I’ve frantically looked for another cockapoo. It’s a bit like Houdini and his wife. I’ve known despair. A rapid cycling of the stages of grief. I noticed that when Laura came I had feeling again. I’ve been pushing myself through the motions. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what he would want too. I know he’s with me. Heaven exists inside. I am the bubble, make me the sea. God is all and everything. There is nothing but God. God is the alpha and the omega. He is and he isn’t. There is naught but God. The one thought. I am inside his design. My life is a destiny. My dog’s life was a companion for a decade. Condolences and cards and other dog owners who understand. Men and women who have lost their pets and know that they are family. Childless. Now dog less.
I have always known a freedom that men with wives and children and regular jobs have not apparently known. I’ve felt little constraint. Even now I wonder about Gender Reassignment Surgery. I want a new life. I once thought of suicide. Adolescent self importance. Not much. Now adulting. The divorces were so terrible. The lies and betrayals. The mutual pain. Good woman rage.
There was that time of contemplation on death and change. Decades cross legged for hours of each day. Decades on my knees beside beds praying. We are alone and together. I miss those I loved who have passed away.
Right now I just don’t know what I want. The ambivalence of my mind is personified as the au drab and au femme. The self and the shadow. What the world wants and I want. Superego and Id. All the heavy demands on me as a male and the ‘Myla Cyress Wrecking Ball’ with all the power of complaint. The wanton distribution of victim cards. I’d be keening today if I could work my tongue. Imagine the tribes that taught their children to keen. I just read of tribes that killed the smart children because they attracted the tyranny. I fall short of the stiff upper lip. I’m not depressed just grieving. Confused. Each day had a pattern that Gilbert, my dog imposed, or rather, invited. He had such good ideas. Let’s go explore, he ‘d say. Let’s walk. Let’s hunt. Let’s play ball. My world has lost it’s rudder.
Covid has placed so many restraints on us. Aging has complicated matters even more. Aging seems truly facing loss with grace or gracelessly. I’m rather graceless. Not that I want to be. I suppose I always wanted to be the gifted one socially. Now my gifts are many and different. I am blessed and thankful.
Yet I don’t know. Younger I might have handled the absence of direction with joining a foreign war. I thought to be a missionary doctor. As a physician I went north and served in the dangerous and desperate. I’ve worked in the areas of ‘greatest need’. Right now it seems I’m wanted in my work. People seem to care that I show up for duty on that ship. I’m a decent navigator. Right now they’re thankful for warm bodies and trained eyes for watches. I have vast wealth of knowledge that makes these tasks so easy compared to what they were when I was younger. Young I was challenged. I understand women dying their hair pink. I understand the insane. I’m losing it. I was insane by definition , that first day, holding a dead body in my arms thinking of my grandmother and mother and father and brother and the dogs and cats who went before , hospital beds and morgues and ICU’s. The horror! The horror.! The Edvard Munch, The Scream.
It’s just another day at work. But the shock was unbearable. I was prepared. He was old and dying. I am old and sometime we pass from old and living to old and dying. With his back and blindness and heart disease, he was passed his due date. He had so much life and gave so much at the end. Our last walk along the river with the spiritual Kingfisher present was epic. He always knew more than me.
Now Laura and I muddle along. She’s sad and I can’t console her anymore than I can console myself. Each day is better. I wonder about being stoic. I liken the feminine with soft and self absorbed. I define the male as hard and tough. Like Ivan Illich, Gender, I don’t reduce them to the stupidity of Marx, the Jewish Secular God. I know the Yahweh of infinite uniqueness. A mother and a father are both perfect and different. Both needed. Men and women are unique and equal. I don’t denigrate my maleness or my femaleness. I’m less without my dog. I’m uncertain of my future. I don’t have a course. Work is more the same. I reflect on study but these things that so engaged me no longer do.
I like to wear a skirt and sit outside and drink coffee. I miss my boat. Perhaps I’ll sail to Ireland in a year or two. It seems so much work. I’ve grown lazy and fat with success. With Covid travel restriction, I can’t find myself again in Scotland. I’ve been to India and Africa. I joke but it’s not joking, saying I want a space ship.
I’m fairly well blessed. I once tried to join a monastery. I spent decades with monks and mentors only to have to talk to the ignorant and arrogant who believed they knew me when they only knew themselves , their fear, their orders and their desire to please. The lick and kick crew. I have to let go of resentments. I have to learn to love again. My feelings come back. My dog was the master of love. He was a constant teacher. I fell so short of his epic heart. I still suited up and showed up. I ran to the danger and did get dirty. I was heaped in humanity and didn’t stand off from it all. I lived life. It’s been a full life. Just , I’m not sure what now.
I used to organize myself around the needs of my dog. Walks and outdoors. My body is an animal. My mind is an intellectual child. I have this old soul elephant that I’m riding, this great dog of dogs that transports me shanks mare. St. Francis called his body, brother ass. I love ass and donkeys.
It’s a new day. Gratitude returns and there is light.
I took a marvellous picture of a Harvest moon. I remember Fowl Suppers with the family on the prairies. Thanksgiving is near. I have a box of recovery tools:Do the next right thing. One day at a time. Keep on trucking. Don’t stop moving or they throw dirt on you. Love your neighbour as yourself. Get your head in the same room as your ass.
There is one God. All is God. This too shall pass. I am blessed. Gilbert was with me as wives and family and cities and careers. He came as an angel and teacher and now I’m waiting for the next of the universe’s mentors. Another dog, another goal, another journey. Covid curtails the choices. Winter in Canada limits. My boat is up on land and the passage to the sea is freezing.
I had thought to come ashore for a year or two, to replenish the money and set sail again. Now it’s been a decade or more and I’ve rather enjoyed the great land yacht RV and the Adventurer camper, my little land schooner. I feel a bit like Capttain Vancouver.
I gave my parents purpose and direction as they gave me that in return. I envy those men and women I admire who are such good parents. I love the beautiful mothers I know. I’ve friends who have just had children and I celebrate their love. I sometimes think I don’t want to be a woman as much as I wish to be an actor again or a dancer. I loved the dress up and glamor , not so much the different roles as the different fabrics. No wonder I loved women who were models and dated them, and women who were clothes designers. I loved suits and sandals and styling. I loved that women made their own clothes. I grew up with my mother and sewing machine and her typewriter. I personally liked wood. I made boxes and cabinets and amulets. I late made rough hewn furniture and carved.
Now I don’t play my guitar so much. I don’t write songs or poetry as I once did. I journal and blog and can’t bring myself to organizing myself to write the next book. It’s such a big task and I want to travel with my RV or Camper around the province, the country or the continent.
I sometimes wish for a cabin by a lake but never without wifi. So it’s pretty clear I’m not hermit material like before. I’ve resurrected my Hamm skills and radios. I keep checking in. I’m looking for another dog.
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