Part II, Day 33: Clouds. Sun. Rain.

photo by Alex Epstein

Chapter One: Clouds.

Rain showers arrive, and at the end of a warm day the steam brings out black fly nymphs.  Sonya and Alex and Zoe and I are walking through the woods covered head to toe with latex, bug dope, and in one instance, black fur.  Spirits are high today.  The two seniors just finished their last courses.  One just got a second job offer through Americorps, and the other has interviews in the works.  The destination: Boston.  The older human just finished Part I of her novel.  A celebration is in order.

photo by Alex Epstein

 

Alex and Sonya and Zoe

We have much to discuss: grassroots environmental movements in the North Country; the new tradition of bringing celebratory drinks to some courses populated mostly by seniors; the wildflowers around us, especially the trillium; Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot, the duo's upcoming travels to France and Italy, and Zoe's place in their heart as the not-a-dog person's dog to love.  They both have excellent dog instincts and know--Alex especially--how to operate three moves ahead, as in a game of chess, to anticipate danger, as when we leave the woods and get close to a road, or when other dogs show up that might not play well with others.  I see a dog in this couple's future, especially when they ask me, in detail, how much time housebreaking a puppy takes.

But not this summer.  This summer is going to be about travel, city life, and work.  

Zoe and I will miss them.

 
Chapter two: Sun

photo by Kelly Prime

The first really hot day in over a week and Zoe just wants to swim and stroll in a mellow way in the shade.  She hasn't seen K. for over two years but she recognizes her instantly when we pick her up at the bookstore.  She extends her snout as far as it will go to cover K's cheek with kisses--something she never does with me, or with the not-a-dog persons she has won over in time.  Today, though, there's something about the sun and the mood in the air that makes her exult in inter-species love and affection.  I think it's the company of K.  Like me, K. would live in a pen with eight dogs walking all over her if she could.

The question of the day: can a neuroscience major become a writer?  The answer, to quote Elizabeth Gilbert: Is the bean green?  Does James Brown get down?  This is a gal who keeps a lyrical, imagery-rich blog about her travels and food passions; a gal who dances, plays music, writes, makes art; all on top of being a gifted science major who has worked as a lab tutor all year.  We talk about how everything we do in life can be fodder for writing, even working at the Stewart's Shop in her town, which is part of the summer plan (great chances for conversation with customers, and people-watching, we agree) and the nature conservancy where she is a guide for kids.

I try to imagine what it would be like to be good at more than one or two things at once.  My sister is like that.  My friend, Sandra, in Paris is like that. 

We both agree that if we could do anything outside of our repertoire, we'd be singer-songwriters.  I'd be the new Joni Mitchell and . . . I am not sure what she would write or who she would be.  We'll have to walk again soon, so I can find out. 

Chapter Three: Rain

photo by Olivia Arroyo

Today an athlete from L.A., O., is enjoying her last full day in the North Country.  She has one last paper to turn in and then she's off for a summer of long, intense days of training (her tennis coach has already told her that the workouts begin on Monday).  She's also taking driving lessons, and she'll hunt for whatever part-time job she can find, preferably in a bookstore or library.

O. and Zoe are good friends

O. was only seventeen when she showed up in my nonfiction writing class this fall.  Many of the students were graduating seniors.  She wowed them with memoirs about her eccentric L.A. neighbors, her youthful forays into writing fantasy and young adult fiction, and her father's adventures in his native Costa Rica on the road with a flatulent pig.

For much of the fall, she would come to visit me in my office on the one day of the week when Zoe came with me, and we would talk about writing, then walk with Zoe and talk about everything else under the sun.

I only brought Zoe to campus for about 90 minutes a week, but on those days, there would be a line of students waiting to come to the office.  For a shy dog, Zoe enjoyed holding court, but her editorial advice was unreliable.  The manuscripts students handed in only interested her if the students had just come from the dining hall, and it's not easy to make an essay radiant with lyricism and original thought while also redolent of meat.

Lunch dates are fun, but I've never been a big one for going out for coffee.  Maybe because when I drink coffee or tea, I'm usually sitting behind this computer.  For me, conversation flows best when there's something to marvel at that is happening right in front of us.  Clouds shaped like brains floating overhead.  Trillium blooming. A three-legged dog swimming--something her surgeon last summer said she would probably not do again.  A three-legged dog reminding us that even when we make plans, all we ever have is now.

Day 99: Three Dog Morning, with Scones

What a joy it is to visit a former student and kindred spirit on a spring day in a garden that smells like summer.

We drive into the college town guided by the GPS, which sends us to the lovely home of Yogini Writer Teacher Mom and Architect Painter Musician and their two small sons and two old dogs and one ancient cat. 

When we first met in the early 90s, I was a few years younger than Yogini Writer Teacher Mom is now, and she was a sophomore in my writing class.  Through work we did on social justice issues on our campus, and our shared addiction to literature, we began a lifelong conversation that we resume every few years, as we can. The last time I saw her was at her wedding six years ago.  The time before that was at mine.

She has prepared a tray of scones and coffee cakes and fresh strawberries, which we enjoy in the garden.  Fresh tulips and lilies in vases, the magnolia tree out front, and the rich green grass all conspire to make me forget that it's March.

While the boys are in pre-school, we talk about teaching; writing; family; birth order and how it affects, well, everything; dogs; the eternal quest to fit writing into an extremely busy life; and my recent travels to India (where her great-grandparents fled the Nazis to practice medicine in Bangalore for ten years) and the time passes so quickly that at the end of it we wish we could just set the visit on rewind and relive those 90 minutes again.

Zoe is thrilled to be hosted by two elder statesdogs.  The team captain, a basset hound, is a proud old Southerner who expects Zoe and her people to follow strict protocols.  I learn this firsthand when I hug him and kiss his head, as I do so often with Zoe it's as automatic as breathing.  The team captain would prefer air kisses on a first encounter, or better yet, a handshake.  I apologize for my presumptuousness and he agrees to let me stay as long as I behave.

Mr. Gratitude is a black-and-white Heinz 57 that this family rescued from evil forces, which is why he and his entourage are traveling by their spy names today.

For months Mr. Gratitude and his mother, Helen Keller, were made to live on their own in a garage. Their person, who by all accounts truly loved them, had died, and her dandy son inherited the two senior pooches.  Said son is a man about town who was busy running for Dogcatcher.  With so much to do for the campaign, new suits to buy, shoes to keep shiny, babies to kiss, he couldn't find the time either to take his late mother's dogs in or find homes for them.  I guess he thought, hey, they're old.  Every few weeks or so he'd remember the dogs and bring a big trough of food for them, but he kept expecting them to be dead.  How disappointing it must have been for him to discover that, despite his best non-efforts, these two were survivors--in part because of the kindness of their neighbors.

Yogini Writer Teacher Mom kept her eye on these dogs, and visited them with her children, and now Mr. Gratitude is part of their family.   Two months ago, before he came home with them, he had no fur on him.  Now he has a lovely thick coat.  He is so sweet that it took great restraint on my part not to sneak away with him.

The vet and another neighbor are paying for Helen Keller's care. When they took her to the animal hospital she had 20 kidney stones.  She is also blind and deaf, but she may have life in her yet.

Yogini Writer Teacher Mom and Architect Painter Musician work full time.  YWTM teaches four courses a semester, all of them writing-intensive, and she spends her days grading endless stacks of papers when she's not looking after the two small boys, whom we picked up from their pre-school at lunchtime.  Yet this busy family found the means to save these dogs.

Zoe has had a lifelong fear of peppy little boys, but after a few minutes in the company of the three-year-old, who knew just how to approach her, she felt brave enough to meet the other children at the pre-school.  Under this young dog whisperer's calming influence she allowed herself to be petted by three small children at once, and as her closing act she ventured over, on her own initiative, to meet a baby.  This was a major milestone in Zoe's career as an ambassador for her kind.

But when it came to the cat, Zoe made no progress.  For her entire life she has hoped in vain to befriend a cat, or better yet, to find a cat who is willing to wrestle with her without using its claws, get her high on its catnip, then carry around her food and open doors for her.  Zoe wagged her tail and stared, and the cat stared back, but Zoe's shadow loomed too large against the wall for the cat to dare to venture inside.

Day 60: The Deep Root Cure

Yesterday I woke up with a headache.  I get them on the days I take Zoe for chemo, and they usually linger the day afterward.  It's no big deal.  They're just like some bad weather I'm moving through.  A lot of people get headaches.

It's odd, though, because I didn't grow up as a headache sufferer.  I only started getting them regularly this past summer, before we knew Zoe was sick.  When I took her to two vets to find out why she was limping, and they both said she was fine, but maybe had a touch of arthritis, the headaches got worse.  I got two whopping migraines--my first ever--the week before that Saturday when, on an impulse, I took her to the Canton Animal Hospital, where she wasn't a patient, and asked them to x-ray Zoe's leg before I knew what I was going to say.  Ever since we got the diagnosis, the migraines haven't come back.  Just the milder malaise headaches on chemo days.

If you've been following the posts in this corner, you might have sensed that this week for me was kind of intense.  I wanted to have a relaxing Saturday, but I also wanted to see if I could cure the headache without taking anything.  It was a challenge because I carry around Ibuprofen in my purse so it's always there when I need it.  I'm not a purist about these things, but I was attending a workshop on balancing one's energy, taught by two lovely sisters, Jan and Julie, and I thought that maybe I could put the workshop to the test and get to the root of the imbalance without just treating the symptoms.  And then after the workshop, I was going to take two students I have deep roots with, Lettie and Scott, to a party at Deep Root Farm.  It seemed like a good convergence of forces for experimenting with natural remedies.

A year ago December, my students and I ate a chicken at my house that Lettie and Scott had helped raise and slaughter at Deep Root Farm.

At the energy workshop, we started with a meditation I have done for years.  You picture deep roots growing down from your spine into the earth. That always takes away my excess nervous energy. Then you picture branches growing up through your body, out your head, that reach to the stars.

Jan and Julie

Jan told me at that the sixth chakra, which governs intuition, could be the source of the headaches.  Sensing something is wrong even when others are telling you all is well will certainly give you a pain in the head, even if you don't go in for this kind of thinking.

Halfway through the workshop, my headache began to lift.  The delicious, earthy red lentil soup and homemade bread that Ann made us for lunch helped too.  And I drank a lot of tea and water.

Then it was time to meet Scott and Lettie.  They were waiting for me in the parking lot of the bookstore at St. Lawrence University.  I love these students, and seeing them also reminds me of places I have been with them--excursions deep into the country up here with Lettie and her classmates from a first-year-seminar I taught called Widely Traveled in the North Country--and adventures in Quebec City and Rouen and Paris and Dakar with Scott and the students who traveled with me on the France program.  (To read Lettie's lovely prose, See Day 8: Lettie Discovers the Zen of Orange- Eating.  See Day 45: An American Dog in the City of Light, Part I, where Scott has a walk-on part.)

Lettie and Scott

But I still had the ghost of the headache when we arrived at the party, even though the drive was so lovely, out into the deep country, on a road I'd never been on before, past pastures of horses, and tree canopies laden with fresh snow. 

The cure crept up on me before I knew it.  I loved talking to Mike and Maria Corse, who own Deep Root Farm, and their son, Ian, who, at age 17, has already written a novel, which he was happy to turn into a 750-word story, because he gets that you have to cut/cut/cut and let go to be a good writer.  Val, my massage therapist was there.  And it was great to catch up with Lettie and Scott and other former students like Maddie and Mike and Claire.  Mia, who went to to France in the group Scott was in, came in from sledding and we were happy and surprised to see each other.  She volunteers for Campus Kitchens, which serves free suppers to hungry people in our community on Monday nights.  They get some of their food from Deep Root Farm, and Maria helps them.

Claire wants to be a farmer, as do a lot of this group's friends.  I spoke to an English major I'd never met before about the meditation class I'm taking, which she is going to take next month.  Some of us went outside and watched children skating on a pond, and watched the last of a bonfire become coal, and we checked out all the greenhouses where seedlings will get started soon.  And naturally we had a good talk with the chickens.

Scott, Lettie, Maddie, Ian

Deep Root Farm chickens

a new greenhouse at Deep Root Farm

We saw a lovely bird with blue markings and a white breast, and we all tried to guess what kind it was, but didn't know

Before we left, Scott and Lettie and I each had a mug of Mike's homemade soup.  He had made it with kale and squash that grew in these gardens we had just walked through.  It was so delicious, so nourishing, and it made me feel, for lack of a better word, balanced.  When we left the house, it was hard to believe I'd ever had a headache, or might ever get one again.

Then, homeward bound, and a gentle walk with Zoe across the river and back.  We looked at each other often on that walk.  She is always a bit subdued after chemo days, a little tired, and I am too.  I asked her when we should stop and she told me with just a slight nod of the head. When interspecies communication works, it always seems like it's the simplest thing in the world.

Sometimes what we need is very simple, so elemental.  To feel rooted to this earth.  Warm soup with legumes and vegetables that grew near the place where you are eating it.  The company of people who are kind and who are trying to plant themselves in a community where they can grow and be part of other people's growth.

Sometimes we don't have to travel very far or do very much to get what we need to cure what ails us.