So quiet

It's so quiet in a house without a dog in it.  It's not that Jasper is noisy, exactly.  It's more the just knowing that somewhere he's walking around, claws clicking on the hardwood, or snoring on one of the many pillows laid out for him around the place, one in every room.  It's his absence that makes this quiet.  Such a strange, strange feeling.  I feel like there's just no reason to be here, without him.

We are so accustomed to every glance including him, to looking for his shape in every part of the house, to that cozy thump-thump of his greeting.

So quiet here without that.

Miss you, little pony.

Toast Hound: wish I could give you my heart, for reals...

"Politely requesting," in better days...

It took an inordinately long time this morning for Jasper to make his way down the hall and take up his place by my side for our customary daily sharing of toast.  This has been our way for years.  I’m not proud that I taught him to beg food from me, but I don’t think of it as begging.  It’s more like sharing, really.  It’s more like polite requesting, though there have been times when it’s gone a little too far, chin resting on the edge of the table or on my knee, eyes imploring.  But chinnies is so cute that I don’t care. 

We play a little game at breakfast.  The moment I look at Jas, his tail starts to beat the floor.  The moment I look away, the tail slows to a stop.  Look: tail beats.  Away: tail stops.  I can’t tear my eyes away from him these days.

Our boy is so slow right now, suffering as he is from what we now think is almost surely congestive heart failure.  Our once super-active dog and we are adjusting to this new normal, this greatly-slowed pace.  He doesn’t finish his food, no matter what goodies we tuck in his bowl to entice him.  This has never happened his whole life.

He abandoned his toast post very early this breakfast and is now curled up under the table a few feet away from me, too far for me to hand him bits I tear off my bread.  This is all so new and strange and unlike him that it is almost unfathomable.

We used to spend hours in the hills, Jasper and I, running and walking, Jasper after every rock that rolled down hill, every rabbit or deer that happened across our trail.  This morning I’ll feel lucky if we can get out the gate and to the corner without poor Jassie having a coughing fit or losing his balance.  I will only take him out because he still perks up when he hears the word “walk” and just to momentarily change his scenery. 

It’s a struggle to stay in the present, to not fast-forward.  I fall apart regularly, and then force my eyes back to Jasper’s gorgeous brindle form, stuff my nose in his fur and breathe him in.

None of us are here forever, but it’s so hard to let go.

My mother once said, in 2009 actually when I was upset about Jasper’s diagnosis of canine melanoma (which he survived very nicely, thank you), that that’s why you shouldn’t have pets – it’s too painful.  And this is certainly painful.  But come on: to be clear, I’ve cried over every fish, every turtle, every hamster, every frog, every lizard, every single rat I ever loved and lost.  I have loved them all.  And this is by far the biggest love and the biggest pain of all.

But I wouldn’t trade it, not if it meant that I wouldn’t have had these glorious thirteen years and six months of companionship with this remarkable, beautiful dog.

We go in for more x-rays this morning.  The having-something-to-do-about-it helps a little.  The vets will be checking to see whether the meds Jas has been taking since last week are helping to clear the fluid out of his lungs.  I think he’s doing better, but he’s still laboring.  From there, we’ll discuss whether to take him to a canine cardiologist.  What is the true state of his heart, and how much can we do to prolong his quality of life?

It’s unbearable.

And yet we bear it. 

We adapt to the new circumstances and we go on. 

Truly I would do anything to make this not true, to wield some magic in which his life extends the length of my own and beyond, in which he is always with me, in the woods, constant companion.  In which I could give him my own heart, keep him here, healthy, prancing.  But such magic doesn’t exist, does it.  Even Dumbledore died.

He will, we all will, return to the formless.  I don’t have to like it -- right now I really, really hate it --  but there’s nothing to be done except keep my eyes on Jasper, savor each breath he takes, take each step as it comes, slower but with no less grace.

Spring Fever: happy-work

Pawlonia first bloom, 3/10/11

As self-proclaimed High Priestess of Happy, I take Happy super-seriously. It is my life's entire aim, a subject I love to read about, think about, write about. It is my Rule #1, the barometer of everything. I love it when we chant Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu in class -- May all beings be happy, may all beings be free. Maha Amen to that.

I've been a veritable frenzy of work recently, busy, busy, busy, both at my paying job and in my various projects on the side, whether school or blogging or writing. I was just out in the garden planting peas and listening to the busy bees in the borage, and got to thinking about how much I love work, how much I love having some bustle, creative things to do, challenge, goals. I can feel the Spring inside me in this exhilaration of work.  Like a bee, I need and thrive on the purposefulness.

I was reminded of a passage in Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., in which he writes about our ingrained prejudice against work and how actually work makes us happier:

In their article, "Optimal Experience in Work and Learning," Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Judith LeFevre show that people prefer leisure to work, a conclusion that no one would find startling.  However, they also discovered something else: that people actually have more flow experiences at work than at home.

     This paradox -- that we say we prefer leisure at the same time that we are having our peak experiences at work -- is strange and revealing.  It suggests that our prejudice against work, our association of effort with pain and leisure with pleasure, is so deep-rooted that it distorts our perception of the actual experience.  When we automatically and regularly evaluate positive experiences at work negatively, simply as a learned response, we are severely limiting our potential for happiness -- because in order to be happy we must not only experience positive emotions but also evaluate them as such.  (p. 92)

Obviously, the nature of the work matters enormously, but the point is that it isn't work itself that's the problem.  The challenge, or rather the opportunity, is to find the right work, happy-work.

At this time of year when I'm outside in the garden or even inside at the laptop, I am reminded that happy-work is the only kind worth doing.  Sure, there are reasons to put up with the opposite -- I know I did it for ages in the interest of college tuition, and I know plenty of others who "keep head down, collect paycheck" -- but it can only be temporary.

Ultimately the real joy in life is to find this happy-work and get lost in it, whether it's spreadsheets (yes, me) or compost (also me).  

Every spring offers another opportunity to get out there and plant seeds of future deliciousness.  Ours is the sowing, and also the harvest.

XOX

Michael's Sourdough Challenge: Week 1

I love a good project and/or game, and will make a project or game out of just about any activity.  This leads to hours of amusement and entertainment -- sometimes I am the only one entertained or amused, but that's fine by me.  I am a total nerd this way, but don't forget that I am the very same person who worked on a report about cats with Medora Payne when we were under-10 kids on Liberty Street, neither one of us able to have cats as pets (family allergies), out of total love for subject spending hours at the library, reading books about cats, collecting images of cats, writing page after page after page...  Yes, I have a long history of this.

For example, coming home from Tahoe a few weeks ago, I decided that I would make a little project of counting how many medical marijuana dispensaries there are along the freeway corridor.  Lately, I've been noticing these everywhere. So I kept a running tally in my notebook.  Unfortunately, it appears that really, the bulk of the dispensaries I remember are on a different stretch of road, so it wasn't that fruitful.  But then, since it was getting to be twilight, optimum raptor hunting time across the flatlands of Highway 37, I turned it into a game of Pot vs. Hawk.  Hawks won it, hands down.  Awesome!  There are many, many more examples of my project-mania, but you get the idea.

Over lunch at the delicious Michael's Sourdough a few weeks ago with some friends, we were discussing our unfortunate tendency to always order the same delicious thing.  I always get the #23 with Dijon, no onions, half-wrapped.  Always.  Because it's delicious.  Half-wrapped because the sandwiches are enormous and certain to induce food-coma if eaten in their entirety.  How sad, we said, that there are broad swaths of menu we are not accessing because of our favoritism.

And so a new project was born.

The Michael's Sourdough sandwich menu has 26 items on it.  Twenty-six -- how tidy, I thought.  If we eat here every other week for one year, I proposed aloud, we could work our way through the entire menu.  Thank goodness my friends are generally willing to humor me and my silly ideas.

We start today with Sandwich #1: Idaho Ham.  The rules are that everyone orders the same sandwich; we eat and discuss.  If nothing else, it's an opportunity to see some people I love on a regular basis in the middle of a work-day.

The Michael's Sourdough Challenge will not be easy.  The menu (sorry, vegans and vegetarians, and me with my sometimes-narrow tastes) is quite meat-y, and does include liverwurst (week #12) and salami (week #8, oh the breath!).  Schedules are another challenge, since it's absurd how hard it is to coordinate the schedules of just 4 people.  Keeping a commitment with each other for a year is another aspect of the challenge.

So we'll see how it goes.  I'll be there today, tasting the #1 sandwich on the menu and in our game, enjoying the company of friends and a little mid-day break.  And naturally, taking notes.

Jasper: two possibilities, only one wish

These are your lungs on fluid...

Our poor boy Jasper has been having some troubs recently.  Today was our second visit to the vet in as many weeks.  We didn't sleep most of last night, concerned about Jassie's shallow, labored breathing, all night long.   Our good eater hasn't been eating much, leaving kibbies behind in the bowl, no matter the enticements offered.  And even though Jas clearly wanted to go, I cut our morning walk short;  even the slightest trot would cause him to cough and weave.  Heart-breaking, really.

On top of that, I swear he has been giving me this look for the past week or so, head held kind of low, direct stare into my eyes that he hasn't done before.  Like he's asking me for help.  I know that's probably total projection, but I swear this is a new intent gaze he's never directed at me before in our 13 years 8 months together.

I was about to leave for work, with the plan of calling the vet at 9.  I chanced it and called them from the driveway at 8:20, and lo and behold, they had a 9am slot for us.  All manner of blessings on the staff and doctors at our vet clinic.  They are unfailingly sweet and kind, baby-talking Jasper like there's no tomorrow. 

One physical exam, two chest x-rays, some bloodwork, 1 shot of antibiotics and 1 new prescription later, Jasper is home and resting on his pillow, still breathing with a great deal of effort.

The verdict: our little sweetheart has fluid in his lungs.  If you look closely at the x-ray above, you can see it: where he should have nice dark lungs filling out his rib cage, there is a smokiness -- that's the fluid.  No wonder breathing has been such an effort, pobrecito!

The question is why, of course.  Jasper has a mild heart murmur, so immediately we go to the possibility of heart failure.  This is not unusual in older dogs, especially those with murmurs, and was the very thing that drove us to the vet two weeks ago (after my Googling turned up this alarming possibility).  The good news is that his heart is not enlarged, looks fine, and really on the scale of 1 to 6 on which they grade heart murmurs, his is only a 2.  Mild.  Heart failure is treatable not curable.  We could keep him comfortable with daily medication.

The other most likely possibility is pneumonia, something else that's common in older dogs.  But naturally, the thermometer didn't indicate a fever, which you'd expect with pneumonia, though not always.  Antibotics would clear it up.

Possibilities eliminated: cancer (phew), heart worm disease (phew).

Still nothing's clear-cut at the moment, except that our boy is struggling for air.  Most likely it's either heart failure or pneumonia.  Yes, there are some other options, but those seemed less likely.

By later this afternoon, I will have heard from the vet re the blood panel they're running right now.  That'll help narrow things.  The radiology report tomorrow morning will tell us more, perhaps even something definitive.  By later today or tomorrow morning, we are hoping to see some improvement in his breathing: either the antibiotics will start doing the trick on the pneumonia, or the other meds for the heart failure will have helped to move the fluid from his lungs so he can get full breaths.  Either way, he should be feeling better. 

And that's all I really want: for our sweet Jassie to be ok, to be able to fill those capacious lungs of his with air and keep that big, bold heart beating strong as ever.
XX

Jas, in better days, curled up in a garden chair.  Love!

Birthday Kula Rejoicing

The best gift of yoga in my life, truly, is the kula, this community of delightful yogis I find myself a part of now.  Little did I know when I started practicing 8+ years ago that I would find this enormous many-armed embrace.  These new friendships have brought so, so much to this decade, to my dotage as I like to call it.  My teacher calls me AriAnanda, naming with the Ananda the deep joy that is in my heart and busting out all over when I'm on my mat and in the glow of the practice.  A volcano of Ananda!

AriAnanda totally fits me.  Totally.  It reminds me that my parents named me this too, waaaaaay back when, when they invented my middle name Felisa from the word "feliz" in Spanish, meaning "happy."  Coincidence?  Nope. I do think in the practice I have been able to connect to who I truly am (and always have been) -- a happy, happy person interested in the happy-happy of others, eager to spread more of this good feeling (naturally, without being a total freak about it).

AriAnanda is why I was able to leave my last job, finally.  The contrast between who I know myself to be in class and with my friends and on the weekends and what I had become in order to survive on that job became too sharp, too false.  Thank goodness I got out of there, so now I can be Ananda all the time.  Oh, fuck yes.

The kula is so much a part of how I able to maintain this Ananda 24/7.  OK, sure, I have my ananda-free moments like everyone else -- frustration, sorrow, anger -- but so quickly I am able to come back to this wellspring of bliss, of just feeling like everything is right and better-than-OK, awesome in fact.  Because I have these amazing people in my life who keep reminding me.  Who keep the truth front-and-center for me.

Because, in short, to steal a line from a (now-dated) movie, I see good people.

At no time is this more clear than on birthdays.  The rejoicing starts early, on Facebook.  It's always a delight to see the messages come pouring in from all parts of the country and globe.  On Nancy's birthday yesterday, it made ME so happy to see how much love was pouring in, so very many sweet heartfelt messages.  Then in class, to feel how much love was pouring from us to her and back again the whole time, so much celebration of how precious she is to us all.  Crazy-powerful!

In last night's class, in honor of Nancy's birthday, Laura woven Nancy's sutra for the year, believe, into the practice.  It occurred to me that believing in each other is what allows us to better believe in ourselves. When I look out, even just in my mind's eye, and scan the smiling faces of the kula, my belief in their goodness is so unwavering that I feel it refracted back to me and I remember that that same brightness that animates them is in me, too.  All the time.

The intensity of it sometimes makes me feel like I've become a crazy lady in this-here-my-dotage.  But if you're gonna be crazy, might as well be crazy-in-love, right?

Sending a shout-out to all of my friends, yogis and not, for all the love year-round, birthdays and not-birthdays.  You make it all possible, people.  You keep it all good.

XX

Maha ha ha ha ha ha: how yoga rocks my world. A thousand-fold.

Shiva is my homeboy

We've been celebrating Maha Shivaratri the last couple of days, Wednesday night into yesterday.  [For more about what that means, check out Bernadette Birney's delightful post or this one, by Katrina.]  In our practice with Laura, the emphasis has been on being super-clear about our intentions, since on Maha Shivaratri, intentions, like mantras, are magnified one thousand-fold.  On this dark night of Shiva, they are a whole lot more potent than usual.

Really, when you come down to it, a strongly-held intention is a mantra, something we hold to, something that keeps us on the path.  Remembered, it does play like music through the mind, a little melody behind everything else we do.  Just like a mantra that we come back to, and back to, over and over, as we move forward into creating the lives we really want to live.

I love the word Maha.  It means "great" or "biggest."  Since Tuesday, I've been trying to Maha up everything I'm doing. Why not GO BIG?

And I've had a lot of help, mostly from my teacher, who inspires me and blows my mind regularly. Several things that she's said over the past few days are echoing through my thoughts day and night, sinking in, seeding mantras of their own. But mostly I've been struck, again, by how consistently yoga delivers magic on the mat. How I can be working my loops and tucking my tailbone and spiraling my back thigh in -- working all kinds of physical technique, sweating, focused -- and then BAM comes a moment of total delight in which I am so happy I could just burst.

How the practice itself, consistently, opens up opportunities for joy and comfort and a simple reveling in being alive, having this body, being incarnated in this form, if I could be so bold.

Nothing I have ever done in my entire life has been so consistent a source of happiness.  How freaking amazing is that?!  So amazing that I just want to laugh and jump around.

How lucky we are to be here, to have this opportunity to take in the world around us, to dance our lives into being, just like Shiva.  To make magic on our mats, over and over. 

Go Maha!