Today was one of those days. I woke up with a rare event – a little spare time on my hands. I thought of going Christmas shopping or to a matinee. Then, I realized I could use the time to change over my old dresser for my new. This task is a lot more challenging then it sounds. First, my old dresser is an antique with narrow drawers that don’t hold much and when they do are too stuffed to shut. Hence, the need for a new dresser. Also, my large screen television, DVD player and cable box all sit on top of the dresser with wires spread to and fro across the room. In order to move the dresser I needed to move all this, unplug the machines from the wires and rewire everything to get it to work. My brother, an IT specialist who does a lot of wiring, suggested taping the wires to the wall. I thought it was a great idea, so I labeled them and taped them up. Then I kind of lost my mind. Moving the TV and the dresser proved more challenging than I thought and I realized that in order to tidy everything up it was going to be an all day job. I was getting pretty discouraged when I looked up at the wall and noticed the above picture. A mask sits on the wall behind my television and now that I had moved the TV I could see the mask amidst the wires. It looked like a strange art display. I hurried to find a camera to take the picture, but I had buried those beneath the clothes I had removed from the dresser drawers. My iphone was handy, however, and I took this interesting photo. A midst all the hectic hustle and bustle it made me smile. I was able to find beauty and art in the wires and the clutter. Art is everywhere.
Uncle Sam
A couple of weeks ago I visited Troy, NY. I attended a writers workshop and when I was finished I roamed the town taking photographs. I posted some of them here on the blog. One of my fellow writers in the Hubbard Hall Writers group told me I put a good dress on Troy and maybe I should contact the chamber with some of my photos. I didn't, but they got a hold of me. Not the chamber, but a downtown nonprofit responsible for Uncle Sam statues around the city. It seems they are putting together a calendar of the statues, they saw my photos online and want to use the above one in their calendar! I think that's pretty cool!
Spreading Sunshine
“Oh Amy Look! Look at that one! She’s so cute!” An older woman around my friend Joan’s age squealed at her McDonald’s coworker. “Look Amy! A black pug!”
“There’s another in my back seat,” I offered.
“Oh Amy, Look! There’s another one!” She squealed again as if she had discovered Alfie for herself instead of me telling her. “Look, Amy, it’s a fawn.”
“Ohhhh, look! They’re so cute! Mary!”
“Oh, that one is so cute!” The older woman says pointing at Waffles!
“They are so cute!” The two women exclaimed.
This was my encounter when I took the pugs through the McDonald’s drive thru the other day. An hour later we were walking in downtown Randolph when a woman in an old car, shaking from the volume of the music on the radio, rolled down her window and squealed at us. “They’re so cute!”
I had to smile. Dogs have a way of bringing people closer, encouraging conversation among strangers. Pugs have a way of spreading unadulterated joy!
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Racing Stripe
When you own a lot of dogs like my friend Joan, some of them blend into the background and some of them stick out. Soup, the dog of several names, stuck out. Part of this was because of her unique appearance – as a wee pup she leaned against the heater for too long and burned herself down her whole right side causing a moccasin-like appearance as she recovered and grew. Later, we referred to this scar as her racing stripe, an apropos name as, like her mom Suteki before her, she was always trying to run away. Often accompanied by her friend Teddy. It’s hard for me to remember who would run away more, Soup or Suteki, but they both made their fair share of escape attempts, usually visiting the house down the road or showing up at the other end of town or being turned into the vet’s by a good citizen.
Soup, littermate to Moses, was originally named Zipporah after Moses’ wife in the Bible. This was shortened to Zip and eventually due to several mispronunciations on Joan’s part became Soup. Soup was feisty and a real survivor. Sometimes throughout the years I have felt sorry for some of Joan’s pugs, being one of so many. Soup was one of those pugs I never felt bad about – she was in no way needy, content to be part of a large pack.
She was happy to pile up in one of Joan’s pig troughs in front of the fire, sitting atop her mother, father or friend, happy to be petted, addressed or fed.
As she aged her tongue began to hang from her mouth, perhaps in empathy with her friend Teddy who had a protruding tongue since birth. Earlier this week Soup, who was only eight years old, got in a squabble with the other dogs and hurt her leg. At first Joan thought it was broken, but she quickly stood on it and there seemed to be no reason to take her to the vet. A few days later, however, she seemed to be acting poorly and Joan decided to schedule a visit. Before she could get there, however, Soup who was sleeping on her bed between two of her other friends died – quietly and contentedly, making little fuss or demand, acting just as she had in life. I will miss this happy girl. It is easy to mourn losing one so young. But, if one could pack a life in eight short years, this girl did and it is hard to mourn that. She, like her owner Joan, did things her way and was not one to be controlled. Perhaps her premature death was her attempt to make the ultimate run – perhaps she runs still, her racing stripe showing, her long tongue flapping in the breeze.
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Decomposition
I posted a color picture of this scene on my local photoclub's favorite's page the other day. I knew it wasn't the best composition. It was a piece that I had struggled with, taking numerous shots of the truck and the solar panels in the waning light. As I was shooting the moon came up, the solar panels moved and everything changed, but I was struck by the moment -- the moon over the truck and the panels -- and although this shot wasn't great it at least preserved all the elements for me. The leader of the club quickly noticed some of the flaws in the shot and offered advice on how to make it better. I thanked her and explained what I had been trying to achieve. Sometimes a picture is worth a 1000 words and sometimes you can can say it better with the words themselves, here's my attempt at that. And, thank you Lisa for inspiring this poem:
Decomposition
I struggle to create a composition that can take it all in –
old blue truck, modern army of sun-seeking solar panels
stalwart lavender mountains, golden grass,
all under a rising moon
“You have to pick and choose,” the photographer warns me,
“Decide what it is you are trying to say.”
“It’s the photo journalist in you that craves it all,” she concludes,
with a nod and a period,
as if that settles the matter.
It doesn’t. The story pretty much tells itself.
I have nothing to do with it.
An innocent bystander like the rest of you
Observing it all –
Blue truck giving up the ghost, array of solar panels
following in its wake, old giving birth to new
giving birth to old, giving birth to new
again,
Hope bowing to disappointment
Under the watchful eye of the stalwart mountains
And the moon that never ceases to rise.
It is the only composition there is
Yet, we remain optimistic that we can change something
while the moon and the mountains smile
And the truck and solar panels
and all our best made plans
decompose.
Kid versus Pug
Last week my niece 22-month-old niece Ellie came to our house for Trick or Treating. She loves my dogs and loves their toys almost as much. It’s hard to deny her anything so when she picked up Waffles favorite stuffed dog, a fluffy, cream creature, and asked to bring it home. It was hard, no impossible, to say “no.”
Waffles has lots of toys and although she favors some, she likes new ones even better, so I was convinced that she wouldn’t miss her doggie too much. Ellie went home with it and life continued as normal.
Tonight, Ellie and her parents swung by again on their way to New York on vacation. Excited to see Ellie, my Mom decided to give her an early Christmas present – ad stuffed, pale peach pig. She placed it on the kitchen table waiting for Ellie to arrive. A few minutes later I heard her call me.
“Don’t mention the pig to Ellie,” she said.
“Why,” I asked.
She motioned to Waffles pen and I looked inside. Waffles was happily curled up with the pig and upon seeing me jumped up with it in her mouth to play! It was precious how excited she was by her find and even if she hadn’t suckled it until it was damp and grimy, it would have been impossible to take it away from her. I certainly couldn’t and besides it seemed like turnabout was fair play – Ellie had taken one of her toys after all.
When Ellie arrived she seemed to care little for Waffles’ wet pig, but she did have a good time playing with a handful of her bone-shaped chew toys. At one point holding one that resembled a baby’s teether to her Mom saying, “This isn’t a baby’s!”
Gretchin agreed. “No, it isn’t,” she said, holding the blue bone out to Ellie. “Whose is it?”
“ELLIE’S!” She declared, gleefully grabbing it in her tiny hand.
And, Waffles who was suckling on her pig, not teething on the bone, didn’t seem to care at all.
Exploration
A head cold was settling in as I explored the streets of Troy, NY, near The Arts Center on River Street. It was my first time in the city, having visited to attend a memoir class with memoirist Marion Roach, author of The Memoir Project, a book that I use in the memoir class that I teach at my small community college.
Though my head was growing fuzzy, I took the time to meander and browse the streets and funky boutiques. I stared as the sun started to descend over the Hudson River, wandered past an actual record store and a shop that sold cheap, plastic dangling earrings circa 1980s. I bought three pairs. In some ways I felt like I had gone back in time to the days I would visit the boy I loved in Cambridge, Mass. and wander through bookstores and comic shops with him and my brother, biding the time until we’d attend a concert outside of town. I might have been in a cold-induced daze, but a part of me also felt invigorated by the workshop, my environment and the freedom to wander.
When I was young I had few dreams of traveling anywhere especially alone – now it is one of my favorite things to do. As I browse bookstores, drink tea in hide-a-way cafes, scour sidewalks for the perfect shot, I feel like I am discovering a little bit of myself – a part kept under, stunted from blooming by circumstance. It has taken me longer to travel beyond borders than it should have. But now I investigate freely. Here, in photos, is some of what I saw.
Coffee with a Canine
There's a wonderful little blog I recently discovered called Coffee with a Canine. And, guess what? Alfie, Waffles and I are featured there today. We grabbed a cup by a beautiful lake on our way back from the Chestertown Pug Parade. The blog is great! It basically asks dogs and their owners to go enjoy a cup of joe and then be interviewed about the occasion and other aspects of their lives. Lots of fun reading and photos there. Go check us out and leave a comment!
Trick or Treating in a Small Town
Truth be told I have never Trick or Treated anywhere else, but there are sometimes when life in a small town seems smaller than others. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it is bad. Tonight it was wonderful.
The town put on its best face to make a cold rainy Halloween a party for its children. Downtown stores opened their doors to masked kiddies. We saw soldiers and cops, the man in the yellow hat, the bride of Frankenstein, a flashlight, and more. We gathered in the Town Hall for crafts and games – where neighbors had made enchanted donuts with vampire teeth and spider cupcakes. Kids played pin the heart on the skeleton, bingo and guess the number of candy corns, while parents chatted, snapped pictures and tried to stay warm. A tractor pulled a wagon full of hay bales offering damp tricksters a hayride to the Haunted Bandstand.
I’m sure it is fun to comb a city’s streets, but I doubt it is ever as heartwarming. Best yet, my whole world fit in that downtown and we were there sharing it together: all three brothers’ families and their kids convened in the Town Hall and back at the house for pizza. I bumped into my best friend when I was 9 years old -- the one who used to come to my house every Monday night when we were young to watch Little House on the Prairie – and her son, who was dressed as Almanzo Wilder. The brother of the boy I loved was handing out candy in a downtown shop and I received a text or two from my nephew the next town over. I missed spending the night with them, but the rain kept me closer to home. Although the pugs stayed at home because of the freezing drizzle, they greeted me, happily settling down once the kids and I were back in the house. We were warm, we were happy, we were together in the big brick house where my parents raised us right in the center of town. And, though the place might be small, this feeling of contentment was big.
Writing Prompt: What Comes Naturally
Writing Prompt: Write about what comes naturally...
The world went from warm to cold in a single day. I was scheduled to go bicycling with my sister-in-law last Friday, when she informed me that my niece and she had the sniffles. Afraid to catch something, I canceled the outing with them, but couldn’t quite give up the idea of one last ride of the season. I figured that cold temperatures were on the horizon, but I didn’t realize that my one last hurrah truly would be autumn’s swan song here in Vermont.
As I drove to Stowe for my solo voyage, I knew it was cooling off, but the sun was bright and I figured that the biking would keep me warm. I was wrong. When I hit the trail, the leaves continued to broadcast a kaleidoscope of color, the sky remained briskly blue, the sun put up a gallant last stand, but the mountain was already dressed in snow and the air bore its teeth. I suddenly and acutely fathomed the reason for earmuffs; my vented bicycle helmet, so welcomed only a week before, now proved shallow comfort. It was cold!
And, it was beautiful; the world was transforming!
I later learned that while I was biking, my sister-in-law and niece were up the road playing in snow that had fallen at the base of the mountain. Winter had hit Vermont, while I continued to cling to the new-found joy I had discovered only weeks before on my bike.
While my love of cycling was new, I discovered something old and forgotten peddling down the road – a feeling of freedom being in my own body, a desire to play outdoors that I had not had since I was a little girl. Back then it came so naturally. I remember sitting on my backyard swing, pumping my legs, swinging for hours. I used to take my hoppity horse, a big blue ball with rubber handle and horse head that I would ride among jumping all over my parents and grandparents two acres of lawn. When snow fell I would don my puffy snowsuit, mittens and hat and make snow angels in the cold, fluffy powder, my arms and legs waving back and forth. This was before gym class, competition, rules I didn’t understand and taunts by schoolmates and teachers. It was before I understood that you could be good or bad at something and instead simply enjoyed doing everything. My ears and fingertips were frozen by the time I finished my brisk three-mile bike ride, but my memory and love of being outside playing and exercising had thawed, going from cold to warm each time I rode my new bike. My world was transforming and, it was beautiful!
