Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, Nine Years In

I know. I can’t believe it, either. This fuzzy boy has been with me for one year shy of a decade. Amazing.

If you don’t know his background, clicking here will give you some perspective. And if you also read the post from January 4^th, 2014, you’ll have a more complete picture of how far this dog has progressed from the frightened feral creature he once was.

Now, when I post his picture on Twitter or Instagram, I get far more “likes” for his cute mug than I do for anything I post about myself, whether that is some bit of wisdom for writers or a photo of the hills where I hike. Thomas has the GQ good looks to get him noticed—even though he still hates having his picture taken.

At fifteen, my boy is an old guy now, with arthritis in his shoulder and hips and back. Last year I spent a thousand dollars on tests to try to discover, once and for all, what initiates the on-going issues with his sensitive gut. Turns out he has Irritable Bowel Syndrome due to his chronic anxiety. So now he has multiple meds for anxiety, IBS, and arthritis. Some days are tough, when his belly hurts. Some nights are even tougher, when we’re up four or five times—especially in winter—going out to the yard. Good thing I’m retired and I can nap during the day….

Last year around this time, I wrote about how Thomas has come to love our bedtime ritual, wherein we sit on the floor of my bedroom and he is petted, massaged, and/or brushed before it’s time to say goodnight. A year ago, it was Purrl getting in on the attention. Now, with Purrl gone, Jenny has stepped in, insisting that she, too, be the recipient of all this love and affection.

And Jenny has made up her own bedtime ritual for Thom. She loves to ambush him. When I tell them it’s time for bed, she runs ahead toward the bedroom, but ducks into the guest bathroom, hiding there in the dark until Thom comes trotting down the hall, at which point she jumps out at him, batting him with soft paws. He has no idea that this is a cat game, and that he is supposed to react by jumping in the air and chasing after her. So he just ignores her. Which he pretty much does all the time anyway. Even though she loves him and rubs on him.

Thomas was six when I adopted him. I told him then that I just wanted him to live six years, to have as many good years of safety and love as he had starvation and abandonment. I was surprised and happy when he reached that landmark. Now we’re three years past that. In some part of his brain, he still remembers the awful time; he still occasionally cries out in his sleep as if he’s being wounded. But as the years go on, those times are fewer and farther between.

May he never have another bad dream. 

The Darkest Evening of the Year

 

I wrote the following short piece for Fresh Ink, my writers club journal, but I decided to share it here because... it's the Solstice. And why not?

     In “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost describes a reverie he’s had on the night of the December solstice as he stops to watch the snow fall on a neighbor’s woods. It’s a lovely image—the white flakes falling, dusting the trees with winter icing. As his “little horse,” impatient to move on, shakes himself, his harness bells—sleigh bells—jingle. Apart from that, they are in a place so isolated, it’s quiet enough to hear the snow falling. (“The only other sound’s the sweep/of easy wind and downy flake.”)

We love this poem because, the Christmas season being what it is, with its frenetic activity of shopping, wrapping, preparing, cooking, and so forth, we relate to the final lines of the poem: “But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep/And miles to go before I sleep.”

Until I memorized this poem long ago (along with a freshman English class I was teaching), I didn’t fully appreciate the line that comes before those final lines: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” It seems there is a certain reluctance here to push on, get those chores done, those promises kept, get out of the cold and into a warm bed. Why? What drives a man to sit in a sleigh and stare, when he has so much at home compelling him to get moving?

This is what I relate to, the dragging of his feet, the lure of the woods. As much as we would love to remember Frost as the kind, grandfatherly man who wrote of nature and farming, he was a profoundly troubled individual who possessed the requisite tortured soul of many poets. Consider this: His sister spent her last years in a mental institution, as did one of Frost’s daughters. One son died of cholera at the age of four; the other committed suicide when he was thirty-eight. Frost would outlive this son by twenty-three years, which is a long, long time to carry such grief.

Suffice it to say, the poet experienced his share of sadness and depression. What comforted him, we assume from his work, was the beauty and resiliency he observed in nature, the constancy and routine of the seasons’ change.

Many decades ago, when I had recently emerged, battle weary and deeply depressed, from the worst year of my life, two friends stopped by my house and nearly dragged me out to hike with them. I had no hiking boots, only sneakers. It was January, and while the golden California sun was shining, it had snowed in the mountains the night before—which is where they insisted on taking me, up to the nearest mountain, Mt. Baldy, for a long walk up a winding fire road that eventually led to a crystal-clear view of the valley below.

The snow was the brightest white I had ever seen. The trees, warmed by the sun, gave off an aromatic scent of pine you will never find in a cleaning product or deodorizer. And after miles of hiking, endorphins flooding my brain, I was hooked. Here was solace. Here was comfort. The sights, the smells, these two goofball friends who told stories and laughed and kept me moving until I was (finally!) warm, gave me the gift of hiking to achieve balance and perspective, to be reminded that, as nature endures, so will I. The hours we spent were more memorable than I can describe, and I will be grateful for it through the rest of my days.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.” During the holiday season, this line will come to me at the oddest times—standing in line at Target, sitting on the floor wrapping gifts, breathing deeply in heavy traffic as I try to remain calm and get to my destination alive. They will draw me out, those woods, and offer me quiet moments of solitary, serene walking in between the frenzied times. And I will remember Frost and his work with much gratitude.

988

 

Before I jump into what I want to say here, let me assure certain family members and friends—you know who you are, the three of you who check on me after I talk about this sort of thing—that I am feeling fine and on the bright side of the rainbow today.

Some weeks ago, I called the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. I didn’t call because I was in crisis, so I wasn’t on the phone very long. I just wanted to see how the system worked and how long it took to actually speak with a caring person on the other end. Turns out, not long. In less than a minute, I connected with a gentle-voiced woman who asked, “How are you feeling today?” I told her that I was feeling fine, that I only wanted to try the system so that I could write about it. I thanked her for her time, and we ended the call quickly so that she could help others who were actually in need.

It’s been a long time coming, and I’m glad the number is now available. Three digits. 988. Easy to remember in a crisis.

It was decades ago that I wrote my first article on suicide prevention. At the time, I was living in Rancho Cucamonga, and I wrote occasional columns for the Daily Bulletin newspaper. Days after that first piece was published, a gentleman called my home, apologized for having obtained my number from information, and went on to thank me for writing the article. He’d lost his fifteen-year-old son to suicide the year before. We talked for an hour. The man was broken, and he said what I’ve heard repeated so many times since then: “We just didn’t see it coming.”

This is what I know about those who are serious about ending their lives: They try very, very hard not to let anyone know. So, my “I’m feeling fine” at the top of this post would be something I would definitely say if I were definitely not feeling fine. It’s a conundrum, I know.

What is critical, if we are to help those we love who consider taking their own lives, is paying attention, and paying attention long before plans are made. If someone talks about feeling hopeless, or giving up, or having no purpose, or of experiencing unbearable pain, that’s when we need to listen. To care. To reach out nonjudgmentally.

A trained therapist can help, but unless you are one, please don’t offer advice to someone who is hopelessly sad. Offer a hug. Offer unconditional love. Offer time—to listen or just be with that person.

And, bear with me; it’s not my intention to preach or instruct, but if I could just make a suggestion from personal experience about taking the time to be with a person who is feeling hopeless or sad or depressed. Listening is key, if your sorrowful friend or family member feels like talking. But it’s not necessary to draw them out about what is troubling them. If you ask, “What’s bothering you?” you’re apt to receive a nonspecific answer like “Everything.” Let them talk if they feel like talking. Be silent, if that’s what they prefer. Or talk about the mundane aspects of your life, what you saw when you walked your dog or how you need to get the oil changed in the car. What’s not helpful is trying to “joke” a person out of their sadness. Please, I beg of you, don’t ever say, “Ah, come on. Cheer up!” Understand that it is beyond the realm of possibility for someone in this state to switch on the happiness chandelier.

You may have heard that this time of year, the holiday season, is the most critical time of year for depressed individuals, that the suicide rate increases around Christmas. In fact, it does not. Statistically, the most suicides of the year occur in April. Yep. Right when spring is springing, and everything seems new and fresh. I would speculate, however, that those feelings of loneliness and isolation that often lead to a suicide attempt begin months earlier and simply reach their peak by springtime.

We have this time, however, during the holidays, to check in with our friends and family members who lean toward melancholy. And for my friends—you know who you are—who find your loneliness deepening through these winter months, I’m here for you. Reach out, however you care to, by text or phone or email or whatever. I’ll listen. Or just sit with you. Or tell you what I saw when I walked Thomas or Maya. Or, if you’re willing, call 988. You don’t have to wait until you’re in crisis to call. There are kind people waiting to listen anonymously to anything you have to say. And don’t forget that I love you… just as you are.

 

Progress

My dog made me cry today.

I took Maya to a very large dog park. I used to do this with Thomas from time to time in the first years after I adopted him, take him to a dog park very early in the morning when no one else was there, then let him off the leash just to see if he would come back to me. Nope. He'd trot away to the farthest corner, then huddle against the fence. I knew if he ever got away from me, he'd just take off. Not until I'd had him nearly three years, and I'd retired and had much more time to spend out in the hills with him did I finally trust him to be off leash. Sort of. One day on a hike, descending a steep hill as we made our way back to the truck, I simply unhooked his leash, and he stayed right behind me, picking his own way down. I was very, very proud of him that day, as he stopped and waited when I asked him to so that I could hook him back up. But he has always felt safest when he's connected to me, so that's the way we keep it most of the time.

I knew Maya would be a flight risk when I brought her home, and boy howdy, did I make sure to watch her every second, to check the gate every time the gardeners left, to tighten my grip on the leash when we left the house, to always be aware of where she was when a door opened anywhere in the house.

Not so anymore. A few months ago, I was walking her with Thomas, and as we neared the house, she shook the leash out of my hand. I tried not to panic as I watched her trot ahead up the street--and go straight up onto our porch. Whew. 'Okay,' I thought. 'She knows where home is now.' I tested this a few times, dropping the leash a few doors away, and she will always run right home.

But out in open spaces, yeah, that's a different story. Many's the time we've stood on a rise overlooking a long stretch of rolling hills, and she has leaned into that. I know if I unhooked her, she'd be in the wind, running for miles until she either denned up in the wild or a coyote had her for lunch. Scary, scary thoughts.

So today was somewhat of a test for her. Did I mention this is a very big dog park?

That black and white dot, center of the pic, is Miss Maya Angelou Murphy, off leash. As soon as we were in, I unhooked the leash, and off she trotted. Away, away, away, almost to the back fence. I didn't follow. I just waited. Finally, she stopped. Turned back. I walked to the middle of the park and stopped. She doesn't really know the come command. But she knows "Wait." So I gave her the hand signal and told her, "Maya, wait." And she did. She sat her sassy derriere down and waited for me to approach her. I petted her--something that she never used to let me do if it were outside the confines of her crate, but she has decided, in recent weeks, it's actually quite nice. So she got some pets and head rubbies, and then I said, "Let's go," and we walked around the expansive park some more, Maya sniffing and peeing and being a dog. Pretty fabulous. Of course, I had to stop for a while and wipe the tears off my face and blow my nose. This is huge progress for her. She's learning to trust, and I know, with everything she experienced in the past, humans have shown themselves absolutely untrustworthy. (I hear ya, girl.) But she's trying.

All this was after I had walked her through the kid part of the park, around the playground equipment, and then asked her to walk up this bridge with me:

It would require her to take a big step up, and I knew that the thing would probably move, but every time we hike, I ask her to do something difficult--climb up on a boulder or cross a small stream or duck under a fallen tree. She amazes me every time with her courage. So without hesitating, I asked her to follow me up and over, and damn if she didn't do just that. On the way back, we did it again, but this time we stopped in the middle for a photo op.

It's important to note here: For most of every day, Maya still stays in her crate, by her own choice. (The day is coming when I will close it off during the day and only allow her to den up at night, but not yet. She's not ready yet.) She doesn't interact with me or Thomas or Jenny the Cat. She listens to the household routine, emerging for potty breaks when asked to do so. She is still very shut down.

In fact, just this past month, she finally began taking treats from my hand. For eighteen months, she has gotten a treat for going outside--at least four times a day. But, just as Thomas did in the beginning, she would turn her head away as I offered her a treat, even if she had returned to her crate. In the first weeks after I brought her home, she wouldn't eat the treat--even if it was sitting under her nose--until I left the room. She still won't eat food from her dish or drink while I'm in the room. But miraculously, a few weeks ago, after I'd been sitting with her for a while, petting her, she finally took her favorite treat from my hand. Of course, I cried that day, too.

But these carefree mornings when I hook her up to a fifteen-foot leash and let her wander in safe, isolated places--these are healing for her. She gets to be a dog, but she is reminded that we're in this together. Someday, I hope, she will see our connection as a good thing.

Good girl, Maya. You are a very good girl.

Tiki Man: Interview with an Author

 

When I read (which is constantly), I wear two hats, that of reader and that of writer. As the former, I want to be immersed in the story. As the latter, I’m interested in how other writers work their craftsmanship. Recently, I read a novel that impressed me as much for the way the plot was presented as it did for the character development. Both were stellar. I loved the writing so much, in fact, that I reached out to the author, Thomas M. Atkinson, on Twitter and—what do you know?—he was gracious enough to respond and even more gracious to agree to an interview. Below are my questions and his answers regarding how he constructed Tiki Man, his second novel.

Why did you make the decision to offer very little exposition at the front of the novel, parsing it out in small pieces as the story unfolds?

Well, as with the narrative voice, and the tense, I am trying (I think successfully since it hasn’t been an issue), to craft a more honest story, right? Because while Tiki Man is a story, it is actually Pere telling the reader a story, which is a huge distinction. The opening chapter is, without giving too much away, Pere telling the reader how he dealt with a problem that came up, and how he came to be taking care of Tammy. Now the reader’s takeaway is probably much different than Pere’s takeaway, but even Pere recognizes that how he handled it wasn’t the best way. But what Pere knows, that the reader has to suss out, is how much of his response was self-serving, that while he might have been perfectly justified in his response, that response was also an excuse for getting back to a very dark place, (but a very dark place where he was at home). In other news, I think that makes it both a more interesting read and a harder sell (because it isn’t what agents and editors are used to seeing).

Is Pere’s character based on someone you know?

He’s a composite of a lot of guys I’ve known (with a generous helping of Me). A lot of people have a hard enough time just getting themselves through life, and while they might be totally at sea when put in charge of a small person, it’s not for lack of trying.

Tell us about your process. Do you write every day?  How is your first draft composed? Longhand? Computer? Typewriter? Do you have a daily word count or a specific time frame?

First of all, no one should take anything I say about process as a recommendation or endorsement of my process. I don’t write every day, because I would write a lot of crap and then I'd get used to writing crap and then…. I write on the computer even though I suck at the actual typing part of it (I took “Touch Typing” in night school my senior year of undergrad. I took it pass/fail and only had to type 24 words a minute to get a D. The best I ever did was 23, but since the teacher was worried she might have to see me again, she passed me.) I don’t do drafts. As a matter of fact, my process might best be described as semi-benign mental illness. I think about what I want to write about. I obsess about it. I dream about it. And just when it is starting to become dangerous, I try to get it all down on paper. And what I get down is pretty much fully formed and while it needs some corrections, of course, it doesn’t need revision.

Who or what are you reading most often, and why?

News and nonfiction. Every couple of years I will go back and read all 20 books of the Master & Commander series by Patrick O’Brian. And I like to revisit William Gibson (Count Zero has one of the best opening pages ever) and Samuel Delaney (Nova). I try to avoid literary fiction because I’ve spent a long damn time honing my voice and I am primitively superstitious of any bleed-through from another author.

For Tiki Man, did you have an agent? Or did you work directly with your publisher? And how did you happen to choose Regal House? (I know I’m turning that trope around; we’re led to believe that authors, like ladies at the dance, must wait to be chosen.)

An agent?!? You’re funny. An agent once told me that publishers and readers aren’t interested in poor people with problems, so I threw my hands up, “Counts me out!” Regal House is one of the few publishers that doesn’t require an agent. They read the first 20 pages, asked for the entire manuscript and things happened very quickly after that. As I’d long suspected, what it actually took was for someone to read it. 

How important are reviews on Amazon and Goodreads? Do they matter at all?

I think they are very important. It’s hard to say if they affect sales, but I think they are enormously helpful in terms of what your readers are taking away from your book (and if it’s what you intended), which I think writers should care about.

How available are you for speaking engagements, talks at libraries, and the like?

I will pester anyone at anytime. I’ve done a number of book clubs, both in-person and remote, for Tiki Man and they’ve been fun for everyone. At the first one, somebody brought candy cigarettes so everyone in the club could play “Bitches,” a game the neighbor girls play in Chapter 1. It was awesome. Next week I’m doing a presentation on “Dancing Turtle,” my short story and its journey from prize-winning story to prize-winning play (I’m also a playwright.) This might sound dumb, but I am really excited about it because after I read the story, the intern company of Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati is going to do a staged reading of the play, so the audience can see the changes, the problems, the solutions – it’s something I’d like to see!

Of Saints and Cyclones

 

There’s a hurricane coming. It’s currently off the coast of Mexico, and it’s moving slowly north toward Southern California. As I view the wind speed model on the National Hurricane Center website, I can see that right now it’s more tropical storm than hurricane (“just” a Category 2), but still. It’s a hurricane, and it’s named after me. Yep. Hurricane Kay. Headed this way.

A brief history: The practice of naming hurricanes (which began aboard fishing boats, not in government offices, as you may have heard) came about in order to avoid confusion about which hurricane did what damage and where. Over time, and as the world grew smaller with more rapid news distribution, it seemed prudent to begin “officially” designating names, especially since it is possible to have several tropical cyclones brewing in different areas at once. So the World Meteorological Organization began preparing lists of names in advance for upcoming storm seasons. Women’s names, to be precise. Exclusively women. Because only women could be that stormy, right? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

My coming-of-agency decade was the 1970’s, and baby, we have come a long way. After years of protests, lobbying, letter writing, and other forms of civil pressure, the WMO prepared a list of names to be used in 1979 which alternated male names with female. Ah, I remember the (mostly male) TV newscasters going on and on about how amusing (in their view) this change would be. (As I recall, the term “tempest in a teapot” was used, so, I guess, kudos to that guy for at least being literate.)

No one ever mentions that change now, though. Huh.

And so we come to the list of tropical cyclone names for 2022. On the list of names for the Eastern North Pacific area, right there between Javier and Lester (both great names of respected men, so I feel I’m in good company), is Kay.

Waaaaaaiiiit a second. My daughter will be the first to tell you that Kay is not a female gender name, originally. No, no, no; it’s a British surname. (Shout out to my friend, Duffy Kay!) I know I’ve mentioned this on the blog before, but indulge me while I mention again that my oldest grandson, Ben, was given my name, Kay, as his middle name—which was when my education on the origin of the name began, because my amused daughter said, “Mom, one of the Knights of the Round Table was Sir Kay. Google it.” So I did.

“But wait,” I hear you saying, dear Reader, “has Kay ever been used as a given name for males?” Yes. Yes, it has. Google it. Or check out The Bump online, which lists it as a “gender-neutral Greek name” meaning “pure.”

And this is what I love about my name. Because my mother was neither aware of nor interested in the origin or meaning of the name Kay when she chose it for my middle name. “We needed a saint’s name to go with your first name. I just picked it,” she told me.

Oh. Did I fail to mention that, in addition to Sir Kay, history and the Catholic church have also given us Saint Kay? I was a child when my mother told me how she picked my name, so all my life I assumed that Saint Kay was a woman. Until my paradigm was upended last year when I did a bit of research in preparation for my Saints Day celebration. (The Saints Day for Saint Kay is September 26. Come party with me!) So nope, Saint Kay was not a woman. Definitely a man. And guess what he is the patron saint of—guess, just guess—okay, I’ll tell you, because you’re never going to guess it: Saint Kay is the patron saint of sidekicks. Yeah. And according to The Hidden Almanac, “Kay is never represented on his own, but can be seen lurking in the background of numerous other saint icons.”

Sigh. Absolute story of my life. Never the bride. Always the wedding singer.

As a gender-non-conforming individual, I love all of this—the fact that my mom thought she was naming me after a woman but actually named me after a man, the fact that the man, Saint Kay, was never the front man on the spiritual stage but played back-up for some of the celeb saints, and most of all, that, when a small town with small-minded people tried to publicly shame me, I changed my name, dropping my feminine first name and choosing to be known henceforth as my hard consonant, three-letter middle name.

And look at me now. Hurricane Kay. Boy howdy.

Another Day....

 

Despite the heat, skies have been beautiful here lately, and I owed Maya (and myself) a long walk out in the hills to clear the cobwebs and to be reminded that Nature is still magnificent (even if what we see on TV isn't), so Saturday morning we left the house early for one of our favorite spots in the rolling hills just south of town. I also wanted to see how Maya would do on the fifteen-foot leash I bought for our hikes.

We hadn't gone a hundred yards when we saw this:

I think I know my sister well enough to know that if she's reading this, she's making an "Are you kidding me?!?" face if not saying that out loud. Yep. Sad. Someone had no use for Grandma's little white spinet piano, so they drove it out to the hills and pushed it out the back of a truck onto the ground. I've seen a lot of things out in these hills, but this just broke my heart. I thought of three different places it would have fit in my little house. Damn, people. You didn't have to toss it out like some kind of garbage.

Speaking of such: As I said, I've seen a lot of things out there. Our next discovery, about a half mile past the piano, was this guy:

Sad, huh? When we came upon him, his tie was askew, so I fixed it. Then, because Maya was just happy to be out in the hills, and she was willing to wait patiently, I sat him up so that instead of staring at the sky all day, he could see some sky and hills, birds and coyotes, maybe some dirt bike or mountain bike riders (I imagine the latter stopping to chuckle and take a photo), and possibly some more miscreants offloading junk they can't be bothered to drive to the dump.

Isn't he handsome? I love bears. People think I love giraffes--and I do, don't get me wrong--but my first love will always be bears. Stuffed ones, live ones. Doesn't matter. I have bears all over my house, in one form or another (mostly stuffed). And in my car. (Ask my sister, who sometimes rides shotgun. Raggedy Bear travels with me wherever I go.) I can't imagine what prompted someone to toss this dude out, especially when he was dressed so nicely.

But then, people aren't always thinking clearly when they drive out to the hills. See this big, beautiful oak, and that small yellow something at the base of its trunk?

If the device you're using to read this has the capacity to zoom in, you'll discover, as I did, that it's an empty Pacifico box. Niiiice. (For the uninitiated, that's beer.) I mean, if you're going to drive way out in the hills, sit under an oak and experience Nature, that just might be the perfect beverage to consume. From the Pacifico website:

"Pacifico is a pilsner-style lager with a crisp, refreshing flavor and a touch of grass-citrus and ocean mists."

Seriously. I want one now, and I don't even drink beer. (Well, hardly ever.) But the ad copy had me at "ocean mists."

I guess I'm glad the drinker(s) left all the empties in the box. I mean, they could have smashed them against the tree, creating a dangerous hazard for wildlife. Just to note, that box has been there a long time. Maya and I have passed it often. No, I haven't picked it up to carry it out. It's a mile in on the trail, and I have both hands full handling Maya on the way back to the car. And my phone, if I have to take a picture. Case in point, this lovely gourd and blossom:

After we saw that, we saw this. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a bear print, but there are no bears out there. Just, apparently, tremendously huge dogs. I held my hand over it so you can see how big it really was.

It was a great walk, and Maya enjoyed having the freedom to wander a bit on her new leash. But all good things do come to an end, so we trotted back to the car for the short drive home. Just another day in paradise.