Our New Normal (wherein I anthropomorphize to my heart's content)

Summer is here. As I write this, Sugie is beside me, curled into a fold of the softly worn green blanket that has covered this swing for eight summers now. During the school year, when things get so crazy with early hours, papers to grade, parents to call and impossible time schedules, this is what I daydream about. This is what keeps me putting one foot in front of the other, shuffling one more graded essay to the bottom of the stack, these long blissful moments of swing-sitting with this little chunk of a cat… and writing slowly, leisurely, thinking through my word choices as the ice cubes twirl slowly in my glass of sweet tea.

This is heaven for both of us. For me it’s the writing. For Sug it’s having her mom home so she can spend hours outside on the patio if she so desires (as long as I am out here with her).

This summer, of course, our routine is just a wee bit altered. Sug now shares me with annoying little sister Purrrl and the world’s most quirky dog, Sgt. Thomas Tibbs. So far, things are working out just fine.

In previous summers, when I’ve done my annual pilgrimage to Missouri, Sug has been left with various housesitters. I have always returned to find her somewhat emotionally shut down, always clingy and anxious for many days after my return. (And if you think I’m simply projecting or anthropomorphizing here, take a moment to read this piece in today’s Los Angeles Times by Amy Hubbard.) Even those closest to me have never fully understood that my deep anxiety in leaving her stems not from worry about her physical well-being but about how her psyche will fare while I’m gone. I am the center of her daily routine, her source not only of food but of safety and security. My absence means subjecting her to her own ‘worries,’ primal as they may be. Keep in mind, this is a sentient being I have cared for and loved for eight years. I know the difference in her response when I’ve been gone for an hour compared with an absence of twelve hours. It’s not about the food; she does truly ‘miss’me.

To help Sug feel slightly less alone when I travel—or when I’m gone from the house for a grueling early-morning-to-work-plus-parent-meeting-plus-grocery-shopping day—I brought little Purrrl into our lives last fall. And this year, when I returned from Missouri, Sug had not shut down. Well at least, not to the extent she usually does. Yes, I’m sure there were some moments of anxiety—my housesitter, with whom Sug is acquainted, invited people over a few times, so the house was noisy and there were strangers. But when the girls get anxious, they dive under the bed and huddle up together. They don’t cuddle, but I have no doubt that being near each other during a potentially scary experience helps them both to cope and offers them the comfort of familiarity.

All of that is preamble to say that, where my late summer mornings used to consist of yawning, stretching, and strolling outside to the patio with Sug, there is a bit more to it now. Now when I wake I have to move cautiously around a sleepy gray kitten who hogs the middle of the bed (Sug and I relegated to the left side, always) and who will lash out with cranky claws if her beauty sleep is disturbed. But ten minutes later, I will hear the girls chasing each other through the house. Because apparently cats do not need one or two cups of tea before they can officially begin to wake up; they seem to be able to go from I’m-still-sleeping-Mom! to I-got-you!/I-got-you-back! in about thirty seconds.

And after everyone is fed—except for me, though I am allowed one cup of tea to drink while I dispense fresh water, pick up rawhide chew remnants from the floor, start the sprinklers and put my shoes on—there follows a long, luxurious walk with my boy, Thomas, who is quite the happy dog these days. (Update on the good boy in an upcoming post.) Later in the morning, Sug will let me know it’s time to stop cleaning or folding laundry or goofing off on Facebook, and we will wander outside together to this very spot. This routine is what keeps me sane, and I am grateful to the Universe that the sanity it brings will last me for ten months when school starts again.

Today’s blog post is dedicated to my dear friend and faithful reader Barbara Tinsley, who gave me just the nudge I needed at just the right time.

Books, Dogs and HOPE

Forgive me for being absent from posting for a while.  I’ve had my writer’s hat on, certainly, but my time has been spent, in recent days, working more on the business side of the craft than on the creative side.

I’ve got some great news flashes I’ve been wanting to share with you, Dear Reader, but first let me describe where I am—because I really can’t write a blog post without talking about the mountain.  I know you understand….

At the beginning of the summer, I bought an inexpensive HP laptop so that I could do this:  I’m sitting in the swing on the front deck.  It’s about 3:00 in the afternoon.  A light breeze is blowing through the oak tree canopy surrounding the cabin, cooling my skin and mimicking the sound of water rushing over rocks in a faraway stream.  Punctuating that sound is the chatter and call of some  bluejays, chickadees, wrens, woodpeckers, dark-eyed juncos, a titmouse or two, and something that sounds like a guinea pig making its “week-week-week” sound.  Sugie hears them, too.  She’s sprawled out in the dappled shade a few feet from the swing pretending to relax, but she is ever-vigilant.  Beware, my feathered friends; do not land too close.

So.  Part of what has kept me busy in recent weeks has been writing book reviews.  Some writer friends have had books released (hurray!), and summer gives me (too much?) insouciant time to sit as I am now, enjoying the outdoors while turning pages.  (It’s okay to be envious; that will all change in winter when it’s snowing and the swing is packed away in the garage.  Of course, then I’ll be sitting in front of the fire….)

Libby Grandy, a long time blogger and Chicken Soup author, has seen the release of her first novel, Desert Soliloquy.  I was privileged to read it in manuscript form, but the book had been so diligently edited I really didn’t have much of a critique to make.  I love a good mystery, and this one is tightly woven.  She does not go over the top with red herrings (hate that), but keeps the suspense taut—not only with the mystery of the attempted murder but also with the deeper, perhaps more mysterious question of who the protagonist will choose to spend her life with.  Loved it—and hate the fact that Libby has a second novel nearly ready for publication but feels inclined to wait until next summer for its release.  But I want to read it nowwwww.

Paula Priamos, also a blogger and a professor of all things literary, just saw the release of her memoir, The Shyster’s Daughter.  I’ve been waiting for this book for nearly two years, ever since Paula’s husband, author James Brown (The Los Angeles Diaries), bragged about it at a writers conference.  I have to warn you, if you read memoirs because you enjoy reading light-hearted tales told by upbeat people who managed to keep smiling through hard times, better buckle your seatbelt for this one.  Priamos’ writing is stark and tight and gripping.  And geez, does she ever have a story to tell about growing up in SoCal with her high-profile attorney father, an inappropriate uncle, and other characters guaranteed to ensure a kid’s quick loss of innocence.  I had kind of a weird, schizophrenic response to the book as I read it; I’d read a few pages, mutter “oh my god” out loud, put the book down because it reminded me far too much of my own childhood, then pick it up and start reading again.  It’s the most compelling memoir I’ve read in years.

Since I’m talking books, please indulge me for a moment.  The Kindle version of MartinLastrapes’ book, Inside the Outside, made it all the way to Number One on Amazon’s Horror list a few weeks back.  As you may know (because I seem to mention it often), Martin was a student of mine way back when I taught English 1A for Chaffey College.  All I said was, “Martin, you could be a writer,” and look what the kid did.  Geez….

Finally (and can I have a drum roll here, please?), my memoir, The Dogs Who Saved Me, came out this month.  I want to shout “Hurray!” in jubilant celebration… but I think I’m still recovering from writing this book.  I was so cavalier two summers ago when I began work on this project.  “I’ll just write about my dogs!” I thought.  “Easy peasy!”  No.  This was the most challenging writing task I’ve ever assigned myself.  Little did I know how tough it would be to recall those dark adolescent days and other points in my life in which I needed the unconditional love of a dog to sustain me.  Now, though, I’m glad I kept trudging through it (with frequent breaks, I kid you not, to simply walk away from the keyboard, out into the forest, to let the tears fall until I could breathe normally again).  My intent with this book is to honor the dogs who quite literally saved my life.  I think telling their stories does that.  But… to honor them further, I’ll be donating all the royalties from this book to animal rescue.  The first royalty check will go to HOPE rescue in Upland, California.  HOPE is comprised of a tiny crew of amazing and selfless people who work tirelessly to rescue dogs and cats slated for euthanasia or that have been found on the streets.  My little Sug was just such a cat, taken in by HOPE, placed in foster care where she was loved and spayed and brought to good health, then made available for adoption.  Had she gone to a public shelter, she would never have made it out alive.  And what would I do without her?  Recently the good folks at HOPE rescued a beautiful Beagle mix puppy from a high-kill shelter and a volunteer is now fostering her.  I love these peeps, so every time someone buys a copy of Dogs, I get all happy, because I know that the royalty from that sale will enable HOPE to do just a bit more of the heroic work they do.

So you can see why I’m busy trying to promote this book.  I’ve set up some readings/signings, which I’ll be announcing here.  I always love doing these events (what author doesn’t?), but they’re especially fun when I know that the end result will enable me to contribute to the fur community.  Win!  Win!  Win!  

Losing track

They call them “God’s candles,” the yuccas that bloom seemingly overnight all over the mountain in the spring.  As one who trudges reluctantly to bed while it is still light in order to wake again in darktime, I don’t think of them as candles to illumine the night, but rather as natural glow sticks (given the way in which they nearly hum with light when the unfiltered sun crests the ridge and finds them in the morning) to guide the robins and tanagers and black-headed grosbeaks back to the high slopes after spending an easier winter in the foothills.

And I know, when I drive to work each morning and see those tall, lustrous blooms beside the road, that in a very short time—a few blinks of the eye, a few tea bags expended—that it will be summer again.

Summer, when I can spend long hours writing again.

Summer, when I can spend long hours reading again.

Summer, when I can wander off, as I did today, after a morning of cleaning windows and answering email, to walk in the forest and find new trails by just pulling over where I haven’t pulled over before and following the stream, rock-hopping in the shade of towering trees as the breeze blows the scent of pine and sage across my face and the falling water reminds me once again that Nature has her own song.

Summer, when there is time and opportunity to wander in the late evening, to watch for bats or the little fox that lives by the waterfall or the rise of the moon over the eastern ridge.

Summer, when there are no bells, buzzers or alarms to regulate my choices, where spontaneity allows for long visits with friends or journal entries that go on for pages or a song session with the guitar that lasts for hours.

It’s easy, in summer, to lose track of time, immersing myself in the moment at hand with all its sights and scents and songs, and in doing so, lose track—if just for that moment—of all the tiny turbulences that disrupt the peaceful flow of life.  And it’s easy, in those long, reflective, contemplative and tranquil moments, to believe—whether truth or fantasy—that I can return home and write words that have as much beauty as they have meaning.