A Dog and his Human

I'm a Labrador-lover.  This breed has a claim on my heart, and that's that.  Shamrock (a black Lab) was my first dog.  He died too soon, and taught me SO much.  And I learned after his death that I not only missed that particular dog, I missed dog.  I missed the dog lifestyle.

What on earth is that, you ask?  Fair enough.  I missed walking around the neighborhood with my dog.  I missed a dog in the back seat on Saturday errands.

I missed the excuse to go to nearby forest preserves and parks.  I missed not feeling quite so much like a nut when I talked out loud to myself; I could always pretend I was talking to the dog, after all.

So, I got Finnegan - the yellow Lab.  He was a 7 week old puppy when he came to his forever home, and we've been through the wringer, he and I.   There's a big difference between a puppy and a 2 year old dog, who's actually sick and has a fairly calm temperament to begin with.  Finnegan and Shamrock are nothing alike, when you get right down to it.

So, this dog lifestyle that's in my head as a perfect picture has nothing to do with the dog lifestyle I'm actually living.  The picture-perfect version is a well-trained dog, who never ever has accidents in the house, who goes in the kayak, who goes eagerly with me on road trips, who camps with me, who lets me sleep in on the weekends (how he might know it's the weekend.... well, this is the fantasy picture, after all!).  Oh, and a dog who is politely tired from all these activities and leaves me alone when I need to work or entertain or talk on the phone or....

Also, in this fantasy, my house is the perfect dog-house without crossing over into crazy animal-lover territory.  So, there would be cute dog beds in almost every room (keeps him off the furniture, in my fantasy), there would be cute dog toy boxes full of stimulating toys.  The back yard would have things for him to do, and a lovely fence so that he could play safely.  I would make all his food and store it in clever containers in the deep freeze (that I don't have).  There certainly would not be dog hair here, there, and everywhere.

As is usual for me, the actual situation is somewhat different.  He wakes me up at 5:30 in the morning.  I am a terrible grump at 5:30; I don't see this changing about myself anytime soon.  I sling on whatever clothes I can find for a quick 1/2 mile walk.  I sometimes feed him homemade food; more often, I rely on over-priced, ecologically burdensome, but well-rated commercial dog food.  We do a lot of things together, but not really enough, when you take his youth and energy level into consideration.  And my house and yard are really not dog friendly, so that needs work, too.

I more than half-worry that I should not have gotten such an active dog as a single person.  Is my crazy work schedule and busy life incompatible with living with a dog?  Is it fundamentally unkind to such a great dog?  He loves me, I know he does.  But am I doing right by him?  Because I am so crazy about him, though, those are the wrong questions -even they plague me.  The only right question is how to make sure he has a great life.

I think he would like to run with me.  I am not a runner, but it's something I'd like to conquer.  A slow jog would be fine, come to that.  If I could walk even just 1 mile at that early morning walk, doubling our distance, I think he would like that better than the short walk we're taking now -and it would be a nice bit of extra exercise for me.  If we could add another walk to our days, making three good walks daily, I think that would help.  We need to always be in a training class or an organized activity; it helps our relationship enormously if we are learning together.  We're going to do the Advanced Manners class until he easily passes his Canine Good Citizen test.  We're also going to do the outdoor group hiking class.  In the winter, we should do rally or nose-work classes.

We're headed into good weather, so I need to stop relying on the dog park so much and get out to parks and preserves more regularly.  I absolutely must develop a rainy day plan for us.  I need to take him with me to the pet food store and anywhere else that he can go (Lowes?  Home Depot?) 

He goes to daycare twice a week.  It's okay with me if that goes to three times a week in the deepest part of the winter.

But on the non-daycare days when I have to work, I either need a dog walker or I need to go home for a lunch-time walk-around.  Again, it will be good for me, better for my house, and better for my dog.  One of those days, I bet I could stay at home and work from home for the afternoon - at least sometimes.   On the weekends, we need to spend significant amounts of time together, that's all there is to it.



I must, I really must ensure that the house is safe and inviting for him.  Poisonous plants must be removed from the yard.  Remodeling clutter has to be picked up every single day, even if the workers are coming back tomorrow.  The yard needs to be tended, in any case.  If I can figure out a way to keep him safe, he can be out there with me while I work.  He has a toybox full of outdoor toys.  I also have agility equipment that we need to make better use of.  He needs a paddling pool.

And, on busy days, we can relax together in the evening.  We can sit by the firepit.  I can have wine, and he can have a bone.  We can sit in front of the fireplace in the winter. 

We can watch TV on nights when nothing else is possible.  If I read aloud to him, he can practice for the Library's kid-reading program.

We need to get back to short and sweet training sessions throughout the day.  5 minutes at a time, 3 or 4 times a day, would be great.

 In short, we're in this together, he and I.  Whether or not I have the energy, these things need to happen.

Opening up to possibility when you feel paralyzed

Publicly, and even with good friends, I laugh off my paralysis about making big decisions.  "I can over-think anything."  I pretend, without saying so explicitly, that my discomfort with big decisions is just the shadow side of being smart.  I think too much.

Well, THAT'S obnoxious.  This psychological deflection is because I am avoiding harder truths, but it's still obnoxious.

So I am publicly admitting that I do this rude thing and that I will stop.

For the rest of this reflection to make sense, you need to know a bit of the back story.  I stayed in a marriage that was abusive and emotionally crippling.  At first, I was afraid of what might be on the other side of ending the marriage; uncertainty kept me there.  Eventually, though, the abuse worked.  I was grateful to be in that dark marriage because I believed he was right about me.  I was entirely certain that I couldn't survive on the other side.  The thing about walking that path with an abuser is that he needs a strong opponent to feel strong himself.  Once I was no longer strong, I was used up.  Being discarded was inevitable.  And I lied about it - to myself and everyone else.  I spun a tale - quite an effective one, as it happens- that we were happy and healthy and having fun.  I desperately needed that to be the story.

I have feared big decisions and uncertainty for a long time -possibly always-  and apparently to the point where I will hide behind untruths to avoid confronting them.  Who is this crazy woman??  And of course, that fear led straight to the heap of woe that doesn't take a rocket scientist to predict.  Had he not left me, I would still be in that marriage, I am quite sure of it.  Generous, loving friends have tried to reframe what I did as loyalty.  I stayed because I am fundamentally a good person, the story goes.  Thank you, dear ones.  I love that you see me that way, but I stayed because I was paralyzed by uncertainty and fear.

Obviously then, there is no lack of evidence that paralysis rooted in uncertainty does not serve me.  And yet.... I am doing it again, and this time without the excuse of an abuser in my life.  This time, it's on me.  There is a nagging feeling and mounting external evidence that it's time for me to make more life changes, and I'm resisting.  Who's surprised?  This time, though, I have the advantage of knowing that I can survive disruption.  It took lots of people lots of effort, true enough, to get me through that first disruption.  But eventually I was strong enough to take over the work myself.  We're here now, and it's better than "there" ever was.

I also know a little about how I got through that disruption; I now have a skillset of a sort.  I took baby steps.  Absurdly small steps sometimes.  But forward motion is forward motion; even small steps set a trajectory.  My job right now is just to take a step forward, not to have all the answers.  Nine years ago, I could not have envisioned this marvelous life I now have.  Literally, I did not have the tools to even imagine the changes I have experienced.  I knew barely enough to take baby steps away from terror and pain.  This time,  all I have to do is take steps from the marvelous vaguely toward the more marvelous.  Even I - fearing uncertainty as I do- understand that this moves takes less courage than the first one.  Baby steps.

You can't lifehack your way through this

I admit to a small (former) fascination with life hacks.  Maybe there is some little trick that, if I just do that one little thing, my life smooths out and becomes the picture I have in my head.  At the very least, it is pleasing to get more done in the same amount of time, or to have a little bit of technology relieve me of some burden.  My life-plan depends on getting things done efficiently - or at the very least staying out of my own way.  Life hacks seem like a good way of avoiding unnecessary effort, drama, and inefficiency.  But I'm coming to the conclusion that they are just an avoidance behavior.

At first I mis-identified the problem as definition drift, almost to the point of meaningless-ness.  Oh, that problem exists, right enough.  The term life hack originally meant using technology in some clever new way to solve a problem.  Then it came to mean using anything to save time or solve a problem.  Now it seems to mean just any little trick at all; these used to be known as good ideas.  I quote here from Urban Dictionary:

A: "Did you know that if you take a shampoo bottle, pour some shampoo on your hand, and mush it into your head when you're in the shower, your hair will smell better? Lol, my favorite life hack!"
B: "Shut up." 

Then I considered the possibility that there was a shaming quality to the suggestions.  Check these google results for "life hack" out.

"20 life hacks to solve problems you never thought about"  Isn't that just another way of saying "a solution without a problem"?

"40 things you've been doing wrong all your life" Isn't that just another way of saying "you're too stupid to have figured out the things I've known all along"?

I don't need to feel worse, or to waste my time solving non-problems, true.  But there's more to my aggravation than pique at a tone of voice or imprecise use of the language.  We've got ourselves a bigger problem.  Life hacks are purely external. Hang the clothes this way rather than that.  Store the cups in the cupboards that way rather than this.  OK, fine.   But here are the goals I set for myself when my life first took this turn into single living: (copying and pasting from my 400-page annual plan.  We'll talk about THAT another day!!)

Replace shame with power.  Invent your world.  Surround yourself with color, sounds, and work that nourish you.  I want to be able to say, truthfully,

·         I am safe

·         I am grounded

·         I am balanced

·         I am worthy

·         I am healthy

·         I surround myself with beauty

·         I am grace-full with my friends and family

·         I make a difference

·         I am thriving.

     Ummm.... wow.  Those are some important tasks, Miss Missy, and that's not even all of them. And they involve considerable internal work, in addition to the external.    Prior to the external, most likely.  You can't life hack your way through this stuff.  Just as an example.... until I can consider the possibility that I am worthy of being healthy, it probably doesn't matter if I pack my gym bag the night before or sleep in my gym clothes rather than pajamas.  I won't go to the gym.  I'll find something else to do; I just know it.  The problem with life hacks is that they have us focused on the trivial.  That's what we do when the essential scares us, which is pretty much the definition of avoidance behavior.

I     Here's the real problem.  I get it that feelings of being worthy, and grounded, and balanced require the long game.  In the meantime, though, my cardiovascular health-requirements are the same as anyone else's.  I need to exercise, even while feeling unworthy.  I need to act as though I am balanced, even though I am spectacularly not - otherwise I will never set appropriate boundaries.  Where are the life hacks for that??  Once again, it seems that I will have to figure this thing out myself.

      But first, I am going to rearrange the cups in the cupboard. Couldn't hurt.  Might help.

Camel Pose - My Nemesis

That's what camel pose is supposed to look like.  Mine doesn't.  It never has.  Even years ago, when yoga was a constant and welcome presence in my life, I grumped about this pose.  My shoulders and upper body have never been the most flexible and open parts of my body, and that's all the thought I gave the matter.

Now, it's even worse.  My shoulders and upper body are like a rock. Did someone sneak into my house and pour concrete in there while I was sleeping??  My knees are so fragile and out of sorts, I don't even like getting this pose set up - before I even start to backbend.  So, when camel pose showed up at an allegedly-restorative yoga class, I sighed and rolled my eyes.  What's restorative about camel pose, for pity's sake?

It's also true that I tend to tune out the yoga homiletics/chatter that fill the air in a yoga class.  I love metaphor more than the average bear,  but "breathe into your big toe" can only take you so far.  Last night, though, something the teacher said got through my carefully erected barriers, through the pain and aggravation caused by attempting this posture at all. "Sometimes people fight with this posture, because you have to look back to release."  Technically, it's true.  You push your hips forward to make that straight line from your knees to your hips, even though the temptation is to lean back from the knees in order to reach your feet.  It's the pushing forward that makes the room you need to arch your back so beautifully.  Arching your back allows your focus to be behind you.  The reaching back to your feet needs the space made by that rear view.  So, the whole thing is counter-intuitive and an interesting -if annoying- puzzle.

But it's the metaphor that slammed me, last night.  I have to look back to release?  Oh crap.  What if that's true?  I have taken some pride in trying to end the looking back.  Surely I've done enough of that??  ( I know that there's more to explore there, but what would I get other than more lyrics to the "he done me wrong" song?)  I'm just sick and tired of hinging everything on past narratives.  Math-Rat doesn't get to be associated with anything I make of my life now.  He can't have this, too.  I really think I couldn't stand it. 

Here's the thing, though.  What if I've been stumped by camel pose for so long for reasons more subtle than stiff shoulders?  What if it might even work the other way 'round?  What if my stiff shoulders come from not looking back to release?  And, is there a way to do that, without giving away my personal agency - because that's essential.  I've said before that I don't want a hard shell of toughness and distrust to be how I encounter the world from here forward, even though I understand why people make that choice.  Intentional softening as a protection..... maybe there's something there to think about.  If nothing else, I might get camel pose for the first time in my life.

Taking the Easy Way

Let's be clear, I don't think that taking the hard way is always the morally superior way.  But sometimes, I do think I cop out a bit. Right this minute, I'm thinking about this as it pertains to Finnegan.  To be slightly grandiose, I sometimes think that my work and relationship with Finn are a big giant symbol of how the rest of my life is going.  And because this space is where I come to figure things out, this is what we're going to reflect on today.

There is a dog park in town, and it's a delight.  It's an easy way for Finn to get off-leash time and still be safe.  I'm pretty sure that if I let him off-leash in a regular park, he'd be in Indianapolis before he started to wonder where that lady with the food had gotten to.  Most of the time, the other dogs and the other people at the park are competent and careful.  I've met some really interesting people there.  All is well.

But/and going to the dog park takes no effort on my part.  I can keep a watchful eye on Finnegan and still relax.  It's the perfect solution for exercising Finn after work, or when I'm too stressed to figure out where to go and what to do with him.  Seriously now, how sad is that?  I'm too tired to figure out what to do with him?  That, right there, cuts zero mustard in the relationship building process.  I can do better than that.  Besides, I've said before that exercising with Finn is part of how I intend to reclaim my own physical fitness.

So, there's no problem, per se, with going to the dog park.  Finn has fun there, and he has things to learn there -  including how to come when called when there are distractions.  This is a good thing.  But he needs to practice that in other, less challenging environments first.  We have trails to hike and classes to attend and races to run.   We have rivers to swim and kayak.  There are things to do and adventures to have.  We're busy creatures, Finn and I.  Do we have time for the easy way out?

Only sometimes.

But because this is about baby step transformations,  we are only adding two little things in the next week or so: advanced manners class begins on Monday and, because it appears that there might be one nice day in the next week or so, we'll go to Shabbona Lake State Park that day.  On a long lead, it's possible that I will let him swim a bit.

Body Vitality and Self-Awareness

Can I just say that I am uncomfortable with the current metaphors around both obesity and physical fitness?  First of all, we can dispense with the notion that those are mutually exclusive situations.  Moreover, I am equally uncomfortable with fat shaming and language suggesting that "throw up in a bucket"-level workouts are the only ones worth doing.  I don't know if this is some sort of pronouncement about how things ought to be -I'm not beyond pronouncement-making, right enough.  But I know there is something about my goals that is not captured in these extreme metaphors.

Here's the situation.  I'm 58 years old.  It's not the same as 28, but there's no particular reason to sign up for a walker just yet.  I've had a life of comparative privilege and good health; I like to believe that this will contribute to a long and healthy rest-of-life.  I used to be in kick-ass shape, so I know what that feels like.
But that is spectacularly not the situation we have now.  When the need to reclaim my life was urgent, I dropped working out from the schedule.  I needed those hours for finding food, and shelter, and sanity.  Yet, I continued -then and now- to claim that working out is important to me.  So, now I've gained 35 pounds and there are aches and pains that annoy me.  (Seriously, if people just accept these as the inevitable consequence of aging, I am living proof that that's not the case.  But I see how you can make the mistake.)  My clothes don't fit, and I don't like the way I look.  I'm trying to write these things without feeling shame.  I do also think that I made the best decision I could make at the time, with the resources I had.  But surely things are different now.  Right??!!!

I also think that metaphors and theoretical frameworks are important.  Our thinking shapes our decisions, after all.  This is one of those times when the past is the enemy of my future goals.  If I think that the only legitimate workout is a 50 mile bike ride (which used to be easy), then I won't workout for a really long time.  If I think certain yoga poses that used to be fun challenges and are now tormenting impossibilities are the only ones worth doing, then I won't do yoga either.  It's easy to complete this line of thinking with hiking, rock climbing, kayaking..... pretty much everything.  OK, there's something more I'm not articulating to you or to myself, here.  It's also true that back in the dark days of being married, family exercise and family vacations were centered around demonstrating that Math-Rat was supremely fit.  We would do some ridiculous activity -hiking the Appalachian Trail or caving- which was VERY HARD.  He would then define it to be no big deal.  The fact that we found it hard made us... less.  Less worthy.  Less fit.  Less of everything.  We never quite met his standards, and he made sure we knew it.  The fact that I never called the question and asked when the fun was going to start continues to shame me.  I also still struggle to believe that excellence is even something I should strive for.  Maybe I should be content with my less-than status. Embracing excellence without punishment isn't as easy as it sounds, when even the fitness industry conspires to have us believe that elite fitness is the only thing worth wanting.  But I have to walk my path.  I want to celebrate fitness rather than beating weakness out of me; the difference feels important.

So, the current situation is bad.  That's obvious.  What do I want the future to be?  I want to lose about 50 pounds.  I want to be a 5.9 climber - which is mid-level climbing; currently I'm at 5.easy (which is what they call the climbs that are too easy to bother rating).

I want to run 5K's regularly. I feel no urgency about or interest in marathons.  Regular 5Ks where I run the whole thing and finish reasonably or towards the top of my age-category could be fun. I want to have yoga as a daily part of my life again and to regain my flexibility and strength.  Yes, there are pinnacle postures that I want to re-gain.  We'll see.  I want to swim 3 or 4 miles a week every week for the rest of my life; right now I'm horrified to even put on a swimsuit.  But if I do, then I can stretch to a half-mile swim.  I want to take long slow bike rides on the weekends, and not worry about whether I am going fast enough or far enough to suit someone else.  And maybe throw in some dancing on the weekends just for fun.  And what happened to scuba diving and kayaking???  Where did those things go?

I want a body that reflects how I feel inside, that tells the truth about who I am.  And if my clothes fit better, I wouldn't complain.  

There are at least two problems with this newfound thinking.  I've still done nothing to figure out where planned, efficient, AND fun exercise goes in my days - and this is a non-trivial problem.  And I know that I do also have the tendency to let myself off the hook.  I give myself permission to go less far, work less hard because I've embraced the middle-way, don't you know, and that's morally superior.  Ok.  But a little bit of stretch now and again can be a good thing.  Holding myself accountable..... I'll need some help there.  So stand by for further musings on this topic.  There is still considerable work to be done.

But in the interest of abandoning all or nothing thinking, I am going to yoga class tonight.  I have my clothes.  I have my mat.  I blocked out the time.  It's not the 13 hours a week I think I need to get the whole thing done.  It's an hour and a half.  I can do that, surely.