What a Difference a Week Makes

"I think I could turn and live with animals*, 

they are so placid, and self-contain'd, 

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition, 

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, 

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, 

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, 

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago…"

–Walt Whitman

 

I stopped the quote there, for I believe animals can be unhappy, which Whitman says they are not.

We have a new animal, a happy animal, a dog my grandson named Zeke.

I just learned that the word animal comes from the Latin word "soul."

Zeke is a German Shepherd mix. Small for a German Shepard. He's a lover, sweet and gentle. My daughter chose him from The Greenhill Animal Shelter. 

He has three legs.

He had a genetic deformity in his right leg. The RV Outlet in Eugene, Oregon, paid for his surgery, a generosity for which I am incredibly grateful. They gave that dog an opportunity for a happy life and gave us a happy dog.

When my daughter first told me about him, I was reluctant to have another dog enter our two dogs and one-cat household, but within a day of having him here, I was in love.

One serendipitous part of this sudden experience was that a couple of days before my daughter learned that her dog Laffe has cancer, she felt called to look at dogs at the shelter, and while there she fell in love with this three-legged dog.

I was drawn to Whitman's poem, for this dog does not whine about his condition. He hops about, dropping joy on his three paw prints and us.

Regarding whether animals have souls, a subject I ran into this week, how in the heck would we know? People used to argue about how many angels could stand on the head of a pin, and arguments regarding philosophical thought still rage.

I vote that if humans have a soul, and I believe they do—then so do the animals. To me, the spark of life indicates a soul. (Hey, plants are alive too.)

Gary Kowalski took up the daring question of the soul in his book, The Souls of Animals) — an inquiry into the "spiritual lives" of whooping cranes, elephants, jackdaws, gorillas, songbirds, horses, dogs, and cats. At its center is the idea that spirituality — which he defines as "the development of a moral sense, the appreciation of beauty, the capacity for creativity, and the awareness of one's self within a larger universe as well as a sense of mystery and wonder about it all" — is a natural byproduct of "the biological order and in the ecology shared by all life."

Do fleas go to heaven? If they do, they are fed a replicated formula and keep their mitts off the other critters.

 

Welcome to The Porch

 I asked the group of six that had been meeting weekly under the Maple if they wanted to continue. They told me they would continue whether I recorded their meetings or not. They were doing it for themselves, and if recording their conversations would be entertaining or informative to others, so be it.

 

They kicked my butt and told me to keep going, not to bore people but to trust that recording their conversations was valuable. But they were going to let’er rip and forget that I am listening.

 

So let the tape roll…

 

Last Tuesday:

ON THE PORCH

 

Hot spinach dip in a fondue pot on the table, chips to dip. Drinks available.

 

Shal came through the gate, grinning a big Cheshire cat grin.

 

“Well, Hello, Shal,” said Ollie, standing from her chair and waving him in. “You look happy.”

 

“I am.” He hopped onto the porch where the group had moved from the maple tree, poured himself a hot cup of coffee, and said, “Hi, everybody. Ollie, I like your porch, and that it is enclosed on three sides, and with that patio heater, it will keep us comfy until December. And I believe that tree standing in your yard is still our protector and observer.” He gives a salute.

 

“Yep, fall fell this week. The rains came, the lawns turned green, and the fields are so brilliant they glisten when the sun hits them.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Shal,” said Twinkie, “what do you have up your sleeve? You look like you hit a jackpot.”

 

“I did. I’m going to be a papa.”

 

“Really? Shal, that’s wonderful.” Ollie moved around the table to give him a hug. The others gather around, shaking hands, hugging, and slapping him on the back.

 

“We were about ready to go to a fertility specialist.” He paced, too excited to sit or maybe nervous about telling his friends something so close to his heart. “We wanted to be pregnant by the time Allison was 35—missed it by a year. She’s 36 now. I’m 40, and we’re a little tenuous about telling people, wanting to ensure the pregnancy sticks. But I couldn’t wait to tell you guys.”

 

“Isn’t it fascinating,” said Ollie, “that this happened after you began meditating?”

 

“Oh my gosh, that’s right. I have been meditating still, for Allison said I was calmer and more at peace when I meditated. Oh, this fascinates me. I had not put it together. I thought something else caused a pregnancy.” 

 

The group laughs.

 

“How’s Allison going to manage?” Ollie asks. “She’s a Physician’s Assistant. I know she loves her job.”

 

“I might become a house husband, well, not all the time. Allison said she didn’t wait all this time for a baby, only to let me raise it, so we are working it out. She will work a couple days a week, I will go part-time. I can do that with my job, and we’ll share.”

 

“I’m glad you guys have that option,” said Sally. “I’m happy for you.”

 

“Oh, I had qualms about bringing a child into the world, after that Covid thing, and the lock down, the school shootings and all that. But Allison said that a baby is evidence that the world will continue. So, I’m accepting that. We’ll home school if need be. Maybe that child chose to come in now, who knows what plan he or she has up that little baby sleeve of hers, his, whatever.”

 

“You are the shot of joy we needed, Shal.” When we have a joyful moment, it magnetizes more joy. It builds. And what is more joyful than new life? 

 

‘I love watching babies giggle, blow bubbles, and kick their feet like those feet were the best invention ever. I’ll babysit so Mom and Dad can have a date night. You’re making me want to go out and get a puppy.”

 

“Old Laffe there might object,” Shal looked at Ollie’s dog asleep under the table where Ollie had placed a large rug that gave him plenty of room and the others a warm floor if they wanted to take off their shoes.

 

“Maybe it would give him a longevity shot.”

 

“You know,” says Ollie, “all these things, babies, puppies, make our life more fun, and you know that ‘Neurons that fire together wire together.’ And that applies to experiences, learning, and mind talk. It fixes them into the brain.”

 

“Up with brain juice,” says Twinkie. “By the way folks, Alan kissed me.”

 

“Twinkie, really?” said Ollie, somewhat concerned that he was taking advantage of a love-struck girl.

 

“Yep, really. I think he means it.” He told me he tries not to get involved with a student. I guess it’s somewhat like the student falls in love with the teacher, and the teacher should not take advantage of that. Last Saturday, as we were taking a break from the hot room with that blazing kiln, we walked into the forest behind his studio and down a path there. When we came to a fallen log, we sat on it and talked. He had a problem with my name, Twinkie. ‘You are not a Bimbo,” he said. “You are the most UP girl I have ever met.”  

 

“’You can call me Shirley, my given name, if you want,’ I said.”

 

 “‘How about Twink? That suits your lightness,’ he said. 

 

 “And not as fattening as a Twinkie,’ I said. He laughed and fell silent. We held hands for a while just sitting there. It was not an uncomfortable silence, but my nerves were a wreck. I thought I was going to die of longing. And then he turned and kissed me.”

 

“So cool,” said Sally, bursting into tears, shocking everyone.”

 

…to be continued

 

 

P.S. You can find all the conversations on Substack, plus a little extra in between. 

 

Jewell D's Substack

 

aka

 

https://joycedavis@substack.com

 

 

Happiness

 

Hey, if you’re a writer and you’re not happy, get over it.

 

You’ve been given a gift.

 

I once read this quote, and for the life of me, I can’t find who said it, but it has applied to me for years. “I’m a writer like a dog is a dog. It doesn’t mean I’m a good dog.”

 

I just read Seth Godin’s blog where he asked the question, “Is Mood a Gift or a Skill?” It’s fascinating how certain subjects come up when you need them.

 

 Some days, wrote Godin, we wake up with optimism and possibility. That would appear that our moods are handed to us. 

 

Other days, we must work to obtain a good mood—write morning pages (yes, Godin mentioned morning pages), meditation, music, who we hang out with, and what media we consume.

 

We want a Deus ex machina, “The God of the machine” to save us. (A plot device from Shakespearean plays where a seemingly impossible problem is solved by a god who was swung onto the stage by some contraption and thus saves the day.)

 

If our mood is governed by some otherworldly intervention, we are victims.

 

Being in command of our moods is a skill, and skills can be learned and perfected.

 

David Robson wrote in The Guardian that as a teenager, he was plagued with insecurities. In contrast, his mother said, “The problem with your generation is that you always expect to be happy.” He was baffled. Surely, he thought, happiness was the purpose of living, and we should strive to achieve it at every opportunity? He simply wasn’t prepared to accept his melancholy as something beyond his control. 

 

Later on, in life, he realized that his mother was spot on.

 

 “Over the past 10 years,” wrote Robson, “numerous studies have shown that our obsession with happiness and high personal confidence may be making us less content with our lives and less effective at reaching our actual goals. Indeed, we may often be happier when we stop focusing on happiness altogether.” 

 

Well, well, that takes me back to my favorite story on happiness.

 

A little cat believed that happiness lies in his tail, so he was always chasing it. The Wise Guru Cat said, “Little cat, little cat, don’t you know that if you go on with your life, happiness like your tail will follow?”

 

Other researchers think that those who focus, who do affirmations, pictures, those sorts of things to achieve their goals, actually harm.

 

 I take issue.

 

Those people are pushing too hard. The more you are determined that this thing that you want will come to you, the more resistance you are putting on it. You are saying I do not have this thing I want. You are chasing your tail. 

 

The Universe or whatever, The Blue Genie, sees you as not having it. And appearing ignorant when you say I do not have this thing I want. He hears, “I do not have.”

 

Weird, I know. 

 

All your affirmations ought to be that you DO have it. And if you affirm, picture, repeat, it ought to be fun, and with a light heart, with exuberance and joy. It is programming your unconscious, remember? It is not beating it into submission.

 

Genies don’t assume. They are literal. “I do not have this thing I want.”

 

“You don’t? Okay.” 

 

Instead, perhaps instead of reaching for happiness, we reach for joy. 

 

  I remember the day my sister, Jan, and I were standing at our mother’s grave site. This was years after she passed, and she had no gravestone until we kids decided to buy one. It was December. I had driven the 150 miles to visit Jan and to see our mother’s new headstone. It was snowing. We both had purchased flowers, and on the way out her apartment door, Jan grabbed the broom to sweep away the snow that she knew would be covering the flat stone that marked Mom’s grave.

 

After reading the inscription, we stood there talking about our wonderful mother and how we missed her. Suddenly the snow stopped, and above our heads, the sky cleared, and the lightly falling snow stopped. 

 

Dumbfounded, we looked up, and Jan said, “I feel joy.”

 

“So do I,” I said. 

 

At that point, the sky closed, and the sprinkling of snow began again. 

 

Were we happy? I don’t know. We were mystified, and we felt joy.

 

 These are the moments in our lives.