Forever, until

Three puppies came bounding into the meeting room, pinging around its four corners with carefree joy and boneless energy. They paid us no mind as we sat “criss-cross apple sauce” on the floor in a circle.’  

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Even when the pups took turns landing accidentally in one of our laps, they kept their eyes on each other as they scrambled away from our clutches to partake in this sibling circus.

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My husband, daughter, and son had positioned themselves in a row across from me, spaced such that I could see each of their wondrous expressions without moving my head.

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I wasn’t there under duress, but I didn’t think I was ready, even though nearly a year had passed since the four of us held similar positions to surround our beloved dog with love and tears as we said our last goodbyes.

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My husband had been in agreement. He wanted to travel more freely, and a dog would hamper that. Not that we hadn’t gone places during our long stretch of pet guardianship, it's just that we hadn’t gone without a pang of guilt. Now was our chance.

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But as time went on sans canine companion, the odds began to seem out of favor for our being ready ever again. I told myself visiting with other people's dogs was good enough.

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I told myself that my late-night visits to shelter websites were merely out of curiosity and not reconnaissance. I wasn’t aware I wasn’t alone.

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Which is what brought us here: sitting on a shelter floor while on the rare family vacation where we are all together, serving as springboards for this triple shot of slobbery puppy love. I thought back on how hard it was to make the final veterinary call. How many nights I woke up afterward, reliving the final moments.

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One mention of the word “adoption” and the ball got rolling.

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Our children, now fledgling adults, had asked to be included in the selection. We knew, just as when they were little, the care and feeding would fall to us. But the kids didn’t want to be strangers when whatever dog we chose came home. They wanted to be imprinted, too.

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The kids were harmonious and excitedly in agreement. It felt as if this were their very first pet. In a way, I suppose it was: They drove the whole endeavor,  worked together to find the shelter, and they communed on which quadruped seemed to be kismet.

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These new, first moments - with the puppies careening around us - brought some of the joy as well as the pain.

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The shelter volunteer solemnly told us every word of their story thus far: How they had been found as strays with their mama, how they had been sickly, and how each of them had been dealt the real possibility that their misshapen little hearts might never see them into adulthood.

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But then he smiled: “I’m not worried. These guys will all get adopted. And the others, too.”

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Of course they would. The pups were happy and playful and not even a little bit afraid of what comes next, a comedy-or-tragedy coin toss. And for some strange reason, I really don’t understand, neither were we. So, we spent a few extra minutes trying to absorb all the information we could about preventive veterinary schedules and medication administration, the smallest one would require when we took him home with us right then and there.

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“We just firmly believe each pet deserves to live however long they have in a regular home with people who love them.”

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There would be no more waiting. My son held the smallest puppy, who had crawled into his lap. He was the one. We were his, and he was ours. Forever and until. 

A pinch is all it takes

The pain seemed to tap me on the shoulder only lightly before it tiptoed over to my neck and tried to seize it.

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Maybe I slept wrong. Or turned too quickly. Maybe my body finally needs the mythical eight glasses of water a day to keep all the toxins moving out and my muscles from drying up and turning to jerky.

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At first, it felt like nothing more than a little pinch. It lasted for only a few seconds before it shifted sideways and then disappeared.

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I wasn’t alarmed, but I was trying to find ways to adjust that didn’t really help.

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Day by day, it got incrementally worse. By week’s end, I could concentrate on little else besides a single point, midway along the trapezius, where the pain had settled and sharpened as I stared into the computer screen for the forty-fifth hour. I could chase it: The pain would ebb as I leaned forward, and flow as I shifted my head back and sideways. But I couldn’t really contain it.

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The Google Machine mocks my investigation. It scoffs at my thrice-weekly running argument and suggests that what I am experiencing is a flare-up between my ol’ friends, tension and stress, who had perched precariously atop the unmistakable evidence of an otherwise sedentary lifestyle.

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I’ve gone through enough physical therapy with my children to know that the aches and pains of childhood aren’t always the “growing” kind. Often, they are the slouching kind, the sitting-too-long kind, or the dreaded head-hung-low-because-it’s angled-down-at-your-phone-too-long kind of discomfort, which feels like it may be here to stay since there is no way we can counteract the shapes our reliance on modern conveniences twists us into.

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I tried everything: I tried to avoid looking down; I tried alternating heat and ice; I tried stretching and moving at a snail’s pace. I tried sleeping with a new pillow, and then no pillow, then positioning all the pillows in the house so that my shoulders arched backward.

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I even tried forcing myself to relax … breathing in and out with slow, measured breaths, then willing my jaw to unclench and my shoulders to lower away from my ears.

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Tricking myself into thinking that the combination had worked, and the pinch had smoothed itself out. I could walk and run. I could  even carry heavy things while walking and running without much discomfort.

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But the second I sat down, the pain climbed up my back as if it had been formally invited to play a game of chicken.

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And that’s where I was, sitting at a picnic table, swapping stories of hardship with my perennially injured Saturday Run Club friends, when one of these intrepid athletes shared a sip of wisdom from her golden chalice.

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“When you go home, lie down on your bed, gently lean back so your head is hanging off the edge, then ever-so-carefully lift your head and chest slightly as if you were attempting a sit-up. Just a few reps. Don’t overdo.”

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I wasted no time. When I got home, I lay down on a chaise lounge and scooted to the edge until my head dipped backward. I let it hang for a minute before I gingerly lifted it up. I repeated the process three more times, letting a few hours pass before I performed another set.

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I wasted even less time texting my friend, as the advice seemed to be working.

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It wasn’t magic, but it felt miraculous. A few minutes a day was enough to keep the pinch at bay.

Communing with Community

I woke up before the alarm.

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The numbers - 5:58 - came into focus as my eyelids reluctantly parted.

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No time for the snooze bar.

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I had more than one job on this Saturday morning – Race Day, as our run club directors had referred to it since January, when the planning began in earnest – and each of them would require a degree of precision timing and the strength of muscle groups my body is not used to exerting.

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This was going to be a big one: There would be a record number of participants and spectators, but also a handful of changes that would throw a new learning curve toward even the most veteran of our volunteers.

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I would fold T-Shirts and unfold boxes. I would make pickups and deliveries of various things.

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I would schlep water and fetch bagels. I would deliver cups, plastic cutlery, bananas, granola bars, and recycling containers. I would take thousands of pictures at two different start lines and follow these subjects to the awards ceremony, the camera seeming heavier than I had remembered.  

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Next, I would help with clean-up, hauling the recycling and a half-dozen bags of trash off the premises.

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But I was one of many people working together to ensure the community road race was as successful as possible: Parking, Registration, Refreshments, Kids Race, Announcing, Waterstop, Vendor Village, Finish Line, Course Marshals, Outriders, Traffic Safety, Medical Services.

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I smile and socialize with people who pitch in to help. We laugh as we struggle through the momentary hardship, bringing our mantra back to the joys. When the task is completed, we all peel off in different directions, scouting for the next thing that needs doing.

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For the most part, the day is going as planned. The sun is shining, and the temperature is pleasant. Things are by no means problem-free, but the snags are getting sorted. I hardly notice the time.

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Eventually, we look up from our work to find nothing left to be done.

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I marvel at the difference. An hour earlier, the place was teeming. Every inch of space was saturated in the ephemera of the event: the bright colors of running kits, and table upon table of free treats and swag. Now it looked like we hadn’t been here at all. The grass was lush and green; not a blade seemed trampled.

I am entirely spent. My muscles will ache tomorrow, but I don’t want to move. I love this moment. I want to collect all the moments of the day I might have glossed over: the kids whose eyes lit up when they picked up the first race bibs of their careers; the hugs at the finish line, and the high fives. I notice the newcomers now, and the regulars. I wonder about those who are absent. I hope they are doing well.

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Eventually, a few of us stragglers will meander down to the local watering hole to swap stories and celebrate.

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There is always time to dwell on the difficulties, but this feels rare and important: a time to revel in each other and feel like part of something bigger. 

Zen and the art of household maintenance

 The weekend arrives with a schedule of household tasks that never ceases. There is laundry, and cleaning, and tidying, and the procuring of groceries. Depending on the season, there could be shoveling the walk or mowing the lawn. A thousand tasks randomly volunteer and all of them combined amount to the bare minimum of life’s essential needs.

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And as much as these tasks seem mindless, I tend to think about them all the time.

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Or half the time, since I often get distracted midway through by the intersection of other chores.

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The drier door ajar; a broom left out near a pile of nature’s glitter tracked in on the shoes, left catawampus in the foyer; dishes, all clean and in analogous piles on the counter, are waiting to be lifted into their dwelling places in the cabinets above. The grass has grown gangly around the edges.

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Our halfway house. Everything is halfway finished.

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Not just in tasks, but in its structure as well.

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As I carry a basket of laundry into the bedroom, I catch sight of ancient blue painter’s tape curling from the edge of window trim as if for the first time …  and not every morning since we moved here sixteen years ago.

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One of these days, I tell myself, I will peel that off. Then I just half smile, knowing that this is a conversation I’ve had with myself before. I, of course, bargain in response that as soon as the tape is dislodged, the wall will need to be repainted and the moulding retaped.

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I like the smell of the things I am folding, fresh from the dryer and still warm. It signals emphatically that they are clean. I had selected the hamper over another, one I had washed and dried days ago, because I didn’t want to face all the wrinkles that would have unfurled.

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Those duds would need another ride through the tumble, this time under the fancy “steam setting” I rarely remember is an option. Or not. The menfolk, whose clothes I am laundering, are perfectly capable of using an iron if they should be bothered by the idea of walking around in the world looking like an unmade bed.

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When I go back for the next load, I notice the perfect footprints of a size-13 shoe on the still-drying floorboards. The map they make starts in the entryway and leads through the right side of the dining room into the kitchen, where they turn in front of the refrigerator and traipse back through the house on the left side.

For some reason that evades me, I do not become irate.  Perhaps the tracks reminded me of a different kind of sadness, the kind of footprints the dog stopped making last summer when she left us. I could dwell in that sadness forever, but I won’t. The mop is still standing in a full bucket, waiting for me to wring it out, douse the weeds with our work product, and call it a day.

Heavy hand, heavy head

 This week, the New York Times published a disturbing  investigative report about police use of force in Texas schools. The newspaper went through thousands of incidents where school-based police departments had employed “heavy-handed” tactics – violent physical takedowns, chemical irritants, and electric tasers – and found many that were in response to minor misbehaviors, often stemming from things such as dress code violations, student beefs, and not showing respect for elders and authority.  

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Multiple studies spanning the last decade often found that while police presence in schools correlates with a reduction in some crimes, there is also a marked increase in harsher punishments, many of them disproportionately meted out to minority students. Cases that would have been handled aptly in a principal’s office have a much greater chance of winding up in a court of law.

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The Times reporting also included a handful of nauseating videos that showed exceptionally egregious displays of physical abuse, some of which led to students’ – visibly a fraction of the size of the police in the scenes – suffering serious injuries, such as broken bones and concussions.

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Officials responding to the findings pointed to the need to keep schools safe; parents and school staff often praised police for intervening in violent fights, confiscating weapons, and  preventing would-be attacks.

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But what if our kids aren’t safer with police departments taking up residence in schools? Do we really think that disrespectful children will be anything other than harmed by being arrested for poor judgment? Should mouthing off be punishable by jail time? Do we truly want to accept a society that doesn’t want children to be bullies but has few qualms about them being beaten by police?

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A part of me doesn’t really want an answer to any of those questions because I know the sentiments of many from reading the comments sections. Too many of my neighbors believe other people’s kids deserve harsh treatment. Or, perhaps, only theirs are entitled to grace.

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Obviously, I don’t have an answer that will fix our ills. We can’t prevent every bad thing from befalling us. Regardless, there are things we can do that will give our kids a better experience.

It doesn’t mean we will be reading riot acts until we’re blue in the face. But it will be hard work just the same: It might even mean lecturing less and listening more. Building connections with individuals rather than drawing conclusions from intuition.

​We could start with modest changes in mindset. Instead of treating schools as if they were crime-ridden microcosms or major incubators of criminal potential, we set our sights on delivering on education.  

It means justice has to apply to all mistakes, not just our teens. And consequences for the tormentors should be equally applied, especially when those doing harm are elders and authorities.

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At the very least, we should be demanding more transparency. Schools with police presence should have community and civilian oversight. These incidents of brutality should be part of the public record, open to inspection, and every instance should be investigated independently.

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We should not lose sight of the value of justice, oversight, and the role education can play in creating a healthier society. Maybe we can lean more heavily on our humanity so we don’t feel as dependent on the heavy hand.

Do the opposite

 It’s easy to become maudlin these days. If we keep our eyes laser-focused, we can’t help but get overwhelmed by the never-ending stream of information that is as noxious as toxic sludge.

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It’s enough to make us ill.

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We have tune it out to some degree if we hope to stay sane; how could we get up in the morning and go to work or school, and work toward a future if we can’t imagine  there will be one?

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Yet, if we glaze over, or look away for too long, we run the risk of losing touch with our humanity and becoming numb just the same.

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Summer will be upon us soon, surrounding us in a dismal soup that might feel like the inside of a pressure cooker … without an escape valve for steam, we will have to deal with an explosion rather than a delightful stew.

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Of course, it can feel calming to scroll from reel to reel … watching whatever it is we’ve mindlessly ordered from the algorithm that seems to “float our boats,” as our parents might have scoffed. But by the time you realize you are watching a woman who lives alone in a big city — with no friends, and no social life — coming through the door wearing a new outfit, but doing the same things: hugging her cat, making dinner for one, and settling in for a quiet night. .. you have frittered away the better part of an hour or worse. You’ve wasted the best part of a good night’s rest.

Finding the right balance can feel as steady as a roller coaster.

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What other choice is there?

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Might as well practice joy.

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Find it out of thin air if you need to; take a deep breath when there is a gentle breeze, let it relax you just a titch. Smile when you feel the sun on your face, close your eyes and let your shoulders drop away from where they’ve been tensing around your ears.

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Might as well practice service.

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Start a conversation with an elder in the grocery store; make it your mission to notice when someone else is struggling, and to tell them how you plan to help, and let them accept. It can be as insignificant as reach for a can on the top shelf or striking up a conversation that isn’t about the price of chicken.  

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Might as well change your mind and let those new thoughts change your mindset.

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Approach something you’ve been struggling with from a different angle. Maybe even from the polar opposite view.

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We don’t have to convince others of our righteousness, we just have to confirm that what we “know to be true” has veracity to back it up.

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Remind ourselves that an understanding can change into a misunderstanding quietly as new facts emerge. We need to be ready to expand our thoughts, and not just retract the words.

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The heat is coming back, but we can survive it by making good use of breathing room.

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Be ready to inhale fire and exhale the chill. 

Enduring

 I had arrived early for a late lunch at the diner.

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As I sat at the table, waiting for my friend – a woman, like me, whose children were all of a sudden grown – I exhaled.  It was a spur-of-the-moment meal. The kind of thing we usually say we will do, but never schedule. Until one day, in some unspoken alignment brought together by random texts bearing silly jokes, we set a date and see it through.

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My stomach growled as I looked over the menu.  

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I would order the same thing I always order: Swiss cheese omelet with rye toast. No jam. Hot sauce, please. She has no usual. When my friend arrives, I know she will make a game-day decision.

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The server brings me coffee.

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When she walks in a few minutes later, the room will come to life. Her voice carries, as mine does, but unlike mine, she has a clear tone that has a distinct melody. No one would ever accuse her of being monotonous.

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I smile, thinking about all the ways her voice changes. Our conversations meander and overlap, the way good advice discourages. “Don’t answer their story with a similar story of your own,” the inconvenient narrator in my head tries to interject as I push forward with my response.

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The history of our friendship could be put into words and follow a chronology stemming from our children’s early education, but it wouldn’t be able to describe the things that make the friendship seem effortless that don’t also align with happenstance.

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We would talk, and laugh, and yell, and say things that make the neighboring tables blush. We swapped stories of how the kids are moving on, how the husbands are still the same, but somehow we are getting grumpier.

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We avoid talking about the things that are heavy or create anxiety because we have accepted these as problems beyond our control, so we commence in complaining about the things in our lives that we could change … even though the likelihood of us changing them is less than one iota.

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Time gets away from us, but not the same way it transformed our kids. We blinked here at the table, and it was nearing late afternoon; we blinked with our kids at a kindergarten assembly, and somehow they’d graduated from college.

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When the check comes, she reaches for it, over my objections. “A belated birthday gift,” she says matter-of-factly as she holds the curl of paper over her head, where I couldn’t reach if I jumped.

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I love her for that kind of mischief. And I vow that we shall meet again in a fortnight to celebrate hers.

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Being of the same “vibe” feels like an inadequate explanation as to why friendships like ours endure.  Perhaps the word “enduring” is the key since it could mean “long-lasting” or it could mean “long suffering.”

It is not lost on either of us that, regardless of how long we stretch between meetings, we are in the struggle together. And the conversation will continue as if it never ended the next time. Whenever that is.