starting to finish things i've started
Friday, April 1, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Love is a Wild Dog
Last night, at 12:30 am, when I was letting my dog out to go to the bathroom in my backyard, she ran away. My surroundings are a small town in the mountains, with no street lights or sidewalks. There is a large hill, a small mountain, that our unfenced backyard pours into, and up that hill she ran at full speed. Why, I don't know. She had run away, over the mountain, once before, and that night had been conjured out of a nightmare. Finding her had been like finding a needle in a haystack. It ended when after 45 minutes of clawing at the rough and hilly earth in the dark, screaming her name, much like a dog myself, I sat down to cry, convinced I wouldn't find her. At that moment, she tumbled down the mountain, barking anxiously, into my arms.
This time was the same. It had been raining, so the moon was hidden by a dark haze. There were no streetlights, my dog is very dark, the color of night, save for white markings on her head and chest. My dog isn't very loud, she rarely barks. When she moves, she is agile and dainty, and doesn't make noisy food prints. I could hear her tags jingling, and so I, barefoot and in pajamas, ran up the mountain in the dark as fast as I could. Scanning the landscape below me, I was once again convinced I would not find her. We hadn't lived here long enough, hadn't gone on enough neighborhood walks for her, or I, to be familiar with the area. After a few minutes, she surfaced in the driveway of a home, lit up by the house's exterior light. I tumbled down the mountain on my behind and was on her before she could bolt away again. There was no anger inside of me as we walked on the roads to lead up to my home, even though my feet were bruised and kept collecting rocks and glass, I was cold, wet, and covered in dirt. My dog, a rescue, has her limits. She never comes when called outside. She doesn't understand that running away will culminate in a loss of a bed, toys, food, and walks. I know her limits and I accept that I am her caretaker, the caretaker of the good behaviors and the bad, and those limits are what make her the animal she is. When we got inside my house and I dried her feet off, she was shaking. She was scared; those few moments of the exhilaration of running full-force and adventure coalesced into the fear of not knowing where she was. She could also probably sense my fear and that probably did not help her confusion.
I recently lost a love. I am 30 years old and thought I had found "the one". How silly. Even my cognitive brain knows that there is no "one". There is only timing, coincidence, enjoyment, and mutual determination. No matter, this time it was love sent down from the cosmos. We would be one another's everything. And so everything was framed in relation to her, or should I say, to my desire, my happiness and expectations. Like my Juliet, she was the sun, the east, the west. There was all that energy coursing out of me like a black hole, with none of the awareness of the limits. The limits of space, time, and mutual determination. I thought my determination and my total knowing that this was it could be enough for both of us. How silly. You can't climb a mountain that doesn't want to be climbed. You can't find a dog that doesn't want to be found.
I had forgotten that love is a wild dog. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it runs away. Sometimes it runs away because it is afraid, or sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to the fleeing pattern. To try to run after it full force in the hopes of sliding your fingers under its collar in the dark night to drag it home is futile. There are limits, even to a love that courses through your body and heart like an electric shock, uncontrollable, which is what this love had done to me.
But now I remember, and I cannot forget. There is timing and there is space and there are limits. What I shared with my lost love doesn't go away, though it will never come back, quite the same way for me, in my life. What remains is the reminder of who we are and what we can't control, nor should we ever want to. The opening of a heart, the feeling of hope. The comfort and familiarity in a voice, in someone's hands and eyes. The fracturing, the fear that so often is the flip side of intimacy, and the walls erected, like a labrynth made out of dark, cold stone, that signal the inevitable end. I look at my wild dog laying at my feet, made up of licks and nuzzling and silky fur, and whining and dirt and shitting and I thank her, for letting me find her in the dark, and letting me continue to enjoy her, and care for her, for as long or as short our time together will last.
This time was the same. It had been raining, so the moon was hidden by a dark haze. There were no streetlights, my dog is very dark, the color of night, save for white markings on her head and chest. My dog isn't very loud, she rarely barks. When she moves, she is agile and dainty, and doesn't make noisy food prints. I could hear her tags jingling, and so I, barefoot and in pajamas, ran up the mountain in the dark as fast as I could. Scanning the landscape below me, I was once again convinced I would not find her. We hadn't lived here long enough, hadn't gone on enough neighborhood walks for her, or I, to be familiar with the area. After a few minutes, she surfaced in the driveway of a home, lit up by the house's exterior light. I tumbled down the mountain on my behind and was on her before she could bolt away again. There was no anger inside of me as we walked on the roads to lead up to my home, even though my feet were bruised and kept collecting rocks and glass, I was cold, wet, and covered in dirt. My dog, a rescue, has her limits. She never comes when called outside. She doesn't understand that running away will culminate in a loss of a bed, toys, food, and walks. I know her limits and I accept that I am her caretaker, the caretaker of the good behaviors and the bad, and those limits are what make her the animal she is. When we got inside my house and I dried her feet off, she was shaking. She was scared; those few moments of the exhilaration of running full-force and adventure coalesced into the fear of not knowing where she was. She could also probably sense my fear and that probably did not help her confusion.
I recently lost a love. I am 30 years old and thought I had found "the one". How silly. Even my cognitive brain knows that there is no "one". There is only timing, coincidence, enjoyment, and mutual determination. No matter, this time it was love sent down from the cosmos. We would be one another's everything. And so everything was framed in relation to her, or should I say, to my desire, my happiness and expectations. Like my Juliet, she was the sun, the east, the west. There was all that energy coursing out of me like a black hole, with none of the awareness of the limits. The limits of space, time, and mutual determination. I thought my determination and my total knowing that this was it could be enough for both of us. How silly. You can't climb a mountain that doesn't want to be climbed. You can't find a dog that doesn't want to be found.
I had forgotten that love is a wild dog. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it runs away. Sometimes it runs away because it is afraid, or sometimes there is no rhyme or reason to the fleeing pattern. To try to run after it full force in the hopes of sliding your fingers under its collar in the dark night to drag it home is futile. There are limits, even to a love that courses through your body and heart like an electric shock, uncontrollable, which is what this love had done to me.
But now I remember, and I cannot forget. There is timing and there is space and there are limits. What I shared with my lost love doesn't go away, though it will never come back, quite the same way for me, in my life. What remains is the reminder of who we are and what we can't control, nor should we ever want to. The opening of a heart, the feeling of hope. The comfort and familiarity in a voice, in someone's hands and eyes. The fracturing, the fear that so often is the flip side of intimacy, and the walls erected, like a labrynth made out of dark, cold stone, that signal the inevitable end. I look at my wild dog laying at my feet, made up of licks and nuzzling and silky fur, and whining and dirt and shitting and I thank her, for letting me find her in the dark, and letting me continue to enjoy her, and care for her, for as long or as short our time together will last.
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