My Sweet Dog - Thank You

I got bad news from the vet this morning.  Your tumors are growing aggressively, and the time is not long now.  The vet advised me against buying a big bottle of your pain medication; the time is that close, she figures.

I want to remember -I want to honor- what you've done for me.  Good heavens, sweetie, I just want to thank you.  I was still fairly broken from an ugly divorce when you came to me.  I was getting better, sure, but there was quite a ways yet to go.  You chose me.  And I hadn't been chosen in a really long time.  Like ever, maybe.  Thank you for whatever it was that you saw in me.

You've taught me that even now I can love another creature, that I can take great pleasure in "doing for" another being.  You've taught me that the occasional burdens (e.g. the 5:00 am walks -seriously was THAT necessary??) are worth it -and turn out sometimes to be gifts, after all.

I love how you sometimes come over to my bed when I'm in it, and snuggle your big head next to mine.  It's as though, in the middle of the night, you wake up and think "oh, I'd better go love on my person!" I love your big brown eyes and how you look straight at me.  I love how you let me rest my forehead on yours.  I love that soft spot on the side of your face.  I love how you've come to be trustworthy off-leash; you always turn to check on me and to make sure I'm nearby.  I love how on the very first day you lived with me, on our first walk, you turned right into the driveway.  You knew where "home" was.  And now I can let you off-leash and say, "go home" and I know you will.  You run with such delight toward the side porch.  If you're feeling really good, you leap the flower beds in your hurry to get there.  On regular days, you go around them, but still running with all your heart toward home.

You lead with your heart, you sweet boy, and I'm still learning to take that risk.  It's imaginable, in part, because of you.

Run, sweetheart.  Run with all your heart towards home.

Chatelaine????

Among other things, a chatelaine is a mistress of a castle.  I'm sure there were stumble-y, bumble-y disorganized chatelaines.  There must have been, right???  But my image is of a competent, graceful woman bringing order and calm in an almost invisible way; the castle ran smoothly because she was there.  Leaving aside the notion that this was the only possible role for a woman of privilege in the middle ages and probably many women felt trapped (because they were trapped), I further imagine a woman who loved the role.

Her.  I want to be her.

And yet, I want more than that.  I have the opportunity and the responsibility of restoring a 130-ish year old house to be the haven I envision.  I also have the parallel opportunities of crafting the life I want: the professional life, the scholarly life, the social life, the exercise, the family life, the domestic life, the fun.....  You get the idea.  I want to use "chatelaine" as a metaphor for all the other pieces of my life.  Quiet, graceful fabulous-ness.

We are so far from that ideal.  So very, very far.

Unlikely circumstances -or certainly, unforeseen ones- brought me here.  And to be fair, I have moved through wrenching phases of grief and terror and paralysis as I adjusted to this new life situation.  I survived, when I thought I couldn't. And I can see thriving, off in the distance, beckoning.  Yet, to get from here to there, I have to dig out of some really big holes.  Surely there can be grace, even in that.

That project.... becoming the chatelaine of my whole life.... that's what I'm trying to figure out here.  Do come in.  And welcome.  Just, please, pardon the dust.