Chien Perdu

Oh, dude. Bad dreams all around last night. Little A woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, and it took Tony a while to convince her that there were no monsters in her room.


Then we all got back to sleep, and I had a nightmare that I was out walking Ember by the Truckee river, and someone threw a ball beside her. She ran after it and fell in the river and was swept away while I ran along the bank trying to get her. It was awful. I woke up all upset to find her mink-soft little body right where it belonged, next to me and very warm in sleep.

I gathered her up in my arms and stroked her while my heart hammered. She sleepily gave my face a little lick and wagged her tail.

When Ember came home with us, she was a tiny little thing, and very much still a baby in many respects. At the time, she massaged my mothering need and also helped heal the loss of my beloved Heidi, who had passed away just months before. She was so soft and cuddly, I had no trouble bonding with her.

When I came home from my trip on Sunday, I got a hug and a peck on the cheek from my husband, an ecstatic, leaping, smiling greeting from Little A, and an absolutely crying hysterical reception from Ember, who would not be content until I picked her up and held her against my body. She must have bounced her long body on those stubby back legs for two full minutes while I put my stuff down. It was really funny and only a little annoying and very sweet.

Dreaming that I lost her was horrible. She's my baby in some ways. It really drew my attention that I have an enduring fear of losing those I love. After losing my Grandparents, my brother, and my dog Heidi in the last 7 years, that isn't that surprising. Add to that the multiple losses that we don't even talk about: all those babies we tried to conceive and couldn't, the one time I was just sure I was pregnant and then I wasn't, and the friends that I have fallen out with in the last few years, it is no wonder I stopped talking to God and everyone else.

Funny that I should actually make my living by talking to people. All day. But I am talking to people about themselves, their problems. I'm the fix-it gal. I'm the one they come to when they are sick or suicidal and need assistance. I'm the one they chalk up either as an angelic presence of helpfulness, or as the very personification of the bureaucratic mess that is the VA. I talk to dying people, angry people, mentally ill people, and people that otherwise would be lost in the cracks of this world. I get alternately thanked profusely and berated with long looping strings of profanity. I'm a blank screen onto which they project themselves. In other words, I'm not real to them.

I talk to my pen. I talk to my manuscripts. I talk to my poetry. I talk in soft touches to my dog. But people, not so much. Oh, sure, I prattle on into my phone, but everyone is usually so busy that to take the time to actually deeply talk seems the provenance of old friends that already know much of the back story.

But I have gotten a few things back. Some old friends have come back to me and that is really nice, even if I don't feel nearly as fun as I used to be. It must be entertaining to watch me fall down or something. I never was very graceful.

I did have a pretty deep conversation the other day and found out how out of practice I am at it. My throat closed up a couple of times when I tried to say things that the other person especially needed me to say with the kind of grace I lend to my poetry. I needed to be fluid, and instead I got all twisted in knots trying to protect what felt like a sucking chest wound. It is pretty wounding to my ego that there was just no way for me to keep my cool and I was as awkward and stilted as I was when I was 15. How frustrating. I feel so lame.

I ended up talking about how my brother died and just bitterly weeping over it. Afterward I just felt cracked open and eviscerated for about 24 hours, as evidenced by the previous blog post. It makes sense that I would retreat to being nonverbal, curling around the body of my dachshund like a bizarre semicolon in my bed. My restless hands find acceptance there. It is one of the few things in my life that isn't hopelessly complicated.