Old Dog

He sits war weary on the lawn, soaking in the golden light of his golden years. Not a soldier, but an old dog whose wagged his tail and done his faithful duty at the side of two women -- first one’s dog then another’s. In this moment his own man, surveying his first yard, the expanse of his kingdom, the battlefield, where his life has played out.  Now he waits as all good dogs do, without complaint, for his ladies, two friends, to return home. He laps at clean water, turns his face to the sky, and closes his eyes. It is well past mid-day, but the sun feels warm, the grass cool and even now there is still a wag to his tail.

He soldiers on – the symbol of perpetual hope, living in expectation that bones may rain down upon him, good fortune and good food come his way, and the people that he waits for may now turn the bend. Old dogs have the patience and faith of saints. What else do they hope for, what more can an old fella’ want than a patch of sun, a pat on the head, and to hear the words “Good Dog” echoed like bookends at the beginning and end of his days.

Gonna Fly Now

The theme song to Rocky may only have been playing in my head when I entered the door of my house yesterday after a 3-mile walk around the stretch of road we call “The Boulevard,” but it was playing nonetheless. While family, friends and neighbors may walk The Boulevard with ease, I have seldom completed it. But after coming back from Hana, Hawaii where I walked a lot, I decided to keep up the good work and start walking The Boulevard both for the exercise and as a form of prayer and meditation. The problem is it hasn’t been easy and it hasn’t been peaceful. It would be simple to blame my being a desk-bound, out-of-shape couch potato as part of the problem and no doubt I could be more physically fit, but the real issue is my feet. Bone spurs, Achilles tendonitis, and plantar fasciitis don’t make walking easy as I found out when I hiked around Portland, Maine on my recent reunion with friends. A couple of years ago, I saw a podiatrist and physical therapist who fit me with orthotics, but the plantar fasciitis recently flared up even with them in my shoes. It seems my rigid high-arched feet don’t make for easy walking and I tend to supinate, walking on the outer sides of my feet. It helped hearing this from the physical therapist who explained some of my lack of athleticism could be contributed to the fact that my legs were simply not made to do what a lot of people can do so easily. She even told me that certain muscles in my legs were working so hard that they were equivalent to that of a gymnast. I wish my old gym teacher had heard this report.

Still, knowing the reason why my feet didn’t work and my legs turned to rubber when I tried to walk didn’t help me complete The Boulevard, but a new pair of shoes did. I stopped in the New Balance sneaker store the other day to see if they carried high tops. My sister-in-law had a cool pair of red Adidas and try as I might to make a similar pair fit me they were just too narrow. I knew New Balance carried wide widths and if they had high tops I thought I might find a pair there that were more comfortable. They didn’t have any in, but what they did have was a certified pedorthist to offer advice. Although I had never heard of a certified pedorthist after a few minutes talking to her I realized she was a foot expert. She immediately identified the problems with my foot that I had learned form my podiatrist and had fitted me with the proper size shoe. Although I have known for years that my foot measures a size 7, I have been wearing 8s and 9s in an effort to accommodate their width. Sometimes I could go smaller with a 7.5 if I was lucky enough to find a wide-width shoe, but this was rare. I discovered, however, that not only did I need a size 7 with the proper fit to accommodate my high arches and tendency to supinate; I also needed a double E in width. For years, I had been living in the confines of a too narrow shoe. The pedorthist sent me home with my new sneakers and the warning to break them in gradually. I did and voila I managed to complete the whole stretch of The Boulevard yesterday; hence the refrain of Rocky’s theme song.

That may have been enough to proclaim “Gonna Fly Now” but it was my revelation that it wasn’t just my shoe that was the wrong size. For a while now I’ve been shaping myself to accommodate other people's visions of my life, trying to fit within the confines of two small a worldview. As I walked The Boulevard, stared at the expanse growing corn against the blue sky, I realized mine was a double E life and it was time for me to try out the shoe that fits so I can fly.

Dog Birthday Party

“A dog birthday party? That’s ridiculous!” My 17-year-old nephew Christian exclaimed in response to my answer as to where I had been all day.

It was ridiculous, silly and fun, which is also what made it so special. I thought about the dogma, beliefs, and debate that had been hurled at me over the last few weeks – conversations about salvation, damnation, global warming, politics -- I’ve been assigned an article on Obama Care, for goodness sakes – and the Sweet 16 birthday party for a mascot at a local gift store in Waterbury, Vt. seemed the most carefree and sane thing to do among my list of prospects: It was pure fun!

I was a tag-a-long on an invite my 18-month-old niece Ellie had received. It seems she and my sister-in-law are frequent visitors at The Tiny Acorn gift shop in Waterbury, where Isabel, the 16-year-old birthday girl, reigns. In addition to the array of toys on display, Izzy seems to have attracted my niece’s attention and subsequent devotion. She smothers Izzy with hugs and kisses and thus, earned an invite to her party. Upon learning of the event, I begged an invite. So last Saturday, the four of us – my niece Ellie, my sister-in-law Gretchin, my brother Mark and me – all headed off to The Tiny Acorn where we were greeted by a nicely groomed Izzy in the glass doorway and a sign above announcing her party. Hardly through the door, we were given balloon animals in the shape of dogs and the opportunity to make each a bedazzled collar that could also serve as a bracelet. I wrapped mine around my wrist. Gretchin adorned Ellie’s with an E and I chose a B, since my nieces and nephews all call me Auntie Bee. I noticed yesterday that Ellie’s was still intact, while I somehow managed to lose all my beads, jewels and letters by the end of the day.

We searched for bones and were awarded with a grab bag of goodies when we found one and we even ate bone-shaped sugar cookies as our desert. We also had our faces painted. Gretchin, Ellie and I with flowers, while Mark, after a little coaxing, sported a pirate’s patch. Ellie kept touching the flower on her cheek, smearing it before the paint dried. She spent the rest of the day saying, “I like my flower” even after her mother washed it off. Mark, Gretchin and Ellie all cleaned their faces shortly before returning home while I kept my flower on for the rest of the day, reluctantly washing it off at midnight.

The girl who painted our faces wants to be a writer and is considering attending Champlain College, my brother and sister-in-law’s alma mater, so we exchanged writing tips and college advice.

We finally left the store a couple of hours later after a lunch of grilled hotdogs, Costco lemonade and a promise that we would send  photos and that Ellie would return again soon. Before she left, she took a display of tiny folded rain jackets and placed them in a half-circle around Isabel – her gifts for the day. She then lovingly bent down and gave the old girl a hug, a pet, and a kiss.

My nephew may have rolled his eyes when I returned home and people may question why a 46-year-old has let her life go to the dogs when there are more serious issues to attend to, but I am convinced that should we burn in an apocalypse, freeze in a global ice age, collapse under an economic meltdown or survive another 1000 years, when we go to meet our maker it will be the hugs, pets, and kisses that count. We could do worse than dog birthday parties and the wag of a tail.

For more photos from the party check out my personal facebook page. 

Turkish Delight

Traveling these last few weeks has made writing difficult. I never quite seem to find the balance between living life and writing about it. I need time to take things in, assimilate and chew on them before deciding what they mean. I know once I do I will have a lot to write about. Tonight I have a simple thing to share.

I have visited Maine only a couple of times in the last few years and each time I found my way to the Harbor Candy Shop. The first time, my friend Kathleen whisked me away for a day of R & R at the beach. We stared at the waves from Maine’s rocky shore, walked nature trails and stopped at the candy shop for some Turkish Delight. This was more than a mere treat. It was a taste of magic. I have long been a Chronicles of Narnia fan and as every reader of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe knows, Turkish Delight plays a special role in that book. It is how the White Witch tempts Edmund to betrayal. Here’s what C.S. Lewis wrote about it:

Even after finding out the witch's nature, it was the candy that drove Edmund on, Lewis writes: "When [Edmund] heard that the Lady he had made friends with was a dangerous witch he felt even more uncomfortable. But he still wanted to taste that Turkish Delight again more than he wanted anything else. … He had eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn't really enjoyed it because he was thinking all the time about Turkish Delight—and there's nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food."

I’m not sure if I would classify Turkish Delight as bad magic, although I understand the context here. All I know is that having imagined it over-and-over again as I read and reread the book over the years, I was almost as eager as Edmund to sample it. Kathleen purchased several kinds and I tasted them all, falling in love with this magical treat. When I returned to Maine a couple of years later with my friend Joan and we found the store again, I was disappointed to learn that they had no Turkish Delight on hand. I was told it was seasonal.

Learning that I would be visiting Maine last week, I was eager to revisit the candy store and see if this was the on-season for this delectable confection. Unfortunately, having visited with a friend the first time and stumbling on the store by chance the second time, I couldn’t quite remember what town it was in. I assumed it was Old Orchard, but discovered it was Ogunquit. I was almost out of town when I saw the sign and I practically fell into the dashboard, slamming on the brakes and pulling into a nearby parking space. I quickly walked around the store, scanning the colorful shelves for my prize. After making a loop I spied it, a display of Turkish Delight by the door. There were about five or six flavors and I chose the raspberry and rose for $7.00 a box. The small square boxes looked sweet on their own, wrapped in pale tissue paper. Unwrapping a box, there was another layer of paper inside. Folded back it revealed the precious jellies, cut into tiny squares and sprinkled with confectionary sugar.

Later at the hotel I offered it to my friends. My friend Linda raised an eyebrow at the mention of the treat. “Turkish Delight?” she asked. Her son, Matthew, was quick to fill her in. “Turkish Delight, Mom. You known Turkish Delight from Narnia,” he exclaimed. I wanted to hug him. It seems the true magic of this treat is not the way it tastes, although I still find it delicious, but the ability it has, much like a certain wardrobe, to join us together over ages and years and transport us to shared world.

Writing Prompt: Old Orchard Beach

Home again after a whirl wind trip to Maine. The scenery was beautiful, but it was even more special spending time with my friends from college. Years have passed and left a mark -- at least two of us were icing various body parts after a day of walking -- but we fell into easy conversation and step beside each other.

Write about a day spent with friends.

Apocalypse

Coming home from the airport tonight, we stopped in Montpelier for dinner. The sky was ablaze with color. The clouds seemed like blood-soaked cotton hovering above the buildings -- an apocalypse in the making.

Shenanigans

My best friend Sheila and I went to pick our college friend Clare up from the airport tonight to take her to our reunion with other college friends in Maine. We weren't together for more than a half hour than we were back to our silly selves, posing here with some Old Navy mannequins.

Reunion

One final summer trip to complete in my vacation tryptic: Georgia, Hawaii and now Maine. This time I am off to a reunion of college friends. It’s been awhile since we’ve all been together, but it doesn’t feel that way. I know we’ve grown and changed, gone on to have jobs and kids and new responsibilities, but it feels like we are still the same “Midd Kids” we were over 20 years ago when we first met at Middlebury College. I’m not talking about the passage of time here, that feeling we so often have of where did the years go, I still feel so young. I’m talking about something else, a stability of character I see in my friends.

I’m not sure when it began with me, but I’ve lived most of my life fearing that the sand would shift beneath me, not quite sure that I could trust things to be the same today as they were yesterday. Of course, you never can. Life is always about change, but I’m talking about an inability to quite trust my surroundings. I remember getting sick for two weeks in middle school and when I returned friendships and alliances had rearranged themselves, so suddenly I found myself out instead of in. My family’s finances and fortunes were always changing so I literally wasn’t sure from month to month whether it would be feast or famine. Boundaries were amorphous and when crises loomed I learned that people did not always perform as expected. I learned to live with paradox and found that it was possible, but not always easy and so, I sometimes still worry that the world will turn upside down when I least expect it.

This past week when I came home from Hana, I found my friend Joan busy in the process of packing up her old house and moving to her new. She has owned both for several years now – her new house just down the drive from the old. But suddenly, her daughter had arrived and they were settling financial issues and decorating. She informed me her daughter would be returning in another week to go to a doctor’s appointment and suddenly I found myself asking, “Are you okay? You’re not dying and not telling me are you?” Of course, I’m not completely crazy to ask this, Joan is just the type of person who would not say. But she reassured me that she was fine, just a check up and the flurry of activity to settle up her finances no doubt came from the fact that her daughter’s mother-in-law had passed away a few weeks ago, leaving her affairs unsettled. Joan’s children just happened to be helping their mother. Everything is okay.

And, so when I say these college friends haven’t seemed to change what I mean to say is that to me they seem stable, true, sure, certain, reliable. They have grown, but they seem to remain fundamentally who they have always been. I can count on them to be the funny, quirky, intelligent, interesting people that I have always known and I love them for it. I am looking forward to sharing the next few days with them and discovering how their lives have changed, while relishing the fact that I still know who they are.

Cemetery

Birth and death are bookends

I see that here.

A nursery of growing trees

In ordered rows

Conjures images of gravestones

A cemetery in my mind.

I see the wildflowers cast around them

And reminisce of florists and bouquets

Placed on the graves of those I’ve loved.

Not as morbid as it sounds

Just a passing note

That birth and death

Often reminds us of each other.

Blondes

Walking through the husks I spotted them, a row of flaxen blondes amidst the field of redheads. They seemed shy compared to their wild cousins. Lean and straight with yellow silky spikes as opposed to the sweaty strands of their ginger friends. I wondered why only these five had developed this yellow hue, why they hid in this low straight row, wallflowers, seemingly sitting out their cousins’ headbangers’ dance.