Freelance Work

 

I'm afraid I don't have much of a blog post tonight. My day job has gotten in the way. Last fall I started a three-part series on fallout following the national housing bubble burst for a local publication. The first part address lawyers, the second appraisers and part three, which I am working on now, mortgage lenders.

I wrote most of the day in the Books-a-Million cafe and still have to finish up tomorrow. I conducted a lot of interviews for this one and have tons of information to condense into a 1,500 word article. It's all part of a writer's life.

In the meantime, I hope you all had the chance to enjoy my interview with Barbara Techel. I hope to do more of these with other authors, artists and dog lovers in the future.

Interview with Barbara Techel

 

Dog owners who have owned a senior dog know the telltale signs of aging – suddenly the fella that used to bound two steps at a time up the stairs, starts taking them more slowly eventually sometimes even missing a step. Instead of getting up to greet you, he may sit in his bed and wag his tale. His energy wanes. I remember when I first noticed these signs in my “Little Man” Vader and I worried. Not only did he seem to be slowing down, but his back end also seemed wobbly. I had seen his brother and other relatives suffer a paralysis of their rear legs and I worried that the same would happen to him. I tried to ignore it at first, but eventually my fears became a reality.

Initially, I dealt by carrying  him up to his bed at night, but when he grew too heavy I had to make a new bed for him downstairs. I kept him walking as long as I could, but eventually the time came to buy him a doggie cart. I had learned about Eddie’s Wheels a few years earlier when Vader’s brother needed his own cart. I purchased Vader’s custom chair in November of 2011 and while he unfortunately was only able to use it for a short time, it did keep him on his feet and walking until March of the next year when his front legs started to go as well. Even then I would put him in it at least once a day at first and try to help him stand to keep some blood flow to his ever-weakening legs.

It is painful to watch anyone you love suffer and the same can be said of a beloved pet, there is also something sacred in helping someone who is experiencing such suffering. They seem to develop a special grace.

If anyone knows the joys and sorrows of caring for a disabled pet it is Barbara Techel, who recently wrote a book, Through Frankie’s Eyes, about her own dog, Frankie, a dachshund, who suffered from intervertebral disc disease (IVDD).  In fact, Barbara’s book is not only dedicated to providing some insight into what this experience is like, but also showing what these special-needs animals can teach us. By witnessing Frankie coping with her disability, Barbara learned many lessons that she could apply to her own life, leading her to find a more authentic existence.

Recently, I had the opportunity to review Barbara’s book, Through Frankie’s Eyes: One Woman’s Journey to her Authentic Self, and the Dog on Wheels who Led the Way. On the heels of that review, I also had the chance to interview Barbara for this blog. You will find the interview below.

As a memoir writing instructor and a former owner of a disabled dog, I was very interested in Barbara and Frankie’s story and wanted to explore her journey with her. Among the issues Barbara and I discussed is the growing interest today in both memoir and dog books, the inspiration to write a memoir and her definition of an authentic life. We also touched on some of the charity and educational work Barbara was able to do with Frankie and how this sweet dachshund touched a number of people’s lives. Please take the time to listen to the interview, I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

Also, please check out Barbara’s book. It is not only a book for dog lovers, but for anyone looking for inspiration to follow their dreams. For more information on Barbara, Frankie and her new dachshund, Joie, please visit her blog at www.joyfulpaws.com. Also, feel free to comment and let me know what you thought of the interview, I hope it will be one of many to be featured on this blog in the future.

Important Links:

• Frankie the Walk' N Roll Dogs Legacy - chip in to help other special needs dogs with Frankie's Wheelchair Fund
• National Walk 'N Roll Dog Day- A Day Established in Frankie's Honor
• Joyful Paws - Barbara Techel's Blog
• Eddie's Wheels - the place to buy dog carts
• Through Frankie's Eyes - buy on Amazon

Art Project

A few weeks ago I received a text from my sister-in-law Becky asking for some ideas for decorations for my nephew Avery’s E.T.-themed birthday party. I informed her that we must have Reese’s Pieces and offered to create a cardboard centerpiece featuring E.T.

Yesterday was Avery’s party. I toted my cardboard E.T. centerpiece up to the house and Becky placed it on the middle of the table amidst all the presents. A lot of the adults commented on it and the kids seemed to think it was cool. I found Avery sitting in the middle of the table holding it at one point.

Soon, however, the birthday party was in full swing. Kids swarmed around the table to watch Avery open presents and to sample the chocolate cake with Neapolitan icecream. The mothers soon were busy scooping icecream and cleaning up chocolate icing. It was about that time we noticed that Avery and a couple of the other kids are missing.

“Where are they?” his mother asked.

“They’re outside shooting at E.T. with their pellet guns,” his older brother Raine announced.

My brother and sister-in-law seemed upset and worried that I would be.

“It’s okay,” I quickly assured them. “At least, he liked it.”

And, I meant it. Kids should be kids and although I put a bit of work into my cardboard E.T. it was for Avery and his pleasure. Moments later he burst into the room proudly showing the pellet hole above E.T.’s head, a big smile on his face. Art should be enjoyed and Avery did just that. He just turned my static cardboard figure into a performance piece. It became a joint venture.

Listening with the Right Ears

As the photo reception was winding down today I had the opportunity to chat with another of the photo club members. She congratulated me on my third place win and then began to tell me how there had been a lot of discussion among the judges regarding my entry, Shadow Girl, in the pictorial/abstract category.

“I was busy hanging things, so I got to overhear a lot of the discussion,” she explained. “They liked it because it told a story, which is what they said a photo should do. So, even if they didn’t like a few technical things, they really liked the photo. There was a lot of back and forth on it,” she said.

A part of me was pleased by this fact. I was already happy with the honorable mention and it was nice to hear that the photo had generated so much conversation, but another part of me, a part with which I am all too familiar, heard only one thing she was saying – “so even if they didn’t like a few technical things…”

What technical things? I thought. What did I do wrong?

Of course, I know that this was only a choice of words on the photo club member’s part. She was trying to explain why I received honorable mention as opposed to one of the higher awards and of course, there were probably a few technical considerations in drawing this judgment, but this knowledge did not stop me from picking at her words like a scab. Rather than absorbing the compliment she was trying to pay me, a part of me could only concentrate on what was wrong. What didn’t they like? I thought. What did I do wrong?

Such thoughts quickly spiral out of control like a negativity avalanche – what did I do wrong becoming what do I do wrong and then will I ever get it right and finally can I ever get it right?

I don’t like this part of me. It’s as if I’ve been trained to listen with wrong ears – all the good words drowned out by one seemingly innocuous statement that turns instead to poison infiltrating through my pours and sticking to the inside of my heart and mind.

I am aware of this part, familiar with the fact that most fall prey to it at some time or other, certain that this tendency to dwell on the negative formed early in my childhood. And, since I am aware, I am working on changing. I can hear the compliment paid and delight in that knowledge that my work is good enough for judges to deliberate over. I am not a child any longer and just as my body has grown so has my ability to listen. I can hear both voices and choose to listen with the right ears.

A Fan

Winning an award is always a joyous occasion and today was no exception. I attended the reception for the Elden Murray Photo Contest at the Howe Library in Hanover, NH and was happy to learn that I had won two awards. My photo, Shadow Girl, received an honorable mention in the pictorial/abstract category and my photo, Julia Grace, won third place in the people category.

But as neat as seeing the ribbons beside the photos, was the reception I received when I arrived. As I entered the long hall of landscape photography, one of the photo club members greeted me. I barely had time to look at her before she seized me by the elbow and began ushering me through the crowd.

“You have a fan,” she noted. “A rather young man,” she said. “This tall,” holding her hand up to her hip. “He’s here someplace. He just loved all your work. At first I thought he knew you because every picture he pointed to was yours, but he said he didn’t. He liked the one of the young girl. I told him a lady did it, and he said, are you sure a lady? I think he thought it must be a young girl who took the picture because that’s whose in it. I told him if I saw you I’d introduce you.” She continued to guide me, almost completing a full circle around the exhibit when she stumbled upon a boy of six or seven standing next to his blonde, ponytailed mother wearing tortoiseshell glasses.

“Is this the boy who’s been here for the past 15 minutes,” the photo club member asked.

“Yes, we’ve been here for that long,” his mother replied, giving us a questioning gaze.

“Well, this young man is a fan of Kim Gifford’s work, aren’t you?” the photo club member asked, addressing the boy. “He was looking at the pictures and he kept stopping at Kim’s, I thought he might have known her but he didn’t,” she explained, this time to the mom.

“Did he?” said the mom. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Well, I’m just happy you liked them,” I said, “May I shake your hand.”

The little boy looked up at me with a quiet smile and offered his hand.

“Do you want to show your mom the pictures you liked?” the photo club member asked. The boy trotted off in the direction of my photos, looking back to see if I was following. His blue eyes twinkled and he kept checking to make sure I was right behind him. As soon as we got to my first picture of Julia Grace, he stopped and pointed, glancing over his shoulder for reassurance that he was correct. I nodded and smiled and then he skipped across the room to my Shadow Girl image and pointed at that.

“Yes,” I agreed as he ran back and pointed to the pug.

His mother appeared around the corner. “He especially likes the ones of the girls,” I informed her.”

“He’s a ladies man,” his mother concluded.

Although my photos and the ribbons will be on display for the month, I took the boy’s lingering smile home with me. I received a number of congratulations and compliments for my work today, but none had quiet the weight of the child running around the room proudly pointing at my work.

I have always had an affinity for pets and children in my photos. It is nice to see that they have an affinity for me as well.

Music

When the answering machine picks up at my friend Joan’s house you hear, “You have reached the Foster residence where Pugs and Pianos outnumber the people.”

It is an accurate statement. Joan, a former concert pianist and music teacher, has four pianos including her grand and 12 to 14 pugs at present. Thus, my pugs who have come from her, Vader and Waffles, are children of music, raised with the piano ringing through the walls of their home.

Last night a classical song came on the television and I studied Waffles, who shifted from catnap mode to wide awake, cocking her head in rhythm with the music. My other pug, Alfie, didn’t seem to pay much mind, but Waffles was enchanted. While I know there have been studies saying that dogs seem to prefer classical music, I saw in Waffles eyes more than simple appreciation. It was as if this was something she recognized and in all likelihood it was.

My former pug, Mira, who passed away a couple of years ago, was not one of Joan’s pugs and yet, she adored classical music especially Debussy’s Clair de Lune. I would play it on my computer and she would stop mesmerized, head cocked, listening. She would peer in back of the computer as if to see who was producing this magical sound. I imagine her now in her pug glory dancing to just such a heavenly symphony.

Some of Joan’s pugs, her old fawn Mister Egg and her former big black, Tonka, for example, have sat in on her lessons, listening as students learn to make beautiful music of their own. Visit Joan on weekday afternoons and you are likely to hear her students tickling the ivories as her pugs yap their appreciation from the deck. When I’m at Joan’s I often make my way to the living room and sing to the pugs there. From Joan’s bedroom you can hear the radio that’s perpetually on but never quite tuned to a proper station so the static crackles all night long. Dog food bubbles away on the stove and the fire sparks in the wood stove. Outside the snow snaps from the cold. It is music of a different sort.

Perhaps Joan’s answering machine should say something else, “Where Music Rules,” rules, for example, because when you’re at Joan’s it does. She personifies it, whether at the piano or caring for the pugs, she dances to her own tune and when you’re in her world you want to hum along. I wonder if Waffles recalled the echoes of her former life when she heard the classical song last night. All I know is she sat upright, her body alert, but her eyes half closed as if she was listening to something beyond the music, a melody from her former life, the call of home. And, if so, I understand because I have found in this world of pugs a tune to keep loneliness at bay and friends with whom to howl away the night.

Family of Another Sort

I received an email from a former student today. He had just learned of the passing of his fellow classmate, my student and friend, Ceretha, who died this past fall.

The two were part of a delightful class of students, at nine, this was one of the largest and most diverse I have had since I’ve been teaching. The students ran the gamut from an 80 year-old Native American to an 18-year-old from the Dominican Republic. The one thing they had in common was their amazing ability to tell stories. Not only could they all write and write well, but also they were lively conversationalists and attending class with them was like being at a really wonderful cocktail party.

Once I get to know my students I usually end up enjoying my classes, each one is unique, but this group was among my favorites. You know those hypothetical games you play – if you were having a dinner party, who would be among the famous guests you’d invite? Well, this class was like the all-star line-up of students; it was pure fun to be in their mix.

Tonight in my present class, I had a student write about meeting a famous actor from the television series M.A.S.H. and it immediately brought to mind another story from this previous class in which one of my students wrote about sneaking into a London nightclub with another couple and meeting the Beatles. These are the type of tales you can’t make up. They were prolific among this group.

Today as I read my former student’s email, a man in his sixties, I was touched by his comment. He wrote: “I truly miss your class, it was one of the most enjoyable school experiences that I have ever had.” That’s a pretty nice endorsement!

Sometimes work feels like just that – work, and sometimes it feels like something more. Sometimes it is fun and sometimes, it is special. These stories stick. They are tales of people’s lives, their joy and pain, the path they took to become the people they are, but once they share them in class, especially when the group tells them with a sparkle in their eye and the charm of a champion storyteller, they become things to remember. They are family stories, and the letter I received today, expressing condolences over Ceretha, sharing details of a life, promising to keep in touch was a family letter. I am part of an ever-expanding family whose stories grow, flowing into each other year after year. I am sure when I am old and gray I will still remember these tales and the people who told them, their memories ever mixing with my own.

Walking in Circles

 

Alfie and Waffles have been getting chunky over the winter, so it's time to get them outside and exercising. Unfortunately, the salt on the sidewalk hurts their feet, so I’ve been resigned to walking them in the backyard where there is a plowed circular path. It’s not a long route, so we need to walk it a few times to experience any real benefits. While I’m okay with this, but the dogs think I’m crazy.

They start the walk pulling toward the road, but follow me when I lead them away. They make the loop the first time happy enough, but when it comes to the second they stop dead in their tracks. Alfie looks back at me perplexed as if to say did you get lost? We already did this!

The other day she even stopped at the trailhead and marked the spot as if she feared we truly were lost and she had to do something about it. When we hit that spot a third time, she looked at me again, halted, sniffed the spot, and pulled in the other direction. Waffles was eager to follow her. Again, I made them follow me and they did, but instead of walking by my side, they began to bite at their leashes and play as if to say, this isn’t getting us anywhere, let’s do something else.

I interviewed Barbara Techel this week about her new book Through Frankie’s Eyes. She spoke about the lessons she learned from her disabled dachshund and how it helped her live a more authentic life. I think our dogs indeed teach us important lessons. Watching my two walk the loop, I was struck first by their intelligence and impressed that they realized that walking in circles was not the usual fare. That led me to delve a little deeper. How often do I walk in circles in my own life? How frequently do I follow the same path because it seems safe when in reality I am lost from all the options leaving the familiar might provide? The pugs found no fun in playing it safe – a lesson I plan to take to heart.

Writing Prompt: Mom

My mother had cataract surgery today. She is doing fine, although she spent the whole day a little out of it because they had to give her extra anesthesia.

I don’t like it when my mom is under the weather for any reason. Not only do I hate to see her suffer, but she is my best friend, my sounding board, and my biggest supporter. On the way to surgery this morning she was posting comments to my blog. She will often sit across from me at a table and do the same. I miss her lively conversation when she is out of it, but not her smile. She smiles even when she cries.

She hates being out of commission even for a minute, which makes even simple surgeries big obstacles for her. You see she’s not only my rock, she’s everybody’s rock and she knows it. She doesn’t like to let anyone down. Not even my pugs.

As she groggily shuffled into the kitchen this afternoon to grab a snack, the pugs followed. They are used to her giving them treats and seemed as disturbed as me that she wasn’t up to par. They kept staring at her until she sought help in getting them their cottage cheese. Waffles sat on her lap for most of the afternoon; Alfie at her feet after she had the chance to jump up and sniff her eye. It must have passed inspection.

Many people have commented on my tendency to write about strong women on this blog. My mom is the strongest of all. She shapes how I see the world, so any strength I see or write about comes from her. She doesn’t like to be vulnerable and yet, she let’s me show my vulnerability everyday and flips it on end, making me feel strong. It takes a feisty and stubborn lady to raise a daughter like me; I don’t always make it easy. I fight her and I challenge her because her image of me is so much better than my own. And, yet, what better mirror in which to see myself? She is the best reflection of all that’s right in the world.

Writing Prompt: Who is your mirror?

Sunday Afternoon

At the intersection of Route 125 and Route 100 in Hancock, VT sits the Old Hancock Hotel, a charming old establishment and an excellent place to share a breakfast buffet with a group of friends on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Yesterday, my friends Joan and Jane and I did just that in celebration of Jane’s birthday. The weather was snowy, the ground icy, but the atmosphere inside was warm and friendly. We sat and chatted long after the buffet was cleared and the doors closed. For Jane and I, it was the first time we had seen each other since Christmas, so we exchanged presents – a red, bedazzled handmade purse for me, a chili cookbook for her. We lingered over our plates, ordering cups of coffee for Joan and Jane and tea for me followed by another round.

We are not a group that typically dawdles. Usually we have pugs in tow that need to be fed or walked or we are on our way to a dog show or headed back from one. We may stop at a diner for a quick bite, but meals for the sake of socializing are not our usual fair. Perhaps that’s what made this afternoon so much fun. When at Joan’s house, where we usually gather, Joan is typically so busy cooking dog food or cleaning that we seldom sit and talk for long. Yesterday was the exception. Joan even brought photos recently mailed to her from one of our new pug families.

Remember the litter of puppies born this summer? Batman’s siblings? Remember the puppy Joan cried to see go? Well, our little Argo Kensington now renamed Bunja, is not so little anymore. Like his brother Gryffindor, whom Joan kept, he is growing large and strong. Kensington went to live with a man named Bob in New Jersey, not far from our friend Bonnie, who took his sister Margot, now Sassy Margot, to live with her. The picture Bob sent shows the siblings together, although Sassy is significantly smaller than Bunja now.

Bob apologized for the pictures he sent explaining that neither he nor Bonnie knew what they were doing. The picture might be blurry, but the image was enough to warm our hearts. These are family portraits of little ones we brought into the world and sent off in faith that their lives would be good. You keep your fingers crossed and wait for cards and photos such as these for assurance that you made the right decision. Sometimes you never hear anything and you are left only with hope.

We sit three women – one single, one divorced, one widowed, happily sipping tea and coffee and oohing and ahhing over our stash of poor photos the way aunts and mothers and grandmothers ogle baby pictures.  Such scenes have become the fodder for jokes – crazy cat ladies, women who find fulfillment with pets because their lives are empty elsewhere. As with all joke, there may be some truth in this, but our lives are not pathetic or empty. We may be lonely on occasion, missing children and spouses, but we have carved a place with each other and with lives so busy that we seldom sit to talk.

Although we may sometimes feel lonely, our lives are not empty. We attend dog shows and catch up with old friends about their wins. We dress our dogs up in funny costumes and reunite with other pug owners at pug socials, we gather together on Sunday afternoons to read letters from the owners of puppies we have raised, and we smile and we eat and we chat and we carve out lives for ourselves. Like everyone else we take our joy where we can find it and consider ourselves lucky that dogs figure into the equation.