No Mayhem

Early on in my journalism career, I was told by upper management types that I am not a photogapher. My car wreck photos, house fire pics and other mayhem art never saw ink (in those days, we used more ink.) So I resigned myself to being a writer (even more ink, all black). Some 40 years later it finally dawned on me that news photography just isn't my thing. I don't need more mayhem in my life.

But I've always looked around. That comes from years in journalism, too -- being observant, taking stock of things, keeping only what's necessary to tell the tale.

Now I'm done with drama, or about to be, and looking to calm down. Sold the house, moved to the almost-country, almost-city. I walk county roads now, rather than city streets, and there is more air in my surroundings -- far less on-top-of-everybody. Things here are mostly quiet and people wave but don't really pester.

So I go on little adventures, both physical and in my mind, as I roam where I like. I find things, bring some home, hide a few, and go out again the next day. Mostly, though, I look around and really appreciate what I'm not forced to view. And, I take a lot of pictures.

"Pretty" is not a manly word, I'm told, but I use it a lot here, now that I know what to look for -- and what to bring back.

No. 489: You Must Believe In Spring

Resting in the grass, June 2022.

He watched me from the living room and tilted his head in that German Shepherd way as I sat in the dining room and made the vet appointment.

He knew. 

Pandemic shag in 2021.

He also knew that we lied when we said we were just going for a ride in the car, even though he needed lifted into the vehicle 

But when we told Corleone that we loved him, that was the truth – and he knew that for sure. 

A wonderful gift from my daughters. Eventually he grew into those feet. I called them "clubs."

Son Pup is gone, having lived three years longer than most of the breed. He went easily and perhaps willingly. He took to sleeping on the floor, and didn't move much – stumbling from atrophy and too many painkillers. He breathed hard and had a fist-sized, hard nugget on his side. His hip bones stuck out.

It just wasn't fun any more, and he knew that too. 

Spring 2022, when everything was new but puzzling.

I finished this painting, “You Must Believe in Spring,” two weeks before. He gave it a sniff and his wet nose blurred the watercolor grass. He saw me hang it in the living room a week ago. 

This is the first painting that I've been able to do in the condo.

Corly never was supposed to come here. He was supposed to go first, But we lost his sister Bella to oral cancer eight months earlier. Suddenly Corly was in a one-dog household for the first time, and after selling our house of 20 years, found himself in a small condo with a pond in the backyard. 

The changes helped to do him in. 

When dogs themselves become furniture.

The move happened in January. He watched that pond freeze, and heard it groan as it thawed. “Where am I?” he surely thought. 

Slowly he watched the snow give way to grass, and the grays and browns burst into greens and yellows. Eventually he heard frogs, and splashing fish, and then birds. He saw an opossum, a groundhog and three slinking kitties. 

He still mustered the power to snap this harness two weeks ago when he tried to get a squirrel.

When it got really hot, he would just go out on his run and lay down in the grass. Maybe the heat helped his bones, or perhaps the grass just felt cool and comfy. His hair fell out by the handfuls. Even the neighbors mentioned the hair trails across the grass.

I shall dream forever of my beautiful boy.

He would still take my breath away, the Cadillac of dogs.

Nose smudge.

The reality of having a dog is so good that we have to fantasize to comfort ourselves at the end. 

For example, I don't believe in that Rainbow Bridge tale, beautiful and comforting as it is. We domesticated dogs and then created our own fairy tales around them. 

They die. 

Thin and pale, a little blind, though still gorgeous.

What happens next is beyond human comprehension. Dogs live their lives among us but we are really never a part of their pack. We can barely communicate with them. We're outsiders, though we are co-dependent. 

They're gone. 

We don't know where, and we can't really answer why. 

Together again. Say hi to Bip from all of us.

Maybe their lives are short so that people might get the message to not waste their own lives, that time is precious. There has to be more to it than ashes in a box on some shelf. 

But we just don't know. 

All we know is how sick we feel, how drained we are -- at least for a while. 

He wasn't a really harsh critic.

Do our pets miss us? Who knows. Maybe in those fleeting passing moments they do, as they try to say goodbye.  That is the worst part.

Do they blame us? I don't believe so. 

No more tie-outs.

I would like to believe that dogs, cats and other innocents go to a protective place. I would hope for dogs that there is unlimited space. Every treat and toy imaginable. Lots of other dogs that all get along and play in the sun, splash in a pond and then take nice shady snoozes. 

We must believe in spring. 

A tattoo by Pretty in Ink from a cartoon I had drawn.