Small Conceits

Musings. Stories. Poems.


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Sachi and Coyote

We’ve always been a dog family.

Growing up, it was springer spaniels, whose happy energy helped them live up to their names. As an adult, I started a love affair with Golden Retrievers, the gorgeous goofballs of the dog universe. My first Golden, Sachi, was a gorgeous little blonde with a wicked sense of humor. My current Golden, Bodhi, is a big, robust red boy with the most expressive eyes — and who cracks both himself and me up on a daily basis.

But before Bodhi came along — and before my Sachi left us — I let Coyote into my life, a husky/white-shepherd mix who turned my life inside out and our household upside down. I adopted her to provide Sachi with a much-needed friend. I used to joke that if I wanted her to learn anything, I first had to negotiate with the husky side and, if she felt there was something in it for her, the shepherd side would codify it into law and so it would be forever.

Except when it wasn’t.My dogs Sachi and Coyote

Sachi was my best friend, the apple of my eye and bananas of my day. She charmed me into play, fussed over me when I was sad or anxious, guarded my bedside when I was sick. The book from which I got her name translated it as “child of joy,” a kind of play on my own name, which often translates to “joy.” She was joy personified, my sun dog.

Coyote was named for the Native American trickster god. When she was younger, she was my escape artist, the sergeant in charge of Squirrel Watch, the Fun Police when things got too rowdy. But, as with the Coyote of Native mythology, she is also a source of hidden wisdom, the silent observer, the sweet, shy one. She has always been my moon dog.

So these are the characters who started the dog dialogues. As do many people who have furred and feathered creatures in their lives, I started mentally captioning my dogs’ postures and expressions, imagining conversations. And, because it’s what I do, I started writing them down. And posting them to Facebook.

Because, obviously.

So, that’s my introduction for the main cast of characters for the Dog Talk section of this blog. I’ll start by reaching into the past a little and work my way forward. There’s plenty to post. My dogs are nothing if not chatty.


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Nap

On a long drive home from Michigan, I took a nap in an unlikely place:

Old cemetery,
white stones scrubbed of dates by wind.
I nap with the dead.


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Conundrum

Tonight, my Better Self has fled me.

I’m tired and frustrated and — yes — even resentful of my terminally ill Coyote. I’m cleaning up several messes a day — urine, vomit, feces — from everywhere in the house, even the porch. Despite my best efforts, putrid bodily waste is embedded in the carpeting, seeped into the wood, soaked into the grout between the tiles. After weeks of this, it feels impossible to keep up with cleaning the filth from the floors, washing the dirty rags, and I’m not sure how much longer I can continue.

But I shatter under the weight of what it would mean not to continue. 

The burden of Coyote’s care robs Bodhi of meaningful play time with me, steals the space I might create for caring for myself. Relief from that burden, however, means never seeing her smile in that way that huskies do; never again watching her curl into an “O” while she sleeps, with her nose buried into the end of her tail for warmth. Yes, the time I spend crouched next to her bowl, feeding her one piece of baked chicken at a time — and, at the start of a meal, re-feeding her the same piece again and again until she can get her mouth and tongue and throat coordinated — could be spent doing yoga in the morning or reading in the evening. But not crouching there, patiently helping her swallow the last kind of food she can stomach, would also mean missing the uncharacteristically demonstrative way she leans her head into my chest when she can eat no more, an apology and a surrender. She knows it hurts the heart she feels beating through my t-shirt to see the weight melt from her frame. I can see the structure of her body too clearly now, the skeletal scaffolding that was once hidden by muscle and flesh and her thick, still-beautiful, white pelt.

And, yet, she’s in no pain. So I can’t simply “dispose” of her for my convenience.

She still finds pleasure in lying in the sunbeam that warms that one spot on the living room floor. She still wants a belly rub if I’m passing by. She still begs for walks, even if all she can manage is halfway up the block before her weakened, clumsy limbs betray her, and we have to turn back. She still owns a quality of life that keeps me in this holding pattern with her.

Still, I hate myself for gating her in the kitchen, where the tile is easier to clean, but where she can’t watch the squirrels from the windowed front door. I hate the disease that is slowly wasting her away, stealing the comical nimbleness and focused stealth she used in her play, so long ago. I hate the brevity — only 11 of her 13 or 14 years — of the time we’ve had together. 

It’s exhausting to keep trying for her. It’s anguish to understand what it means to stop.


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A Necessary Launch

My dog is dying.

As reasons for launching a blog go, I suppose it’s no better or worse than any other. As many creative types will attest, life-changing events — falling in love, leaving a relationship, contracting or beating a disease, or losing a beloved being — are often accompanied by bursts of creative energy. And although my Facebook friends — heck, my friends, family, and coworkers in general — have all been incredibly supportive and encouraging as I walk with my old girl on this long, painfully certain path, all of that energy needed someplace to go. Y’know, where it’s not jamming up everyone’s news streams.

2015-06-19 22.52.59

So, does that mean that this blog will be a series of morose and maudlin meanderings down memory lane? Nah. That would be boring. And death is only one part of life. One of the hardest, most vulnerable and intimate parts, yes. But one of the smallest.

What you — whoever “you” are — will read here reflects my own, personal view on the crazy variety of life. Some of it will be imported over from a blog of the same name, which used to be hosted elsewhere, on a different platform. Some of it will be new. And some of it will be things I’m revising and moving over from Facebook — the bits that made people laugh or cry or think a little. You might say that Facebook was my test market, and my friends were all taste-testers.

Whatever you might say, I say those friends are some of the best humans walking the planet. I’m grateful to them for allowing me to indulge in my small conceits.