Category Archives: Love

May 4th 2016 or Decades of Doglessness (7)

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my dog Sanji, photo taken at my mom's house by Phil when I was away

My dog Sanji died 31 years ago today. She was born in 1976, part Great Dane and part German Shepherd, the runt of eleven. A woman I worked with then at the secret shopper spy job told me sanji means female bear in Tibetan. I don’t know if that’s true, but I liked the sound of it. I used to say she was part deer and part fish. She had a tender spirit, and she loved any kind of water, would leap with pure dog joy into the swimming pool. She loved going to the beach in Alameda when we lived in Oakland. After she died I wished I’d taken her there more often. She chased the seagulls along the wide sandbar, ears laid back in the wind, big grin on her beautiful face. It seems impossible she’s been dead so long. I can’t believe I’ve been dogless for three decades now. If a psychic had predicted this, that 27-year-old me wouldn’t have believed another word she said, convinced she was a fraud. And to think I’ve spent such a big chunk of my life without a dog seems unbelievably sad. But life unfolds as it will, and this was all about the timing.

Sanji and my cat Trair and I made this little family. When Sanji died Trair and I were left alone together. I knew she didn’t want another dog. When Trair died 12 years later, my landlord wouldn’t let me get a dog, so I got Sofia instead. Doglessness continued from there until now when both Sofia and Sable have so newly left me catless, too. I still cry now and then when I think of Sanji, but after all this time they are grateful tears more than anything, the memories dreamy and good. I remember our back-house cottage in Highland Park where she died of cancer and how she and Trair and I used to hang out together in our little backyard there. I would sit between the bougainvillea and the lemon tree on the small patch of grass I cut on rare occasions with an old rusty hand mower. Trair would land in my lap as soon as I settled in the chair, my joint resting unlit with a box of wooden matches in the clean blue enamel ashtray, my Marlboro Lights and my ice cold Corona beside them. When Sanji got tired of fetching, or more often when I got tired of throwing the slimy green tennis ball, she’d sprawl beside us on the grass. I marveled over our sweet little family of three. If you paid attention, you could hear traffic a block away on the old highway 11. But in our tiny yard tucked away from the world the three of us would rest together in a different kind of quiet, bask together in a deep and lucky peace.

Seeing What Comes (5)

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This morning I wake up on my back and see the half moon framed in the southwest clerestory window. I feel greeted by magic. I remember Mami’s trouble breathing in the night, our fears on the phone, and I say metta for us all. May all beings everywhere be safe and free from harm. I go out to feed the birds. The hummingbird feeder is full of ants. I dump it in the weeds and use the hose with care to rinse it out, hoping some ants might survive. I think, oh, is this the way the day is going to go, filled with annoyance? After, I am standing in the kitchen and see a black-headed grosbeak join the mourning doves in the small tray feeder. He is startling beside them in his vivid orange, black and white. I’ve seen him in my garden three times in as many days. This grosbeak was one of the first birds I identified over a decade ago from my big stone porch in Hopland, so I have a fondness for them. Today I stand there watching him through the kitchen window and another strange bird emerges on a nearby sunflower, having made her way up from below to nibble on the broad leaves. It takes me a moment to make sense of her. She seems so big, so foreign. It’s only the little goldfinch who I see eating the sunflowers. But she’s a black-headed grosbeak, too. They are a pair. I am dancing inside. I’ve only ever seen one at a time before. Then three more males arrive. I have five grosbeaks, four boys and a girl, in my garden. I can’t stop grinning. It comes to me then my morning echoes life as a whole: lingering night fears, the daylight waning moon, messy, inconvenient ants, five beautiful grosbeaks—all unexpected visitors, the lot of them. Here’s to surprise guests everywhere.

Only Quiet Ghosts Today (4)

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nasturtiums, bougainvillea and sunflower greenery in my garden

Guess where I am? It is Sunday, and I am sitting in my courtyard drinking my morning tea for the first time in five months. I am so grateful I was able to trust myself, to be gentle, to not push myself back out here before I was ready. I have been afraid of this day, of being here without my cats. I was afraid I would feel too small, unmoored, alone. I was afraid their ghosts would be too glaring, to have them not lying nearby on their pillows, or Sable underneath the honeysuckle, Sofia stretched out on the cement beside the gate, rolling on her back in cat abandon. I was afraid it would hurt too much to even reach for my own pleasure here in my garden. And I think if I had tried it any day before today it might have been true. But I have spent hours and hours moving everything into summer places, putting in an odd and goofy watering system. There are pots of dirt beside the sliding glass door waiting for carrot and beet seeds. I pulled out one “field” of sunflowers, their gorgeous disks drying now in a yellow bucket. I moved both umbrellas, bought new chairs and put them on the other side of the table. I rigged new spots for some of the bird feeders. I have touched every part of the courtyard in the last three days, and it changed me in the process. Not only that, but now there is almost nothing that’s the same except the birds are here, and the mountains, and me. My furred ones are not, and never will be again, but it’s a deep and quiet ache, not a wrenching agony. And it’s laced with wonder at the newness of everything around me, eased by the comfort of the mourning dove cooing from the fence and the soft pecking sounds of everyone eating breakfast. I count fourteen house finch again and again while I sip my tea and marvel.

My Mockingbird Grows Up (57)

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I know now where my mockingbird sings. Last year they cut down this old behemoth of a tree that used to block the last hour of the sun for me in high summer. They left the trunk with all it’s sawed-off limbs, still tree-high, taller than the trailers. Right now my mockingbird is perched upon it singing to us all. Now and then he sallies forth, small leaps into the air, glorious in his dark grey and white display. Then he settles back down again upon the brown trunk. His song has smoothed out over the past weeks. He sounds like a pro now, all fluidity and grace. The only reason I know he is mine is from the way the sound comes to me. I have imagined him in the night, wondering where he was. I knew he wasn’t in my neighbor’s tree. But I thought he sounded too close to be in one of the palm trees. It wasn’t until the other day I realized where he was. His sally caught my eye from my own perch in bed. It was too tempting. I had to go get my binoculars to watch him up close. The screen on the kitchen window made him a little blurry, but I sat there grinning at myself: birdwatching from bed.

Mockingbird Practice (56)

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I have a mockingbird this spring who comes nearby and sings to us during the night. He seems to be a bit awkward about it. I think he might be young, just learning how to mimic, still growing into his song. His repertoire seems limited, his delivery stilted. It doesn’t flow from one sound to the next. I picture him out there practicing, trying hard to get each sound right. Maybe in the longer pauses he tries to remember a new sound to do next. It makes me smile, imagining. I hope it is a good effort for him, the kind of concentrating on something we love that requires all of our attention but can feel almost effortless. I hope he feels like that, all intense focus and deep joy and nothing of angst, of worrying he may not be as good as his cousin or as quick to learn. I hope he is pleased with his efforts. I’ve never noticed a mockingbird learning his song, though maybe even the adults practice to master new sounds. It make me feel a little vulnerable, my heart softened for him in his youngness, his big fresh desire, his newness in this world of ours. May he be well loved along the way, and may his songs unfold over time, seamless and soulful in the dark, quiet night.

I Make People Feel Bad, Part 2 (55)

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I make people feel bad. I’ve lost friends over it, again and again through the decades. Over the last year or so I’ve begun to be able to admit this, to see it with more clarity, to begin to face it. Even as I move my pen across the page I am braced for the self-loathing, but it doesn’t come, not the way it used to. Sometimes it comes still in one big wave, trying to swamp me, making me clench in rage, wanting to die, like that last time Sable wouldn’t come inside, and I yelled at him from the doorway. He sat hunched over in the courtyard staring at me with his big green eyes. I felt it all then, how much I hated myself for what I was doing to him. It was the last time I yelled at him, something I’ve clung to in my grief. Thank god I stopped yelling at him in those last months before he died. Other things still trigger that wave, but the feelings are momentary now, and it doesn’t sink me anymore, doesn’t tumble me around underwater, sand in my mouth, unable to breathe. It doesn’t get all of me anymore. I think enough of me stays separate, watches from somewhere further up the shoreline, refuses to relinquish herself, my feet in dry sand now. I think little by little I’ve healed enough to not be taken over by my self-hatred, and that healing has let me begin to face the fact that I am mean to the people I love. I can turn toward that now, maybe even say it out loud, look at it in daylight. I can do this now without being pulled down by that dark, terrifying wall of water. May I keep learning to be tender to myself, so I can be more tender to all the beings in my life. May I let go of my remorse, all that damage, all that time lost, too. May I forgive myself. May I learn now how to make the ones I love feel good.

From a Grateful Human (50)

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Our sun is moving northward, quick passage, blinkings of the eye. For almost three months now I have sat here looking at the mountains, unobstructed views since our Palo Verde came down in the fierce wind last fall not long after Sofia died. I used to live outside in the courtyard, but when Boo came home from the hospital, I moved inside, set the two of us up together on the couch bed, me with my down blankets and two small soft beds for him beside me warmed with heating pads. After he died I just stayed put, ensconced in my perch, and I’ve watched the sun inching north. So, because Boo died, I established myself here in this cozy spot. Because we lost our tree, I have these mountains for companions. Silver linings, here, gifts hidden inside grief. I don’t know how many times I’ve cried in this room since I ended up without my little family and have not yet been able to bring myself back into our shared courtyard without them. But I know at times those tears have come because I feel so grateful for this solace. I can’t imagine any better place for me or more exquisite comfort than this room with the mountains before me, pink clouds near dusk, the winter sun’s clean slanting, healing light, the finches noisy and happy just outside the window. So, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.