Saint and Sinner

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No sooner had I written my post espousing the virtues of my pug when her long anticipated fly magically materialized. Ah, I thought, a miracle! A perfect testament to the diligence of faith. Alfie trusted and like Abraham and Moses in the Old Testament she was rewarded for her faith. Instead of the Promised Land, she received the Promised Fly buzzing around her head as if summoned by her watchful gaze. How exciting to witness this blessing!

Alfie seemed caught up in the moment as well. She followed the fly with her eyes and then jumped up to the head of the bed to get a closer look. Before I knew it, she was standing on her hind legs reaching skyward in adulation. The Promised Fly! Her tongue hung out, her eyes glazed over and in an instant she leapt in the air, her jaws closing on the tiny creature. She swallowed it whole in one gulp, even licking her chops in satisfaction. Then, she sat back on the bed, her murderous frenzy at an end. She returned to staring at the ceiling expectantly, waiting yet again for another just reward. In under a minute my sweet pug had gone from saint to sinner and back again.

I sat reeling from this theological dilemma, so happy only moments before to hold my pug up as a model of steadfastness, content to see in her a faith we all should live by. Confounded, I found myself comforted by scripture: Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”

Ah, my Alfie, no worse than me, no worse than any human. And, perhaps in this act, too, she still could serve as a spiritual model. Although she had fallen and given sway to the power of sin, and in typical pug fashion, gluttony, she did not wallow in it. Unlike we humans, who so often allow guilt and shame to keep us in a piteous state, she dusted herself off, exchanged her pitchfork for dented halo and resumed her walk of faith.  Still, an example I could follow.

Ever Faithful

Hebrews 11:1 reads, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." If this is the true definition of faith then dogs must be the holiest of creatures. We humans spend endless hours attributing emotions to them, debating if they have souls, running scientific experiments, but there is something to be said for simple observance.

Have you ever observed your dog waiting for something it expects? Snack, owner, chipmunk, bug? As I write this my pug, Alfie, is at the foot of my bed, staring up at the ceiling looking for a fly that I haven't seen in days, but every night there she sits looking up, certain it will return. When I leave her behind for a day I am told she waits faithfully for long stretches in the hat basket by the window, looking out, watching expectantly. If I am gone too long she will leave to eat or play, but diligently returns to her post. When I am eating at the dinner table there she sits, looking up at me with big wide eyes that seem to be trying to hypnotize me into giving in to her demands. I tell her, no, wait, sit and she does, but she still looks certain I will give in and I frequently do. Some might call this begging, I call it spiritual practice akin to prayer or meditation. She knows that food is coming. She knows I will return. She knows there is a fly. She knows that if she just waits, what she hopes for, what she expects will come to pass. Remember faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. By that definition Alfie is a saint!

Petey the Poodle from Oodles

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I went to visit my friend and former student, Sally, today at her shop, Oodles, in Fairlee, Vt. She recently got a new dog, a Moyen Poodle, named Petey. Petey had an interesting and perhaps unsavory backstory, perhaps delivered to Sally from a puppy mill. Ever a writer/storyteller, she has recreated his origins, dubbing him Pierre Moyen from Paris and creating a tale in which he was raised by a peasant woman and forced to chase chickens all day long. He escaped this tragic fate by jumping a ship to the United States where upon touching shore in New York, introduced himself as Pierre to a native on the docks, who said, "Hey, Petey, get over here." The story continues.

What I loved about this, in addition, to hearing one of my former students telling a story is the way she turned something tragic into something comical. Petey's real journey to her doors may  not have been that happy, but she turned it around, now making others laugh. And, I loved hearing her repeat her new introductory spiel to customers, "Welcome to Oodles, this is Petey the Poodle at Oodles." Keep on telling stories, Sally, you make me smile!

Establishing a Brand

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Some people claim to spend all their lives trying to figure out who they are. I think I have a pretty good idea of who I am, but try to convince a web site designer of that. Seriously, I feel as if I have spent a good portion of my work life trying to get a web site designed. The attempt has failed for many reasons - a) enlisting family members who were too busy with their own lives to be able to see it through (this is not a slam, BTW, but the truth, it’s hard to create a web site for your sister when you are getting married, moving into a home, having a child, starting jobs of your own etc.; b) choosing designers who can’t seem to get the job done. Honestly, the last one broke my heart when I fell in love with his potential only to have him end up in the ER and never return to my site. (What, am I a magnet for those? I know some people continue to choose the wrong boyfriend, continuously returning to the same abusive type, but really is there a bad web site designer template hidden in my subconscious to which I continually return? Apparently, the answer is yes! This week, however, I met some amazing professionals who can for a small fortune get the job done. Yet, even to these knowledgeable experts, apparently I pose some interesting challenges. Am I “high-maintenance” at both love and work? Hmm…

The main problem seems to be I have too many interests – writer, teacher, photographer, pug lover. It seems I need to choose just one if I want a clear and coherent site. Notice that when you meet someone, one of the first questions out of your mouth is “What do you do?” and they answer something simple “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief,” and hence forth that is how you define them. Voila, a button turns on in your head – that’s who they are! And, you can neatly catalogue, file, process them, forever defining them as such. Problem is how many of us are truly just a writer, just a mother, just a doctor, just an Indian chief? Each of us is more than these titles and even if our “job” is all that defines us, in today’s economy it is hard to find anyone who is not a slash-something-or-other.

Funny, many of the people I know in the writing or arts professions are very similar to me – they draw and paint, shoot photos, write poems, so why is it so hard to create a page that showcases all my interests. Isn’t that what the tabs across the top of the page are for?

After explaining my work (writing/teaching/photography, my blog (pug/pic focused, hence the name pugsandpics.com) and my desires for the site (to sell my digital collage and photography, build an audience with a similar interest in pugs and bring my many pursuits under one umbrella) I was told, “wow, you have a lot here. What do you really want the site to do?” This was contradictorily followed by, “Hmm, should we perhaps broaden the scope -- pugs are a niche market, will you still be writing and interested in them three years from now?”

Let’s think about that. I bought my first pug 14 years ago, inherited my brother’s pug, 16 years ago. Since then I have gotten two others and am about to move on to a third. My license plate reads “Puggies,” I bear a tattoo on my back and my shoulder of my pugs, 75% of my photography is dedicated to them and they seem to keep popping up in my digital collage and every single incarnation of my very many business cards (again, part of the whole designer dilemma). Next month I even have an article coming out on a local pug rescue and social. So you see, the problem is not in developing a brand; I have been working on one all along.

Writing teachers always tell their students to write what they know and my photography teacher instructed me to shoot what I see. With pugs of my own and hordes around me they certainly qualify as what I know and what I see. With Alfie constantly jumping up in my face for kisses as I write this, it is hard to see much else! As a memoir-writing instructor I can’t help but tell students to write about their lives, that is what memoir is after all, so do what you teach, right? I can safely say that even should my interests turn to detective writing in the future, those novels would probably feature a pug or two (my motto, everything’s better with pug). And, really do I want my web site to generate interest in pugs, natch! Do I want it to generate more freelance writing, yup! Do I want it to help me sell my photographs and digital collage? You got it!

Our world likes to tell us we can’t do it all, we can’t have our cake and eat it, too. Maybe not, but are we any worse off for trying? Maybe by reaching for the whole cake, I’ll get more than a little bite. Maybe I don’t have to define myself as just one thing. Maybe I’m more than the sum of my parts, maybe one simple label can’t define me. Maybe I can love and write about pugs now and still go on to write the Great American Novel in the future. Maybe that novel might just include pugs and maybe instead of just writing about them, my work will include photos, video, a full-blown holographic display?! That’s right, did I mention that in addition to being a writer, teacher, photographer and pug lover I’m a Trekkie, too (as in Kirk, Spock, holodecks, etc.? Oh no, maybe I should include that on the web site, too. Maybe not...Perhaps it’s best to leave a little mystery and they are charging by the tab/page after all. Still, I am who I am and if my own life’s journey has taught me anything, no one gains by shying away from her true self. So here I am in my writing/teaching/shooting/drawing/pug loving/Trekkie obsessed totality and hopefully they’ll be a web page to show for it all soon. 

Sea of Green

In summer's sea of greenlow hanging branches walk the earth like aliens Primeval dancers claiming the woods for their own. I am left to watch and wonder what seas I have trodden as boldly. I am challenged to dance along uncharted shores.

My Doggone Lineage

My Mother and Father and their Dog

One of the missions of the Hubbard Hall Writers' Project is to gather stories of rural life. One of the missions of this blog is to share stories of the dogs I love. I realize that if it were not for dogs and rural life I would not be in existence. You see it was both that brought my parents together. My mother came to Vermont, a vacationer from Long Island; a teenage girl who stopped at a farmhouse in East Randolph and picked from the pick-of-the-litter the hound pup that my future father had picked for himself.

Her parents would bring the family up from Long Island to stay at a one-room schoolhouse they had purchased at the intersection of four dirt roads at the top of a hill in Bethel, Vt. The schoolhouse came complete with a potbelly stove and an outhouse. Over the next 20 years they would transform it into a camp and in turn a home. But in the beginning it was a schoolhouse, built in 1901, where children would walk the dirt roads to school and where eventually my mom and her family would come to vacation. The story goes that a prominent Bethel citizen told my grandparents that the schoolhouse was for sale and encouraged them to buy it to stop a dispute between competing factions in town who wanted to get their hands on it.

My father grew up on the Gifford Farm in East Randolph, Vt. where Dr. John Pearl Gifford, founder of Gifford Hospital and the man for whom my dad is named, was born. Today, my uncle and father own the property -- my uncle, the side of the road with the barn and the farmhouse, my dad, the side with the other small house and remaining land. Nearby is the oft-photographed Gifford Covered Bridge. The farm has been in the family over 200 years. When my grandfather was alive he kept a herd of Jerseys and in later years my father introduced Holsteins. Although he farmed most of his life, my grandfather also had "to work out" as my father calls it. He worked for the Agricultural Stabilization Conservation Service and as Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture for two years. When my grandfather suffered his stroke in the early 1990s, the family sold the cows and equipment. Today, my uncle rents out the barn to another farmer.

Four years after picking my father's favorite dog, my mother returned to the farm in East Randolph to show it off. My dad took one look at her and fell hard. My mom was not so easily swayed. She thought at first he was a younger man (he wasn't) so she initially turned down his invitation to the Fourth of July fireworks, but her mom convinced her to give him a chance and a year later they were married, eventually giving birth to me and three sons.

As good a rural story as any, I suppose, and one that is fairly common -- Vermont being full of transplants or "flatlanders" who fell in love and forged a marriage with these Green Mountains and the people who live among them. The thing I love about this story is that this marriage came about because of a dog. It yielded offspring that never strayed far from their rural home. Today, one brother lives in the schoolhouse, another in the small house my father owns on the family farm. I live only five miles from the first and 10 from the later. I still love to walk the dirt roads of both, where I can't help but feel connected to my family, the past, and a way of life that although always changing somehow manages to feel lost in time. I live among dogs, too, often strolling with my pugs down those very roads. And, in those moments I embrace both the land that is home and the dogs that I love as if they were the very reason I was born because in essence they are.

Day at Joan's

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Just returned from a long, happy day at my friend Joan's and I am very tired. Thought I ought to update those of you who follow the blog on two things. First, Charlie the Gnome, named after Joan's late husband, is now fully painted. I'm thrilled with how he came out. I had some trouble mixing the correct color for his boots. I thought we had purchased brown paint, but we hadn't, so I mixed a purplish brown color and added a red wash over the top. Also, I think his yellow leggings are kind of snazzy.

Joan's husband Charlie loved gnomes, so this fellow is really a tribute to him. It was actually Charlie's gnome. Joan wants to move him down the driveway to her new home, but when we tried to pick him up earlier this summer, we broke his right hand off. We purchased some epoxy and glued it and it seems to be holding, but we may put his red, duct tape "cast" back on after his sleeve dries.

Painting Charlie is symbolic of a lot of things -- he is a link to Joan's past, the days spent in her old house with Charlie, but painting him is a celebration of the future, the days ahead in her new house with her pugs. Somehow, once I entered the doors of "Pugdom," her home in Warren, Vt, years ago, I became part of her story. It served me well, I was looking for something -- friendship, community, a place to escape and belong, something for my heart to latch on to -- and I found it. So, now I paint gnomes and name puppies, while her other friend, Jane, cleans the garage, moving years worth of stuff down the road to "3C," the new house.

In addition to painting Charlie, I got to spend some time with the new puppies today. Five in all, three big black boys, one black girl, and one little black boy -- the one I call Batman. He is about half the size of the others, but he seems to be thriving, he's just tinier than his siblings. I think this is a picture of him, although it's hard for me to tell. Everytime I picked him up, Waffles, his aunt would get all upset. She was more worried than Griffles, his mom. They all seem healthy and strong. I look forward to seeing them open their eyes.

Pug Woman

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I went to see Batman tonight. I have to say I loved Anne Hathaway as Cat Woman. It made me think about symbols – how the Dark Knight chose a bat as his symbol, a mysterious creature that lurks in the darkness. Cat Woman turns out to be a cat burglar, slick and stealthy.

I started to wonder what symbol I would choose if I were to become a superhero, when my mother suggested the obvious choice – a pug!

Pug Woman, of course! Sure, I could master the coy head tilt, the seemingly meaningless running in circles, butt tucked under, the hypnotizing master stare that says “Give me Food!” But, what virtues does a pug represent? Loyalty, stubbornness, clownishness…According to the American Kennel Club, pugs are even-tempered, playful, outgoing and loving. Admirable qualities, but how do these play out when it comes to fighting bad guys?

Last night Alfie became quite ferocious when she thought she saw a giant Bad Guy on the bed. Her fur stood on end, she growled, barked and attacked. She put on a good show. Only thing was, the Bad Guy turned out to be a pillow bearing a larger-than-life-sized image of a pug. Tonight, she seemed to have forgotten the evil scoundrel and sat next to “him” on the bed, waiting for a snack. Based on her example, I think if I were Pug Woman, I’d likely be fighting bad guys from the sofa, after lunch. Come to think of it, that’s just about my speed. And, I just thought of another plus, pugs even come with their own mask so I wouldn’t have to put myself out making a costume either. 

Shadows and Light

My sister-in-law Gretchin brought her sister and niece to my grandmother's pool this evening where we all enjoyed the day's last rays of sunlight. I took some lovely images of Gretchin's niece, Julia Grace, in this light. The shadow picture on the left and the middle portrait are not manipulated in any way. The final panel on the right I am making into a collage and this is the draft of it. I thought the three pieces went well together, so I added some text and tried them as a poster.

The text reads: "Shine little girl in the darkness and the light. Your shadow warms the waning sun. Your eyes hold its receding rays."

The Unseen Dog

Alfie

 

I am the unseen dog, but I have been there from the beginning. You wanted to take me home from the time I first curled up in your lap, but you were committed to another. So you brought her home, but thought about me and wondered if you could take two. You purchased two crates, the same size, in case you decided to return for me. You then chose not to use a crate, but an x-pen so there would be more room for me alongside the other in case you brought me home. But, she was wild and you thought not now. Still, you brought family to visit me and talked about making me yours. You left space for me in your home and I continued to fill your  heart. But time passed and she was growing and your older dog was weaker and it didn't seem the time. So I waited, but I was there. When he passed you thought of me, the unseen dog that you took home two years ago. The unseen dog, begging for your heart. It's time to make me yours.