Lessons from my Dogs,
In Praise of Injuries and Insects (and the art of slowing down)
On the back porch of the restaurant, a man alerted me to a spider.
“I’ll get it,” I said and ran to grab a rag and carry the spider gently outside as I have done so many times before. But someone else got there first. One quick stomp and this small being was gone. In the past, I would have felt the shock of sorrow and quiet incredulity yet said nothing. But this time I spoke up in a way I hadn’t for the wasp killed the week before by a staff member.
“They’re beneficial. No animal or insect or arachnid is evil or bad. All serve a purpose.” Then I added for good measure, “And I love spiders.” And it got me thinking—could the same be said of injuries? Of stress? Could they be serving some purpose?
This spring saw much change for our little family of three, then four, perhaps a microcosm mirroring the greater world. Sparkle and I endured injuries, then little Paisley. And we brought in a frightened foster dog. Sparkle tore the opposite cruciate ligament from the one she tore in fall, as often happens, the one leg overcompensating for the other. I hurt my back. Then without warning, Paisley stopped running, eating, and wagging her tail; it lay clamped against her body. But most alarming of all, she stopped hunting.
As I lasered them each, charged up the PEMF pad that NASA uses, and carried them to and fro, bending, lifting, hurting my own body more, I nevertheless marveled at how the simple act of nurturing also nurtured my own soul . . . if not my body.
Then one morning, with Sparkle lasered and skittish Baxter, our new foster, hovering at the threshold as though the air on the other side might not be trustworthy, my eyes settled on Paisley asleep in the dog bed. Her usual is to rouse me in the predawn dark, spraying my face with morning sneezes, trampling my body, and after we’re both up, darting just ahead, causing me to trip, telling me with contagious enthusiasm she wants to scent and hunt far down in the field. But this morning she lay still in the bed. I watched her sides rise and fall. Then I saw her legs begin to twitch and run. I took a slow breath in and let it out. I realized she had gone hunting after all—just somewhere I couldn’t follow.
And these minor issues I know, like all things, shall pass.
Baxter, Paisley, and Sparkle at rest.
Within two days, she was back to herself—nose down, moving fast, alive with purpose—while Sparkle and I continued our slow recovery, and Baxter, becoming used to his new surroundings, continued his quiet and steady acclimatization, finding solid ground beneath him one careful day at a time.
Just as the sun sparkled after days of needed rain, so too did a silver lining reveal itself in the midst of our injuries. I found family (my 92-year-old mother tending to me instead of vice versa!) and friends offering help and love all around me, the injuries in kind forcing me to slow down, to BE, and also never letting me forget that I could still walk; I could still smell and taste, hear and touch, and so much more that many are not granted. And recently a friend and I talked of the wonder and awe in every single moment, like Emily at the end of Our Town returned briefly to earth after death, seeing it all again with unbearable clarity:
But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another.
I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life, and we never noticed. Take me back – up the hill – to my grave.
But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking. And Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?
The rain together with the injuries forced us to let go of the do, do, do, mentality or in the world of the little hounds, the hunt, hunt, hunt mentality—and maybe this is exactly what we needed: time to look at one another, time to take it all in, time to receive this brief and luminous moment in time, this brief and beautiful slice of life before it becomes, like all moments, the past.
The art of slowing down: Paisley deep in sleep.
The art of slowing down: Sparkle sleeps on her Pemf pad.