Moose, 1998-2011

There should be a law … or a rule or at least an unspoken agreement … that writers should never acquire pets. Especially dogs. Most of us know how vulnerable we are to the slings and arrows of those we love; how easily crushed we are by the slightest breath that bodes anything less than good and perfect harmony. We expect that and build our barriers, construct our walls, fortify ourselves against those hurts that will inevitably come.

But we trust our dogs, just as they trust us. We know as surely as we know the sun will rise and set on the world somewhere today that our dog will love us and trust us and accept us even when we are at our worst. Few of us ever feel that way about another human, but we easily feel that way about our dog. So, we go on for years, taking him for granted, giving him our leftover time, showing him every side of our self that we would never trust to another human.

And we forget…conveniently, easily, too completely…that one day, no matter what, he will die. And take with him all the best there is in us and leave us alone with our worst. Very much alone. Alone in that total aloneness we can feel only after we know what it is to be loved absolutely and unconditionally, the way only our dog can love us.

I said goodbye to my friend, Moose, yesterday after 13 years of being loved by him and only sometimes being worthy of that love. My granddaughter says there is a dog heaven where he will be a puppy, again. I hope that’s true. Just in case there is something to life after death for the pets we love, I buried him on the bayou, very close to where he caught the dead fish and nudged the turtle shells and buried more things than I will ever find again.

Moose was the best dog ever. A much better companion than I will ever be. He set a good example. He will be greatly and unconditionally remembered and loved and missed.

Life in the Fast Lane

I should have saved all of my writings concerning the accidents in front of my house. I would have enough for a book by now. My affection for the traffic in my personal corner of the world began long ago, when I first moved to southern Louisiana. I soon became aware that no one can go anywhere without turning around in front of "the shop." The shop was my late husband's place of business. It's used for temporary storage, now, and the occasional indoor yard sale, (which, by the way, is an oxymoron, as I have recently been reminded); but the traffic pattern has remained the same.

Anyone who goes anywhere in my parish (county) must come here first to turn around. I have always suspected information is given out to strangers passing through, requesting directions to anywhere within, say, a 30 mile radius, ..."well, ya know dat shop dere, where da man uset ta sell dem tvs and veeceearahs? Well, ya go dere, sha, and ya make dis turn in da udder direction, den ya go ..."

I even suspect google maps, Garmin and Tom-Tom use this as the starting point for getting anywhere in the parish. They've just cleaned up the language, "go 2.2 miles then turn right, turn right, turn right, turn left, go ..." Coming from the other direction the miles change and the rights turn to lefts and vice versa, but the effect is the same. You cannot get anywhere in this parish without coming here first.

As a result, there have been a lot of bizarre accidents. There was the time a car ended up sitting on the broken shaft of the telephone pole. And the guy who dredged both of my ditches but managed to leap over the driveway right in the middle. Of course, we've had a couple of sugar cane trucks lying on there side. And more recently, some people may recall, a tire off one of those sugar cane trucks hit my front window and knocked one entire brick wall of my house away from the underlying wall.

Tonight I lost a mailbox. Actually, two were lost, but only one was mine. The other belongs to my neighbor across the street who has shared these vignettes of life with me over the past thirty years. Some light colored truck decided to take his ditch, this time, instead of the road, and that included plowing under our mailboxes and the post that held them up.

And then he kept on going. He lost a bumper, but kept on going.

Presumably, no one was hurt.

Mailboxes can be replaced. Grass will fill in. One more story to make me shake my head. One more story for the blog. Like Paul Harvey used to say after telling the rest of the story, "Good day ..."

Viktor Frankl and Having Choices

A young friend, today, reminded me of an author I have not considered in way too long. Viktor Frankl saved my life. The circumstances were long ago and far away and of not much consequence, anymore. But save my life, he did. And he probably deserves more frequent remembrance.

I do not often have difficulty expressing my thoughts about matters of deep meaning to me, but, it seems, I struggle here. I tried to assemble these thoughts into some sort of meaningful review that would, perhaps, inspire someone else to think thoughts differently. But still I struggle.

I will think on that more. Until then, I will share those particular words that were the most meaningful to me at the time, so many years ago, when I was someone else, but, in some ways, more me than I am now.

(Does it ever seem to anyone else that we are devolving instead of evolving? That we are born closer to who we are meant to be and we live our lives struggling to stay connected to that self, only to find the more we struggle the further away we get? It's sort of like drowning, in a way. If we could but trust that we were once fish, how easy it would be to swim. If we could cease the struggle ...)

The Words of Viktor Frankl

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.

More of his words can be found online. A life-changing experience,possibly, can be found in his book, Man's Search for Meaning.

And if I can find some sense of my thoughts, one day, I will write a more worthy review.

How come ...

I began my writing this evening with a small frozen daiquiri from a drive-through window. We have those here, in southern Louisiana. I actually never had to leave my car. I drove right up to the window on the side of the bar and told the girl at the window, whom I have known since before she was out of diapers, that I wanted a Margarita flavored frozen daiquiri. This was served to me in a styrofoam cup with a straw for convenience. A fast-food drunk on the road. I don't get it either. The whole business seems to me to be a recipe for disaster, but I am responsible enough not to take even one sip until I am back at home, out of my car, and comfortably ensconced for the night.

And I always try to sip slowly, as I imagine one would have sipped a mint julep out on the veranda of an overly large plantation home. Thinking about the plantation home necessarily creates images of slavery and abuse, spoiling the taste of the julep and breaking me unpleasantly free of reverie. As I strive for a more appropriate image, comes the pondering.

... after I have had just the right amount of an alcoholic beverage, words I have been searching for all day, all week, maybe for months, begin to tumble and roll and literally drop from my fingers. Forcing me to struggle to keep them from spilling all over the floor and oozing out the door and across the patio and plunging into the bayou, streaming inexorably to the ocean, exposing every thought I ever had not only to the gator and that awkward looking bird looking back at me from the water's edge but to every living thing on this earth.

How come?

How come words can't find me when I am already sitting at the keyboard, coffee cup comfortably close by, when I'm feeling lazy and at ease with myself and the world? How they can't line up, obediently, and stand there without moving until I can get them in their proper places, with time to check the hemlines, and the dirt behind the ears, and make the necessary adjustments?

I want to write sort of slow and southern with a little bit of sassy. I tend to believe more words are better than less - as long as there aren't too many more. Just enough to temper one's progress across and down the page, allowing time to savor the journey and encouraging the reader to sit back, settle in, stay awhile.

How come my words can't fall like that? Why does it always seem as if there were a pendulum swinging relentlessly between rush and struggle and absolute dearth of ideas? What do I do when my glass is empty?

Thinking Too Much

I have friends who say I think too much. Possibly, they are correct. For instance, when typing the title for this blog I debated on whether or not the word "too" should be capitalized. As a fledgling editor, that is probably something I should know, and I could easily look it up in my Chicago Style Manual or any of a number of places online.

But ... I don't and I didn't.

I did think about it.

I am sitting on the patio, cup of coffee at hand and thinking about not thinking.


It is in moments like these that I feel just a twinge of panic, a fear of what I will feel when I can no longer sit on the patio, watch the bayou, listen to the birds, look for old owl. I had a moment last night, when I was out with friends listening to good Cajun music, and trying to dance the Cajun two-step while discovering that I cannot talk and dance at the same time. It was in those moments, between dances, when I sat back to watch others dance, that I recalled one of my first impressions of Louisiana.

Everybody here, no matter the age or the mental ability, dances when the accordion plays. It is a joy to watch families, from toddlers to octagenarians, taking to the floor and doing a more than passable two-step. Last night, as I watched, I had more than a moment to miss that.

This morning is another of those moments. I don't have the photographic ability to catch the shimmer of the water in the morning sun, nor the ability to record the birds as their conversation carries from tree to tree. I have only my words to say, this morning, that good-bye, even when it's right, sometimes carries as much pain as when it is wrong.

Existential Angst

If one were to look for an underlying, intertwining theme in my writing, I think it would have to be 'angst.' But for those who may read this and have no idea who I am or what years I have lived, I should confess that I am sixty years ... of age. Neither young nor old. I have lived on this earth for that number of years plus some days

Angst is more tolerable when one is a teenager. Charming, at times. Most definitely expected. Sexagenarian angst just doesn't so easily roll off the tongue. It would, no doubt, be obnoxious if not for the philosophers who saved those much like myself by supplanting the word "teenaged" with the word "existential."

Existential Angst. Now, doesn't that sound better?

I am most heartily delighted that the existential field of philosophy was invented. One can get away with sounding just like one knows what one is talking about - just by adding one word. Existential.

Existential angst. An hours long intellectual discussion plus months and months - maybe years - of therapy are summarized in those two words. And the really great thing is, the meaning is so vague, no one dares to question too deeply lest one should appear less learned.

So, here I sit, wallowing in my existential angst, eagerly anticipating the evening shadows that lend a certain sophistication to the next glass of wine. Because wine too early in the day would be, well, gauche.

It's not fair ...

...that I should inspired to post two writings in one day when I go for so many days without a word to say to anyone. But I have been watching the movie, "Julia and Julie", and wondering if I could do something out of the ordinary every day for one year that would be worthy of writing about. No sooner had I wondered it than I decided, "no". Not just "no" but an emphatic "NO!"

I often feel as Julie felt - that I have ADD. I only wish I had felt it first. At least if I had claimed it first, I would have a really great excuse for not finishing what I start. If I claim it now, I will be perceived as a copy-cat.

Yes, much better to have an excuse that is not of one's own making than to admit that I lack the courage to see things through. Because, you know, once something is done, it is done. Others then feel compelled to pass judgement on the completed project. I don't know why that is. I don't finish things to suit others, but it seems they invariably feel it is so. Therefore, if one can postpone completion, one can postpone judgement day.

I knew a writer, once, who made the commitment to write one poem a day. The courage in that was his willingness to accept his own imperfections. He was willing to show himself less than perfect.

I still struggle with imperfection. I see it in myself readily enough. But I enjoy the comfort of deluding myself that others do not - cannot - see it.

So, what did I do today that is worthy of being put to paper?

I drank two glasses of wine while watching Julie channel Julia.

Different for me because I usually drink one glass - when I drink at all. Different because I usually don't drink at all.

Although I seem to be able to write much more when I do.

Perhaps the wine will encourage me to channel a writer. Yes, at this point, most any writer would do.

But Dorothy Parker would do best.

It took me awhile ...

.. to figure out how to sign into blogspot without going all the way around the web and back. You see, they changed the sign-in somewhere along the way - while I was on one of my many hiatuses - when they apparently became part of google; but I don't even know if that is true. I only know that when I request to sign in I am automatically taken to a sign-in page for gmail. I tried to switch my sign-in procedure to my gmail account, but I was rebuffed. Yes, rebuffed. At every turn. In frustration I entered my original yahoo sign-in address into the gmail box and wah-la! I am in.

Yes, I know that is not the French way to spell that word, but I am not French. My name is a misnomer. A direct attempt to fool the observer. Trompe l'oiel! I seriously do not believe I have even one cell of French blood in my body. I am French in name only. A poseur, as a writer friend of mine would have said some years ago - when that was his favorite word. His 'word of the day' word. That hung around for more than a day. Ad nauseum, actually. And that, I think, is Latin.

So, this is the disclaimer. I am not French. I am many things, a collaboration of things, a veritable melting pot of things! But, mostly, I am Polish. Long o.

Mostly only because fifty percent of my genetic makeup came from a father who was 100% Polish. At least, as far as I know. Legend has it that my grandparents met on the boat coming over from the 'old country.' But that legend came from my mother who most likely heard it from my father. I met my paternal grandparents once, apparently. When I was about three months old. Part of the legend.

My mother was a lot kinder than I am. She was fond of creating legends that leant a gentleness to life that did not otherwise exist.

Are there any real legends out there? And do any of them really matter? I am not my grandparents. I am not my mother. And I am sure as hell not my father. Just as most everybody else, I am who I am. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But always, and forever, just that - who I am.

And a couple of glasses of wine make that somewhat better than it really is.

Ahhh, dysFUNctional!

Seems a woman was arrested today in southern Louisiana for assaulting her boyfriend with a frozen piece of meat.

The boyfriend told police she became angry when she went to chill her mixed drink and the glass wouldn't fit in the freezer. So she slapped him in the face with a frozen beefsteak. They booked her with aggravated battery.

What exactly does that mean? Wouldn't you have to be at least a little bit aggravated to batter somebody? And, even then, isn't aggravated a bit of an understatement?

Just one more reason for becoming vegetarian. I doubt my package of frozen broccoli would have had quite the same impact. Nor would it have made such a good story.

Although it might have been as good as the burglar who was arrested after leaving his cell phone at the scene of the robbery ...

My friend Eileen was right ... we sure know how to put the fun in dysfunctional!

Did I Ever Tell You?

... about the time I pulled up to a drive-in window at a local fast-food establishment and ordered a large drink and the person taking the order told me she couldn't give me that because they only had small and medium?

Can somebody tell me why that isn't funny? I still recall my difficulty keeping a straight face. Truthfully, I thought at first she was deliberately making a joke, and I was momentarily impressed with her cleverness. Until I realized she was serious and had no idea why her response was funny.

After telling this story a number of times, I have yet to find anyone else who thinks it's particularly funny. Can someone please explain, why not?

For awhile I thought that would be my magic pea. Like in the story the princess and the pea, only I was looking for a prince and the pea was a fast-food story that nobody thought was funny. Except me. And, of course, the prince. Whom I haven't found, yet. Apparently.