Meet Me Later At The Clothesline

Hey Folks - Perhaps some of you have noticed I haven't been posting for awhile. I've got a couple important projects I'm currently working on which are prohibiting me from writing for this blog. I'll keep in touch and let you know what's up. In the meantime...just enjoy life, scatter joy, and remember...you are LOVED. Peace! Linda

Life Without Harley

October 2009 was a difficult month for me. First, I had a stroke of which I have previously written, and then a week later, to the day, I had to put my beloved boxer, Harley, to sleep.

I was introduced to my boxer boy when he was a four day old pup. At six weeks he came home to live with me and be my true love, canine love. I was re-modeling my house at the time and as I sat on the floor painting baseboards, he slept on my lap, wearing stripes of paint up and down his soft puppy body like a zebra. He rode in the car with me wherever I went, his nose print and boxer slobber coating the windows. He was my constant companion, the only constant in my ever-shifting world.

Harley was more kangaroo than dog, jumping straight up 6 ft into the air in his exuberance to go for a W A L K. When off leash he bounded like a gazelle, grace and beauty in every movement. He loved chasing lizards and was drawn to tall grasses where he pounced with his front paws, creating mayhem among the lizard population, thus enabling him to chase to his heart’s content.

He loved to be on the loose and running more than anything and so to this end he spent most of his waking hours trying to escape the confines of the house. Like an inmate, he moved from door to door, bumping each one with his nose to see if he could open it. It was many years before he stopped doing this but not before he got hit by a car, twice. During another escape episode, in his effort to avoid recapture he snagged a chicken bone he found in a neighbor’s yard and as I tried to coax him back to me, he inhaled, aspirating the bone down into his windpipe. This resulted in a $600 vet bill. The kids and I spent considerable time chasing him down, I in the car and they on foot.

I bought an RV in 2000 and took the kids on a trip across the country. Of course, Harley came with us. Every time we opened the door, we were on red alert to prevent his escape. We didn’t always succeed and there were times I was so frustrated with him I was ready to drive away and abandon him in that Oklahoma sunflower field or in that church parking lot. But, I didn’t, couldn’t…he was part of me and our family.

With all his escape antics, Harley had terrible separation anxiety. He cried, howled, whined and barked himself hoarse when left alone for any length of time. With his separation anxiety came a touchy tummy causing an almost daily episode of vomiting. Through the years I experimented with all kinds of food, but really, he was just a hot mess. But he was MY hot mess and had embedded himself deeply in my heart.

As most boxers, he viewed himself as a tiny little lapdog. He sat in front of me when I was comfy on the couch, his head on my knee, eyes beseeching me to allow him up. At the tiniest movement of my head, indicating permission, he was up, curling himself into a tight circle, pressing hard against me. The weight of this body was a lovely reassuring presence, a constant in my ever-shifting life.

I’m guessing that all his leaping and jumping may have been his undoing. I’d noticed a few days prior to my stroke that he wouldn’t eat. He seemed to want to eat but just wouldn’t. When I finally caught on and raised his food dish he seemed fine and happily ate those missed meals.

Then the stroke happened.

My family cared for him, took him to the vet, afraid to tell me of his poor condition which deteriorated rapidly while I was in the hospital. He was in excruciating pain, even the slightest movement of his head caused him to cry out. He lay on blankets and passed his urine and feces where he lay when he was able. He was fed soft food with a spoon and given water from a turkey baster.

I returned from the hospital after 4 days. Barely able to make the smallest decision, I was faced with the most difficult : to euthanize my darling boxer boy. Actually divine grace was freely bestowed upon me during this time. Since I was recovering from a major brain injury, I didn’t FULLY experience this horrendous loss as I might have.

The afternoon before his death, I wanted him moved outside to lay in the warmth of the sun where he loved life the best. My family carried him on his blankets, litter-style, into the late October sunlight. We lay in the sun together, my best buddy and I. Me, with my brain a mess, and him, with his old body failing him. I lay down beside him on the ground, sobbing into the soft brown hair of his neck, unabashedly, uncontrollably, inconsolably.

The next day, he was gone.

And God, do I miss that dog.

Lake Time

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know that I spend a few minutes every morning at the lake near my home. I immerse myself in the nature that surrounds me, pray, get still and calm my mind before the work day begins. I’ve found myself going earlier and earlier to the lake each day.

The above pictures show how serene things have been at the lake the past few mornings. I’ve NEEDED this serenity because inwardly I’ve festered with chaos. How blessed I am. Rarely do I leave this place of gratitude and now as the war within settles down, I can again embrace all that I know to be true of the Universe. It is kind. And all is well.

I sincerely hope you have a quiet place to go each and every day to prepare yourself for the onslaught of life. This lake ritual of mine keeps me sane, not just sane but wholly wondrous of what the day will bring.

And, yes, that IS a gator cruising along in the above picture.

HAVE A BLESSED AND GLORIOUS DAY!

Slowing Down

The “Slow Movement” that has gained some attention and interest recently has captured me. I’ve been “working” at slowing down in many areas of my life during the past couple of years. I started this…well, I started “thinking” about this back when I became interested in the simplicity movement. Obviously, they go hand in hand. Or one would think.

Last year I broke my ankle and that physically slowed me down quite a bit for a short while but apparently I needed another, deeper lesson to slow me down further. A stroke did the job.

Yes, last October, I suffered a stroke. I was blessed, repeatedly blessed, not only because I have no long lasting or devastating effects but also because I was at work when it happened. Had I been at home it is doubtful I would have even called 911.

I had experienced, over the previous year, many small (what I NOW know) TIA’s. A TIA is a transient ischemic attack, kind of a warning stroke. I thought they were just these weird dizzy spells. My age, never having smoked, fairly good cholesterol and great blood pressure made me an unlikely candidate for stroke, yet still, I had one.

This slowed me down.

I was in the hospital for 4 days. I underwent physical therapy and this was when the damage revealed itself. I had a lot of difficulty with my balance though most of that returned within a few months. For awhile afterward, and still now on occasion, I felt “tippy”. My kids loved the phrase and used it frequently. I did not love feeling tippy. It left me feeling very vulnerable, hanging onto chair backs, door jams and running my fingers along walls for security.

Outwardly, I looked fine, I guess, and I returned to work after only a week. I felt my job was to convince everyone that I was doing just great. But I wasn’t. My greatest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to read or write. I did have some difficulty concentrating for awhile after the stroke but gradually I regained my stamina. I only wanted to sleep. My damaged brain just wanted and needed rest but…

The second half of last year was filled with events that caused me to do some re-evaluating of how I was living my life: choices I had made and continued to make on a daily basis, conditions I tolerated and, of course, the speed of my life. I discovered that rushing around does absolutely nothing to get you to your desired destination any quicker and certainly with a lot less peace.
Connections with people encountered on a daily basis become superficial and meaningless without slowing down. Even pets become just another check on the to-do list.

I wish to exhort you here to please try and slow down:

• 
  · When you walk the dog or pet the cat
  · When you fill the outside bird feeder
  · pull weeds
  · Fold laundry
  · Make a cup of tea
  · Put away the dishes

Take a few extra minutes to connect with your neighbor and really engage with the child to whom you are reading that book. Slow down and enjoy feeding your baby and when you are at your particular place of worship, get quiet, get still, experience the experience.

PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! do whatever you can as soon as you can to slow down.

Do it before life makes you.

Peace

For years I’ve been searching for peace,
Talking about it,
Waiting for the kids to grow up so I can finally get it.
I’ve gone to church looking for it,
Counted my breaths in and out, in and out,
Fingered meditation beads,
I’ve sat in the woods for a week,
I’ve crossed the Rockies in an RV,
I’ve sweated in the sun,
I’ve shivered in the wind,
I’ve retreated and visualized,
I’ve chanted and repeated mantras,
But still I remained without that which I sought,
Until the day I caught a fleeting glimpse…
That was the day I looked deeply into my own eyes and realized,
Peace is not doing,

Peace is being.

Peace is available at any moment.

Kayaking with pelicans

I went kayaking at Ft. DeSoto Park near Clearwater yesterday. OMG what a gorgeous day it was. Though the water temp was a tad cool, that made no difference to me. Above are some pics of the water, the beach, and a whole slew of pelicans standing on a sand bar till I startled them into flight.

The Nature of the Beast

My yard, especially the front sidewalk area, has become an overgrown jungle with grass/weeds growing willy-nilly all over the place. You can’t even hear cars traveling down my road because the growth has extended over the curb and into the street creating a nice lush green carpet between me and my across the street neighbor. Keeping this stuff under control in Florida requires tools that I do not currently possess, though I am saving for them and hoping that as the cooler weather arrives, perhaps the growth will be stunted a bit.

So in a heroic attempt to attack this mess, I borrowed a gas powered weed-eater and an edger. I’ve never really had a good relationship with small gas-powered engines. For me, operating these is a lot like attempting a dance competition with someone you’ve just met moments before. You just can’t help but step on toes, bump into each other and swing while the other sways.
With these small engines it’s all about pushing this button 3 times…or maybe 5 times…”it just depends” and moving a nearly hidden lever this way but then backing it off that way if the engine doesn’t immediately catch and then, if the autumn solstice hasn’t quite been fully realized or if Jupiter and it’s moons are out of sync, well, chances are you may never get the blasted thing started!

So I called the individual from whom I borrowed these handy dandy pieces of…lawn equipment and was told, very calmly and with that tone that people who have no problem operating this stuff often use to those of us who are small engine challenged, “you just need to understand the nature of the beast.”

Well I think I do understand the beast!

I understand that whoever invented this stuff, hopefully, is roasting in hell at this very moment. I understand that, were it not for peer pressure, most of us would not care a lick if our sidewalks were not edged just so. I understand that Sundays can be spent in a much more soul and spirit relaxing manner that wrestling on the ground with buttons, levers and the smell of gasoline all over one’s self.

I understand that I’m going electric all the way.

That’s what I understand.