the days that follow

I don't want to be up at 4:30AM making coffee.  I don't want to hike that trail. I don't want to be so in love with what I have learned is politely called a reactive dog. 

I don't want it to be July.

But most of all, I don't want to be on a 7-mile hike at the top of the canyon on a Sunday morning because I am too afraid to go back to Tanner.

What is there to say?  I was yelled at by a man, probably having his own bad day that had nothing to do with me.  I know, I was with Juneau, give him a couple of minutes you will find plenty of things to yell about.  

However, this man had no issue with Juneau or Ginger.  He was yelling at me. 

 Tanner, on the dog park side, is an off-leash trail every day of the week, all year long.  We go there just about every other day. Or I should say we did.  

This man decided I had let my dogs off-leash a hair too soon; a couple of feet from the arbitrary line he himself drew on the trail.  

"What makes you any different from anyone else!" he screamed repeatedly in my direction and then dramatically threw down the leashes of his 2 dogs.  

At first, I didn't even realize he was addressing me.  

There were at least 4 other dog owners with their off-leash dogs on the trail with us. My dogs were both at my feet.  And yet he was singling me out. 

Of course, knowing full well I hadn't done anything wrong I instantly began apologizing.

Most likely realizing he was actually in the wrong with me still apologizing, the angry man with his 2 dogs walked away.

I altered my route to avoid having to trail behind him the whole time but otherwise continued on our walk. We did have to pass him one more time on our way out; it was uneventful. 

Two other women who had seen it go down went out of their way to tell me how wrong he had been, laughing it off as a nutty guy. 

And I told BC you would be so proud of me I didn't even let it bother me. 

There is a space in my mind where monsters lay in wait.  

It did bother me.  It bothered me a lot.  

Finally, I had to admit I was afraid to go back.  With support from a few friends, I gathered my nerve and three days later returned with my dogs. Successfully twice saw and passed the angry little man. Problem solved. 

Only it's not. 

It's July and I now run the outside trail from 2300 to Wasatch and back. Dogless and alone as the bikers clip by me. Sometimes I startle so badly I have to stop to calm down. 

I go out in the heat on the heavily exposed blacktop walking the biggest hills, running the small ones. 

I look down at the dogs in the dog park and wonder 

what the hell I am so afraid of? But it changes nothing.

The canyon is better.  The trails yawn and stretch.  The dogs run free.  When you are alone in the city it is seen as a weakness. In the mountains, it is a strength.  

I didn't want to hike Dog Lake this morning.  It's not a trail I love but I owed the dogs something.  

Driving in the dark looking for deer stepping out from the trees I followed the canyon road to the end.  

Alone in a dark parking lot.  Alone on a dark trail.  Alone when the sun splits the trees. And alone at a beautiful mountain lake. 

Walking among the trees pockets of hidden snow, breathe the breath of winter over the smell of a distant wildfire.  The world is pine and dust nothing else even exists. 

All of it is for this dog who can't tell us about his past.  Who can't explain why some things scare him so badly while other things don't. 

I suppose the same could be said of me.   

     

waiting for my life to start

The thing about depression for me is the shift in the horizon line.  

It's like you are traveling along on flat ground with everybody else, and suddenly you end up alone at the bottom of a steep valley.  

Sometimes it's a canyon or even a cave, but mostly it's a simple, plain dark valley.  Silent, cool, windswept. Grey hillsides that slope upwards alarmingly around you.

I have learned not to stop walking. 

But if I had been running or skipping before landing there, well, that's all over.  

The climb out is slow, and it hurts. Gravity is harsh. The steps are over colorless stones around leafless trees and flowerless shrubs.  The ground is mushy and damp. Not slipper but stubbornly weighted. 

Each journey out is different.  Months, weeks, days, hours... as different as the reason for falling in.  

But there are commonalities.  Like the questions that float as storm clouds: "when is my real life going to begin?" "What is the point of all this" "nothing matters," "nothing makes sense anymore"...

It's that feeling of deep failure or wasted time or inadequacy, false shadows—a threatening storm to avoid getting caught up in. A sky of doubt distracting you from moving forward.  Dark, swirling weather not to be encouraged. Tornados, not to be crossed. 

Looking like you are standing still; you walk. Seemingly getting nowhere but working harder than you think yourself capable of doing.  Walking without reason. Walking without will.  Walking without true direction. And nothing seems to change.

Yet slowly, almost unperceivable light begins to leak in. Dark greys fade to watery blues.  Green pebbles appear. Finally, there is the spot where you can see the slope breaking, giving way to flat ground. 

One foot in front of the other over the edge into a place like the sunrise. Dark and light and color all at the same time. Then the beauty of it is gone.  Spread out across the day, diluted and mundane.    

You find yourself out of the valley, back where you started right before you fell in. Standing in the pieces of your life. Gathering them up, shaking them off, and moving on. Traveling with the world once again.

The memory of the valley and its darkness rolls with you.

For me, depression is the dark contrast that makes my world so sharply beautiful. Waiting for my life to start for the hundredth time. Born over and over from the valley of darkness into a world of light.  

I am a collector of moments.

Nedra

She sends me letters.  

They seem to come every month or so.  Little notes, sayings, and lessons. Small thoughtful gifts like tea towels on holidays. 

I open every one of them.  I read them.  I like them.

I take the letters to my mother.  

I show her the thoughtful sayings and positive lessons and practical gifts.  She shares them with her friends and they share them with theirs. 

I never tell Nedra thank you because I don't know her. I've never met Nedra and she's never met me.  

I am guessing she is my Visiting Teacher.  A woman from the local church, or ward as it called in the LDS church, assigned to touch base with me. 

She drew the short straw if you ask me.  You might say I am an ex sheep- extremely ex. 

As far as I can remember living here these letters have come.

Last month she included a questionnaire of 80 questions to ask a family member.  Beach and I carried it with us for a week pulling it out, asking and answering the questions.  

How clever this is, I told my mom over the phone. When we get through it I will give it to you.  You'll like this.  It's really neat.   

This month it was 3 different cards printed on bright shiny papers with the collective message about being present with your loved ones vs. buying presents.

I read my favorite one to BC and he smiled agreeing.  I set them aside to take to my mother.    

I never tell Nedra anything.

Nedra keeps believing in the dark that she is making a difference.  Nedra is right, she is.  Each time she sends me a letter she mails me a tiny piece of belief.  

A belief in kindness and bravery.   

It's been a long time since I have sent out a Christmas card but this year I do have one to send. 

Dear Nedra, Merry Christmas...   

the thing most feared

I don't want her to die in a gym.  It's a feeling that doesn't have to be written. I don't want her to die; not there. 

No one has to say this but I am. I don't want her to walk into a room and never walk out.

She has traded a childhood of freedom for discipline and work. Hours, days, months, years of training. She has lived there; I don't want her to die there too.

Gymnastics is hard.
It's scary.
It hurts.

It is not for everyone.  But for those who find it as the framework for their lives, it is the only way.  It is their language, their culture.  It teaches them about the world and about themselves. 

And as much as I don't love the sport part of it, I have always feared the moment it ends for her.  Never once did I consider the alternative- that she could end.  Broken bones and pulled muscles... but even I didn't allow my fears to go beyond that.

She is who she is because of this sport and this sport IS because of others like her.  

So I say again to the moms and the dads, what words do we want to give to our daughters as they go to and from their work? 

Work harder, point your toes, run faster, take more turns, push harder. OR I love you. Have fun. Be brave, but not too brave. We are proud of you for all that you do. 

It is more likely one of us will die driving than one of them will die as a result of gymnastics.

 It is more likely your good-bye would be your last, not hers. 

But what if a million horrible things lined up.

Anxiety gives me a clear window. The world is dangerous. I am just "lucky" enough to always know that. It doesn't take a tragedy to remind me of how fast the clock is ticking.

If today was our last day together what would we have done differently? How would you have said good-bye? 

beautiful November

I remember the moment: the tip of his white tail flashing through the tall, still grass.  Behind me a small village of pine trees, before me a divided army of Aspens.  

My life is beautiful.

Standing miles away from where most of it is lived I could look back at it and smile.  

How dangerous to be this content, I thought.  How grateful to have this moment.  The edge of Autumn slipping into winter.  The mountains closing into white corners.  The valley about to be shushed. 

I had stolen the time from other places to be there.  To slip away one more time before the snow gate dropped just to see the dogs running free in the mountains.  To watch Juneau crisscrossing the trail.  No one telling him he's wrong.

The air and the ground were cold but the trees held the light so carefully.  I stood in the meadow breathing the smell of the woods.  I had everything I needed on my back. 

Yes, my life is beautiful.

November is calling.  The orange lights of Halloween have burned out. It is time to call all the children home.  

Time to set the table for the next season that is already falling around us.

Home-baked bread, board games, thick books, and piles of blankets. 

I love winter.  I love the snow. I miss nothing of summer and the way it suffocates the city.  

Spring; heavy with mud and false hope.  Autumn; short and sweet.  

Winter stretches long and quiet. 

Dark draws us all home down roads lit by street lights dancing with falling snow, headlights bursting in the slush, frost bleeding with the salt of dining room chandeliers left on.

Winter makes space.  It gives room for change to happen.

November is deep. 

It is sharp and blue and quite possibly the most beautiful part of the whole year. The best part is it starts now.

driving in traffic

The road is slow.  It twists like a shirking shoulder. The cars seem to float; tiny pretend boats with bells in a water trough.  And although the cars are moving slowly, about 50 mph, the thoughts in my mind are racing. 

The thoughts stomp like giants.  They twist like tornadoes. They bash and crash and wiz by.  Be here, get there, do this, do that, then get there, and be here again, do that, do that again, don't forget this or that, oh god don't forget that...

And a little voice from deep within my head whispers, what is the point of any of this? 

That is the voice I react to. No, no, no, nooooo! Don't ask that question when we are doing so well! 

My house is spotless.  Our meals are all shopped for and planned.  The dogs are walked.  The children are happy.  I am dressed, all organized and going on as planned.

But it is a good question.

Why are any of us doing anything?

Two by two, the cars roll down the shrugging shoulder of the interstate.  The road straightens out their speed increases.  The mountains in their winter coats rise into view. 

The breath of Autumn breathes down on the valley and the air is so clear... but I don't know what the point is.  I never have known.  Perhaps that's what makes me me.   

When the days are fast I forget that I don't know.  I forget that I don't see the cathedral we are building only the rules of the blueprints.  I am one of those chosen to live in life in doubt.

I have moments when I think I know.  Standing in the center of a dead dirt road watching Juneau's tail flash through the golden grasses as he breaks across the openness.  Flashes of red and white in the mountain meadow.  The smell of pine needles bedded in the cooling ground.  This is why; to heal a broken dog.

People aren't so simple to help.  Like Beach and gymnastics...it's hard to see the point when it is stabbing you in the gut.

I drive in the traffic as it thins.  Don't forget this, and do that, pick up this, make that. go there, be back by then, do it again...

I pass the exits I have been taking and not taking my whole life.  I am ready to move on from here.  Ready to follow BC somewhere quieter, somewhere older.  Towards a larger sky and a new history.

The cars float on and off the interstate.  I drive.  The giants stomp.  The tornadoes whirl.  They bash and they crash.  I take my exit and I go on.

the gravity of ghost people

There is a pause to my house when I walk in at 8:39 PM.

"There is a light on in the basement," BC states. Beach nods agreeing, pushing the mashed potatoes around on her plate.

His words sink like stones between the three of us. Slipping beneath the waves of icy water lapping around my throat.

The events of the week have stirred up so many unsettled topics. I am treading lightly across the wooden skeleton of an old harbor.

I set down my bag.

For a week we have been running in circles taking care of other people's animals. It started with Beach watching 2 cats for a coworker from the gym. It's a good job for her. It requires me to drive her 2-3 times a day into Sugar House. For the most part, it falls easily into our days of running her to her job, me to my job, her to Gym, taking care of our own dogs, her school work, and household errands.

Then a phone call came in from a neighbor asking if Beach could watch her 4 dogs.

I agreed Beach could take the second job because she could walk down there and it didn't require anything from me. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The first morning she walked down I got a phone call right away. Once I got down there and saw the situation BC got a phone call.  I'm not trying to be mean or hurtful but the house, OMG the house.

The story we were told was her dog sitter flaked. After seeing the state of the house and the dogs we see that probably isn't the exact truth of it.

We cleaned for 2 hours while Beach stood in the yard with the severely neglected dogs.

It was quickly decided Beach could not go to the house alone. And above the obvious reasons, there was something very not right going on- I just didn't know what. We didn't want her in the house at all.

 It was so bad we went home and all stripped down in the mudroom. Ten minutes after being home I had an asthma attack- the first one in over 16 years!

So 4 times a day between driving 3 times a day to Sugar House and to Gym/work I have been walking down the street and taking care of these dogs... usually alone. Always trying to get there for the last time before dark. Always leaving feeling like I have done nothing for them. They live as patients on life support; like old people eating canned soup and rotting in their apartments in front of the TV.

The cats are so well-loved and cared for and my own dogs so spoiled! It's an impossible divide to accept. Imaginary divides created by real fences.

Knowing I would be at work until way after dark I had asked BC to do the nightly check-in and lock up for me. He had picked Beach up from the gym at 7PM to go see the cats and then to the dogs. It was the only night it wasn't my job.

The feeling I get inside the house the rock in my stomach about being in the kitchen, about being near the basement door suddenly makes too much sense.

"Mom," Beach grasps for a lie, "When you go down there at night is there a light on?"

She knows the answer is no. NO: A word I really should make better friends with.

"I think someone is living down there," he says.

"What do I do?" I ask.

"Pretend you don't know... and don't go in the kitchen."

The problem with ghost people is they live among us but we don't know they are there until it's too late.

the day

In the dark, I wait for the day to start.  

I wait for the thoughts to settle to the bottom of the bottle. 

Outside the sky crests.  A bowl of blues and grays with the rain leaking over the edges. 

What day is this? 

The summer has been a rabid dog hot and relentless.  So the coolness and the darkness of this morning feel like a lie. 

It seems summer will never end.  The fires have started.  Smoke fills the valley.  The sun turns red and the hillsides become charcoal.  Summer does not exit the west gracefully.

The day stretches.

Ahead of me, there is a lot to do coupled with the time if not the space to do it in.  There is no order to it.  I would even say it is all part of a long list I haven't sat down to write yet.  And I do, I want to write it before it is gone.- before the days write themselves.

I swear I can almost smell snow.  I can almost feel the cold of the desert wind wrapping around me.  Camp coffee and a field of juniper and sage. 

Silence.
Wind.
Trucks on a dirt road.

I am ready and so is the sky.

I am not

I sent a message out on my phone telling him I miss him and went to sleep. Of course between friends of the opposite sex, those weren't the words I used. I would never say that, not to him, maybe not to anyone.

 But I do- I miss him.

I miss the way he cut through the bullshit for me. I miss having someone who right or wrong was always on my side. I miss having someone else see my child as she is and loving her just that way. No excuses, no imagined divides, no hidden agendas.

No pretend smiles, no sudden silent conversations, no half-hearted cups of kindness. In fact, nothing about him was ever fake.

But that's not the shadow hanging over a 5:25 AM alarm. It's this day ahead of me. I have to get up and return to the place I left crying. The spot where I held it together until the moment I clocked out and then lost it right there in the coach's room in front of anyone unlucky enough to be in there with me.

It's been over a year since I actually cried probably closer to 2.  It takes a lot to go wrong for me to not find something beautiful or good inside a bad moment. It takes a mountain range of frustration or sadness to bring me to tears. 

I have to assume it was not intentional. The moment was simply bad. Raw stupidity on my part.

No one likes looking stupid but add in the injury and slight to your struggling child and that is the cocktail that took me down.

Mostly I felt complicit in the actions that were hurting my own child. After all, I'm the smiling asshole who asked her, "Didn't they invite you to go with them?" No. No, they didn't but thanks for reminding me. Left me holding a bag of empty words trailing out, "I think they were going to..."

I'm not good at asking for help. I see it as something powerful and not to be done haphazardly.  It's not small, the act of reaching out an empty hand and asking someone else to help you fill it. It's not small that I believe people will find a way to help each other out.  I am always shocked to find out that's not as true as I want it to be.

This shifting landscape that is the world of gymnastics has given me more than I have put in. Shocking but true.

The athletes aren't the only ones it changes. I am braver. I am bolder. I have gone places and done things I never would have done. Through this experience, I relearned how to face the world. Learned to walk into the unknown and be okay.

Each parent has given me a gift. Each parent a story or a lesson. I am grateful for each and every one of them and their amazing daughters. We truly are a family, faults and all.

But I look at the idea of doing 3 more years like this.  Three more years watching my child walk it alone.  Her head held high, her kindness, her leadership, her cheering squad of one for the underdogs.  The spaces she wraps with her beauty.  The tears in the car.

It's not because she is homeschooled.  It's not because she doesn't go to church. It's not because her closest friends have all moved on. It's not because she lives in a different neighborhood.  It's not because she is at gymnastics 4 1/2  hours a day.  It's not because the other girls aren't good kids. It's not because she doesn't deserve it.  It's just because.

And it isn't going to change except to get worse as the social season builds.  There isn't a fix on the horizon because there isn't anything to fix... unless she quits and she's not a quitter.

The only person's behavior you can control is your own... unless you are crying and I'm not a crier.

rivers of doubt

The heat comes for the river first.  It drinks from it twisting the air into moppy strings of green earth. The dogs don't care.  They ride the black path as if it is tundra. One is leashed the other is not.

Along the trail, the grass grows tall but tired.  Sunlight clips through in broken waves catching on the stillness of the river and bouncing off the orb weaver webs.

I can see the spiders.  I can hear my heavy footfalls. Feel the pull of the dog who knows I am slow.

Returning to the J Trail is always the same.  It's like crawling down a tunnel; light at both ends and dark in the middle.

The darkness is doubt.  It is fear.

The dog pulling me is a flashlight that cuts the darkness.  He removes the fear of the next corner, of the overgrowth, and of the drug dealer on bikes that roam boldly.  His brashness and the way I handle him as if he were a keg of dynamite about to blow scares the men passing us.

For this, I am not sorry. In fact, it's a little fuck you for scaring me away from here in the first place and you are welcome.

The dog does nothing for doubt though.  Doubt only fades with time.  Time on the trail chasing the heat, chasing the river.

the fine print of love

The speed in her response to my slip is brutal, "Except we don't have a dog named Kilo," she states.

No, she's right we don't.  At least we don't have one anymore. And we don't have a dog named Moses either. 

We have Ginger, aka Little Dog. A poorly timed foster dog turned into our forever dog.

And we have Juneau. 

The latter of which was who I was referring to when I accidentally said Kilo's name.  But he's not Kilo.  

For starters, Juneau's brain seems to be attached to his body.  Kilo was like a brakeless tractor-trailer on a greased slip and slide.  

Juneau ignores the boom of fireworks and the crack of gunfire.  Kilo was a hot mess if a plastics water bottle tipped over in the sink.  

The first time Kilo saw open water he swam and swam.  Juneau waded in carefully never letting his feet leave the sand. 

Kilo panicked in the canoe.  Juneau moved between the boats and the shore as if it was nothing.  Kilo was sleek and black dashed with a single brush of white war paint.  

Juneau is fire red with cresting waves of white foam.  Kilo a dirt reservation dog.  Juneau a mountain ranch hand. Kilo's expressions flat. Juneau's cartoonishly dynamic.

But one thing is the same they have the same desire to not be abandoned again.  Both dogs labeled as strays.  Both ending up at BFAS.  Kilo at Dog Town, Juneau (under the name of Groot) the Salt Lake Center. 

And both dogs became mine.

We don't have a dog named Kilo... anymore.  Kilo rests in a grave in the southeast corner of the garden.  Thinking he had been left behind he slipped the gate one morning blending with the dark and headed out to find me on the J Trail. Only, I wasn't there.

We found him down in the road. 

He died with me, lying in the back of my car. 

Juneau is not Kilo but that memory haunts my love for him.  I worry about his drive to be loved. About his neediness and just how far he will he go.  I worry about the road. This worry reminds me to not take the days together for granted. Dogs are born and grow old and die while we watch. Love is the most beautiful of liabilities. 

All dogs create purpose. Moses helped create a family and he grew old within it. Kilo rescued my heart from silence then slipped away. Ginger gentles the ground around us. And Juneau he has reopened the door.