there is a liberation in that that I don’t want to surrender… But as it stands, when I am immersed in his life and his world, there is very little of my own life around, so achieving balance while in that end of the seesaw or pendulum is extremely unlikely if possible, until we do move in together and each have our own life-in-full while immersed in cohabitation.

How do I want it to be? A home together that meets both person’s real needs. So we must identify needs verses wants… So one of the things I have to ask is what are MY wants, my needs for myself? For my ideal relationship, and my goals for and from myself with in that context… I am working really hard to please Him and doing my own thing too and the balance is bizarre. Simply because I am somewhat unaccustomed to it. So can I strike a balance in myself? Use my left side, my intuition and my own honorary identity within my own sense of value and desires. Can I maintain it? Can I keep both simultaneously? Is it truly the ultimate in multi-tasking?

There is some evidence which suggests my intensity, my OCD tendencies, is what has cost me important relationships in the past and yet, there is also a deeper sense of destiny here, of purpose, of opportunity. Why have I been fighting it all during the loss and regenerating time of my own growth and transition. How do I maintain command over myself and allow myself to swim in the waters of peaceful, nourishing plenty and affection. Basking in the lap of sensory, experiential living as I long to. A place reserved from the self I share in the main stream and preserved in itself from harsh labels or judgment. I feel a bit Like Anias Nin. On the threshold of a lifestyle, a system I have circled around for years, only I am no longer just dipping my toes in the water…

Once again in my life, I find myself at a place that keeps me pushing the envelope of my own sense of terror, like a chaos junkie or adrenaline freak, I don’t know how to calm down emotionally, unless we are apart completely or he is actually touching me. It is heady, cloudy and the direct chemical response from my brain is tangible in the physiology and emotional components of my perceptions and reactions. I am like an affection starved beast, but I am learning to feel safe on such a deep level and I am probably rushing my emotional self, wanting to drench myself in every bit of him. Typical, how else do I know how to do anything except to just dive right in, mistakes and all, risking playing the fool!

If there is one thing I know how to do after the life I’ve lived, it is to take risks, to win sometimes and to lose a lot. But to settle into successful attainment, bridging the gap of preserving and maintaining the quality I have busted my back and ass, and neck to recognize is something my attention span or nature seems mutually exclusive to doing. I am good at beginnings, many people are, and it is good to learn new habits but it is also good to face our fears. So how fast or slow is the right pace? We want to add quality back to our lives and our sense of self but how do we regulate a healthy level of interacting with our new found sense of quality and the expanded, sense of capacity to appreciate quality and a sense of wonder and safety and well being when it is something we’ve seen very little of.

I am reminded of the journey up Hwy 58, to Hwy 97 between Eugene Oregon, and Klamath Falls. There is a small town called Oakridge nestled in the western foothills of the Cascades. On the edge of town, there is a historic milestone, recognizing the pioneers who came to this town on the Oregon trail. The story is that they followed a new trail, and got a bit lost; many starved to death before they made if through the mountains. Once they got to the town they were greeted with a big pancake feed. Many of the survivors, actually gorged themselves to death. Literally ate themselves to death because the starvation physiology was advanced, and desensitized them to the feelings of being sated, fed, or full. It was literally death by pancakes, because they didn’t know how to stop after being so hungry for so long.

So like the starving people that finally found salvation and false sense of safety when they reached Oakridge, we enter new, seemingly harmless territory situations with the desire to take what seems so freely offered and abundant, and gorge ourselves on every nuance, every flavor, every variety of delicious sustenance offered. One sees this phenomenon again and again, the same theme dancing before our world weary eyes and hearts and stimulating our salivating sense. Janice Joplin, and John Belushi overdosed on drugs with no way to censor or regulate the experiences they felt starved to indulge. People experience and fill this void in almost as many ways as there are people. With drugs, alcohol, food, work, sex, internet, religion, gossip, affection, electronics.

The flavors of the choices are endless, but the act, the hunger, the addiction, the sense of emptiness and unrestrained desire to alleviate its ache, remain the same. We don’t always know what enough looks or feels like, and seem to stay hungry regardless of how much we have or get or share, wanting more and more, like a once feral cat come home. At what point do we calm down and relearn our own perceptions and a sense of trust? How do we learn to feel the signals of enough, beneath the panic and frenzied need to feed? I think the answer lies in our ability to be discerning, to recognize and add quality back to our lives, and the moment we are in at any given time.