Love

A Very Best Friend

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Growing up in a house with a very anxious mother wasn’t easy. It affected everything and everybody. While I understand as an adult why things were the way they were, it was difficult as a child living with someone who needed to control just about everything. I didn’t consciously know it then, but I longed for someone in the house I could just `be’ with … without intrusion, always accepting, always comforting, and who’d never give up a secret. And my dog became that someone.

When I was 5, my brother 9, our parents decided we were old enough to have a dog, so at Christmas they gave us a beautiful Boxer puppy. I don’t think either of us quite `got’ the concept of having a dog at Christmas when there were still so many other exciting presents to open and play with. But Tinkerbell, as she was named, was not to stay with us very long. Within a few months she developed epilepsy. I don’t remember seeing the seizures my mother described Tink having on the kitchen floor, with blood and foam spewed all over the room. Perhaps I willed myself to forget. There were no cures for epilepsy back then, and Tinkerbell’s only option was to be returned to spirit. I was so young, and hadn’t become very attached to her yet, I don’t think I completely understood what had happened.

Then our parents got another dog. She was sold to them as a Boxer, 6 months old. I recall my mother being so happy that she didn’t drool like other Boxers whose faces were pushed in. There was a reason for that … she wasn’t really a Boxer. At best, she was a Boxer/pit bull terrier mix. My obedience trainer, when he looked at my childhood photos of her, told me that she was pure, and that was how they bred American Pit Bull Terriers back then. It didn’t matter … she quickly became the best friend and confidante I longed for. Her name was Dutchess. My mom had `officially’ named her Dutchess Von Wiggles because she had a butt that was constantly in happy motion.

Dutch couldn’t sleep with me as she wasn’t allowed on the second floor, so I slept with her whenever I could downstairs. We watched TV together, me resting my head gently on her side; and we curled up in sleep on the living room floor. Dutchess learned all the tricks a dog learns, and loved to go for walks or play outside in the yard. I can honestly say, in a way that only a dog or animal lover would understand, she was everything to me … she was my best friend. I did have a human best friend – happily, I always had friends — and I had my big brother to play with and taunt, but Dutchess was different. She was just what I needed – another soul in the house that simply loved me straight out, no matter what. And I adored her for that.

When I was little, my parents would cover her eyes and ears and I would hide. Then they’d let her go … “Find Jeanne!!” And Dutchess would search every nook and cranny downstairs to see where I was hiding, just bursting into wiggling, wagging joy when she found me. What child doesn’t live for those moments? She made me feel safe in a childhood where feeling emotionally safe wasn’t easy. Dutch was the heart, soul, and embodiment of unconditional love. She was both my rock and my wings, my compass and stars; she was my comfort and confidante. She was one little girl’s very best friend.

* This story was originally posted in 2007, and has been edited and updated.

Meandering in A Confused World

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One of my small daily pleasures each morning once I’ve fed Charlie and made my coffee is to sit by the living room window and do two things – a perusal of Instagram, a gathering if you will, of positive words, thoughts and images (occasionally my own work), and then sharing them in my Stories. Then I journal to clear out the cobwebs, sort out my challenges, put to paper my joys and angst … whatever the day calls for.

While on IG, I always hope that whoever stops by gains some benefit from what I post. We know, vaguely, how the algorithms work; you get more of what you like (almost a corollary of karma, right?), and therefore, I find vast amounts of insight, positivity, and beauty. Some mornings, when I open the app, I am greeted with exactly what I need to know for that day. Because I do believe the Universe works that way.

Sometimes I share things like this, courtesy of @spiritualgoal –

Sometimes I post things I’ve been doing, like the gecko drawing above, or how I’ve redesigned my picture book, Where Do Butterflies Go at Night? 2nd Edition. (You can read that in detail here.)

But mostly, I’m sharing insights, inspiration, and the beauty of life.

Inevitably, while I scroll, I come across other things, often in Threads, about our current political circumstances. And sometimes, I drop in and read, because most of what’s really happening is on social nowadays, not the mainstream media. I find life – mental and emotional life – is a balancing act of trying to remain informed and at the same time, keeping my sanity.

It’s why the positivity is so important. Knowing, remembering, how important we are in the larger scheme of things. Even just being centered and loving in this world is a huge contribution. Holding the place of love.

And sometimes I create my own memes. This one’s for you. Just keep holding that light up high.

National Poetry Month – April 30th

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It’s the end of April and the end of National Poetry Month. I felt we were overdue for a love poem.

PERMANENTLY

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing – for example, “Although it was a dark, rainy day when the Adjective walked by, I shall remember the pure and sweet expression on her face until the day I perish from the green, effective earth.”

Or, “Will you please close the window, Andrew?”

Or, for example, “Thank you, the pink pot of flowers on the window sill has changed color recently to a light yellow, due to the heat from the boiler factory which exists nearby.”

In the springtime, the Sentences and the Nouns lay silently on the grass.
A lonely conjunction here and there would call, “And! But!”
But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the adjective is lost in the sentence,
So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat –
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone
Until the destruction of language.

– Kenneth Koch

Away …

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Searching through photos for one thing inevitably surprises us with something else. Especially when you have the amount of photos that I do.

This is a photo I took when visiting my cousin in Portugal when I was 23 years old. He and his family lived here, in a small fishing village, Vila Nova de Cerveira, at the mouth of the Minho River, just minutes from Spain. It was an indescribable experience, and looking back now, even more so, especially as the area has evolved so since.

Truly, it was a village. There was a tinker (today’s handyman/carpenter), a small bakery/grocery store, a church, a police station, and a few other shops. There was also a castle, and a variety of homes. The streets were cobblestone, and it seemed that everyone knew everyone. Many people grew or raised their own food.

In the morning, we heard the clanging of the bell at the long driveway gate. A neighbor had brought a clean bucket of milk, fresh from her cow. Wherever my cousin and I walked, there were young children skipping after us, fascinated by the visitor with her light-colored eyes.

Coming across this photo brought back so many memories, which could probably fill a short memoir of its own. My cousin, his wife, children, and dogs were my warm and wonderful hosts. With all I experienced in that too-short week, I existed in a slice of time never to be known again.

I also remember the train ride home, first to Porto, then a switch to a second train to Lisbon. In my compartment were five Portuguese men and women, none of whom spoke English. During the 5-hour ride, they brought out their lunch, and so generously offered everything to me – bread, cheese, some kind of meat, wine. With hand signs and broken language, we talked and laughed all the way to Lisbon.

I remember wondering even then if Americans would be so utterly kind to strangers who spoke no English in a traveling compartment. The importance of that entire experience has deepened ever since. Would we all be as kind and generous as they? Can we still share? Can we still love?

National Poetry Month – April 4th

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April is National Poetry Month. They Want Us to Be Afraid is one of many beautiful – the word here is so inadequate – poems by Kamand Kojouri. This poem was written in May 2017, just 8 years ago.

THEY WANT US TO BE AFRAID

They want us to be afraid.
They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes,
to barricade our doors and hide our children.
They aim to make us fear life!

They want us to hate.
They want us to hate the other,
to practice aggression and promote oppression.
They aim to divide us all!

They want us to be inhuman.
They want us to throw out our kindness,
to conceal our love and bury our hope.
They aim to take our light!

They think their brick walls
will separate us.
They think their damned bombs
will defeat us.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that my soul and your soul are old friends.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that when they cut you, I bleed.

They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that we will never be afraid,
we will never hate,
and we will never be silent.
For life is only ours!

~ Kamand Kojouri