Christmas Messenger

Calhoun's Cannons for Dec 22, 2013

The universe if full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

                                                                          Eden Phillpots

Thank God this embarrassing year is finally tumbling offstage, all ridiculous clown shoes flapping, and ooga-ooga horns blaring.  You just know the founding fathers are rolling their eyes while rolling in their graves.  Could Congress get more idiotic than it  already is?  Who elected these fools?  Wait.  Don't answer that.  Instead of shutting the government down and hurting real people and a real economy, what would have happened had all the sane Congresspersons simply turned the lights out and left the building?  Let those morons sit there in the dark?

I know.  They wouldn't have noticed.

Mercifully, time, tide, and rising suns will move this dumbshow off the stage, ready for some other piece of idiocy or sad pointless drama.  Change and flow, all change and flow that briefly illuminates the flickering, ephemeral reality of our lives.

In my house, more change.  The last of the Basenjis slipped into air to join all the other little canine spirits that haunt my garden.  After 30-something years, the absence of their fierce little energies is palpable.  But the tall dogs remain and move with languid grace among the garden-ghosts, lavenders and sage. Although their increasingly grey muzzles are a daily not-so gentle reminder of time's unstoppable flow.     

Out in the garden, The Great Grapevine has renewed itself.  Judicious but firm pruning forced its overgrown woody trunk to come back to life and sprout new vines.  By Thanksgiving, the Roger's Red grapevines were curtained with leaves that blazed with some of the purest reds I've ever seen in nature.  It's their last fiery gift to the coming winter.  As is the huge mound of massed yellow blooms of the Tagetes.  Warmed by the late afternoon sun, the tumbling cascade of flowers is alive with humming bees loading up last minute pollen for the cold, lean days ahead.  

More transformation in the garden.  I excavated the torso-sized root of a clump of Giant 4 O'Clocks, a 40-pound behemoth tuber that was finally defeated by strategy and a sharp shovel. I will miss the ghostly gleam of its array of pastel pink and white blooms that opened in the soft summer dusk, a floral offering for the night moths.  But in its place I'll plant an apple tree that's supposed to grow well in this area.  I don't know how long it will take to get apples, but with luck, I'll have soft blooms waiting for the hungry spring bees.

Throughout the land, Christmas will be a slimmer, darker affair. The Salvation Army's bell ringers have their work cut out for them.  Food banks and homeless shelters, too.  As a nation we have deliberately committed a bizarre form of suicide: Death by a thousand cuts, starting with the poor.  While a few Scrooges pile up all the gold in their storehouses, the city fills with more and more Bob Cratchits shivering with only a half-lump of coal in their grates.  No Christmas pudding for you!  We've turned ourselves into Scrooged Nation and left ourselves behind as self-mutilated road-kill, a  sprig of holly in our shabby lapels.  Where is Jacob Marley, come to clank his chains at us and open our furious, blind hearts?

Once again I climb the ladder to bring the guardian nutcrackers down from the garage rafters and blow the dust off their boxes.  Another year for them to watch over the small festivities. I place them around the house and drape a few strings of brilliantly hued LED Christmas lights and suddenly the ancient ritual of the Yule Log whispers into the room to keep the cold and darkness of winter's night at bay.

And across five million years, our own Christmas miracle arrived.  The comet Ison appeared briefly before us like a messenger across time itself.  And in a mystery, died in the blaze of our sun only to miraculously re-appear for an instant before finally disappearing into stardust.  Like us, it had also been on a long, fragile, mysterious journey.

Overhead, the winter stars gleam, transiting in their own immense time, untouched by the  minute scurryings on our own ill-used and dangerously fragile little speck of dust. I find their vast indifference a kind of cold comfort since hope for a decent future seems such a folly. Humans have no lock on survival and if we don't care enough to sustain a livable world, nature will pass her judgment on us soon enough. Either way, earth itself will abide and all will be well as Shiva dances in the spiraling, tumbling galaxies without end. 

Molly McGuire roos at me as I stand in the cold, staring at the night sky.  She wants her bedtime dog biscuit.  The Mighty Finn McCool leans his tall body against mine, ears up to catch the rustlings in the night, nose twitching. The solstice sun will be rising soon on a brand new day. 

Mizigo's Crossing

Calhoun's Cannons for Oct 11, 2013

Her mother  brought her back inside her belly after a hot date with a good ol' Georgia boy. She and her siblings would be the new scions of an old line breeding with Champion Kenset Made in the USA.  And after a whelping that started out with difficulty -- her big-headed sister having gotten stuck for a while in the birth canal -- she popped out, one of  four wet, mouse-brown puppies and one exhausted mother. And in honor of her journey, I named the pup Zuri a Kusini Mizigo -- Beautiful Southern Baggage -- and called her Mizigo, for short.

Her lineage promised a kind of Basenji concentrate, Basenji x 10, and when I saw her starting to climb out of the X-pen almost before she could walk, I knew I was in trouble.  In short order the tribe earned their well-deserved nickname:  The Hideous Georgia Babies. Even their mother fled her duties as soon as she could, leaving much of the mothering to her own mother, the gentle-eyed M'Tawi, who apparently tolerated their concentrated Basenji-ness better than most.

Two of the clan went to live in Morro Bay and I would get frequent reports, complete with much eye-rolling and long, exasperated sighs -- a normal response from all Basenji owners.  And two stayed here with the rest of the tribe of greats and grands, mothers and uncles, all of whom snarked and rolled their eyes as well.

That was nearly 16 years ago and over time the tribe, one by one, passed on until Mizigo was the last Basenji standing in what had then become a house of tall dogs -- rescue racing greyhounds, a greyhound cross, and a sleek Sloughi.  But, being a Basenji, she was up to the challenge, chugging her way determinedly among the forest of legs, firmly demanding her place in this now-towering tribe, a tough little Dame who must be obeyed.  Which they did, gazing to heaven and stepping out of her way.

Even when time began to take it's toll, her fierce will would brook no concessions.  She came down with some sort of chronic gut infection that couldn't seem to be cured, only maintained, and when it broke out, she would collapse and take to her bed, hovering at death's door.  I would tuck her in and say my tearful good-byes, sorrowfully mourning, convinced that come morning, she would be gone.

But the next morning, there she was, up and hoovering around for food. A miracle! 

Then it happened again.  And again. Collapse, death's door, sorrow, Boo-hoo good-byes, sleep, then, "Where's breakfast?"  After three or four  of these episodes I started referring to her as my Resurrection Dog and rolled my eyes and after a while found myself in half-jest starting to  whisper,  "Go into the light, Sweetie, " then firmer, "Time to go into the light, Mizigo," then hollering, "GO INTO THE LIGHT, DAMMIT!" 

But she wasn't about to listen to me. She was on her own focused journey and would do every step of it her own way, thank you very much.  So I rolled my eyes and followed behind, with medicine and baby-food at the ready, a steadying hand when her balance left her tipsy, and a mop handy when she got confused about where the back door had suddenly gotten to.

And marvel at her astonishingly fierce determination and iron will; she would do what she would do and if  old age and infirmity made that hard, well, she'd just work around that however she could and I could jolly well get out of her way.  

That was our new covenant until the end, which came with stunning rapidity.  She had eaten her dinner, then within a couple of hours, began her final collapse.  I packed her into bed and made her as comfortable as possible.  By the next morning I knew she wouldn't be up and hoovering for food. When we got to the doctor's office, she was more than ready to step into the green darkness where all her tribe was waiting for her, eyes gleaming.  And with barely a whisper, she was gone.

The house is a tall dog house now, some thirty years of Basenji energy gone, an era ended.  Mizigo's ashes will join  all her relatives in the back yard, to be transformed into flowers and vines, a yard filled with little ghosts.

And memories.   

  

 

Brandy's Journey Home

Calhoun’s Cannons for August 1, 2012

Brandy’s Journey Home

            The older I get the more it seems like everything’s premature.  Stories I thought were done suddenly have another chapter.  Just when I think the play’s over, the curtain rises again and the actors are back in motion.  Life more and more seem to catch me in the middle of something, like someone late to the theatre who comes in part way through and keeps whispering, “What’s happening?” I’m getting to be like a long-winded story-teller who’s always saying, “Oh, wait, there’s more.”  

            Back in 1998 I wrote a column about adopting Brandy that ended with “The End,” and said, in part:

            “ I don’t know just what it was that captured me.  . . .  Lord knows, I had enough canines at home, a pack of Basenjis claiming to be dogs . . .    . . .  And Lord knows, my first look at the dog through the chain-link kennel doors at the Animal Services holding pens wasn’t promising.  The face was dark, feral, the body reflecting some Aboriginal dog influence, a dingo, perhaps.  Or was it the dog’s initial resemblance to a New Guinea Singing Dog that did it? . . .

            “Whatever it was, I couldn’t get the creature out of my mind and so the next day I returned to inquire further. Turns out that she was a young she, barely out of puppyhood, had been picked up wandering around Paso Robles and had been sitting in the pound for nearly two weeks waiting for “her people” to come looking for her.

            “Amazingly, they never did . . .  which was a bit puzzling because when I got her home, I discovered that she was housebroken, loved other dogs, people and rides in cars.  Clearly, here was a dog that somebody had taken the time to train and socialize and care for.  Yet when she was lost, they never came to find her.

            “The kennel man at Animal Services informed me that she looked almost exactly like the pure-bred Australian Kelpie that he had at home, with a little shepherd-something showing in her face, maybe.  As Kelpies are reputed to have some Dingo blood in them, that certainly explained the aboriginal look that first attracted me to her.

            “Since this is the first real dog I’ve ever had – Basenjis don’t count – it’s startling in the extreme to be around a dog that actually minds what you say. Basenjis are ancient hunting hounds, smart, cunning, independent survival artists who understand that humans are beneath contempt and so should be ignored with impunity.

            “Kelpies, on the other hand, were bred to herd sheep, cattle and other critters, and so by instinct and breeding are dogs that actually pay attention and do what they’re told.  That behavior is a shocking attribute in a house full of canine sociopaths.”

            And there, the story pretty much ended, except it didn’t.  About a year after getting Brandy, it became clear that mixing hounds and herders just wasn’t going to work out.  Brandy was tough-minded.  So were the Basenjis.  And the result was an unhappy household filled with growing umbrage.  And sharp teeth.  And so I sent out the word and within three-degrees of connection, Lois and Ralph arrived at the house to meet Brandy and take her home.

            Thus began a 14 year friendship and my new role as Brandy’s Aunt. When I first adopted Brandy, I thought I was the main character in a happy-ending story.  But that wasn’t the story at all.  I was only a minor character the middle of the story.  And far from being the hero, I was merely a plot device for the real story: Brandy finding her real, forever home. 

            And what a forever home. She went everywhere with her people, travels to the north woods, the high mountains, ever ready when the RV was being packed.  She was surrounded by friends wanting her to come for play dates with their dogs.  And when at home, she kept it safe from hooligan raccoons that came up off the bay to peer rudely into her windows.  But above all, she kept close watch on those she loved best, seeing her people through good times and bad.

            And every Christmas I would stop by with a sack of dog biscuits or toys which Lois transferred to Brandy’s special Christmas stocking hanging from the mantle.  Her eyes did not stray from that sock until she had at least one treat.

            And so the many, many Christmases went by and Brandy’s eyes grew dim, her energy waned, her step slowed until the story of Brandy, The Good, the best dog in the world, came to a gentle close.

             At least I think her story is over.  But, what do I know?  I’m just a character in this tale, and as far as I know, Brandy’s off on a new adventure, writing her own chapters.  But before she heads off to run among the stars and herd the clouds and moon, I’m betting that she’s already making arrangements to send her beloved family her replacement, a wonderful new dog who will soothe their sorrow and bring joy back into their lives again.

            Good dog, Brandy.  Good dog. 

Miracles End

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Kahil Gibran

As all miracles must, The Small Miracle of the Carrots (And the Green Beans, too.) came to an end. Kasimu, my little Basenji was dying of kidney failure and since his disease made everything taste awful, he was facing starvation until he decided, out of the blue, to gobble down some raw carrots. That was followed by green beans, then kibble and we began day by day taste trials, sampling any number of foods hoping that one would be palatable enough to sustain him. The kitchen counter soon filled up with bags and cans and treats and biscuits of every sort. But nothing lasted for long and slowly the little guy grew thinner and thinner, despite a ferocious Mr. McCawberian will that surely “something will turn up,” and a determination to stay very much present and engaged with his world.

Until time and strength began to run out and we both entered Dying Time, that strange place where time stands still and rushes by with terrifying speed, all at the same time. A place where hope and despair rise and fall with stomach churning frequency. A time of wasteful worry and muddled prayers. “Please, let him die right now. No, wait, please let him get better. No, wait . . .”

And Kasimu made it hard for me to get into the proper frame of mind at any given time. I would put on my sorrowful, grief face and prepare myself for his passing, so weak had he become, only to watch him hop out of his cuddler and totter around the other dogs as I was readying them for a walk. He, who looked like he could hardly walk across the room, demanded that he be allowed to go along too. “You’re dying,” I’d say. “You can’t possibly be up for a walk.” But he’d insist, getting horribly agitated at the thought of being left behind, being left out, being left alone. So we’d take a “pretend walk” to the end of the driveway. Then he was happy. For him, a walk was a walk, pretend or not, since there were always new smells in the front yard that required his close inspection.

And when he’d refuse food for days, despite being rail thin and running on fumes, and I’d steel myself that the end must surely be near, I’d find him suddenly wandering among the tall dog legs at evening biscuit time, Hoovering for crumbs. He likely wasn’t really hungry by then, but, by gosh, he wasn’t about to be left out of The Ritual of the Night Time Snacks. And so it went, an emotional roller coaster of hope whipsawing with despair that got more awful and more comical as time passed.

The day before he died, I got a call to do some emergency babysitting of his other brother and sister, who lived in Morro Bay. I brought the two visitors into the front door to be greeted by the pack and there was Kasimu, tottering out of his death bed to cross the room for a sniff-fest, greeting siblings that he hadn’t seen in several years – the whole litter together again for the last time.

By the next morning he had slipped into unconsciousness, but was resting and breathing comfortably. I ran some errands and when I returned home I gave him a few drops of Rescue Remedy then washed his face with a damp wash cloth, something that I suspect brought forth memories of puppyhood and the comfort of being licked clean by his mother’s warm tongue. I told him it was O.K. to go. I told him what a good little boy he was. He had a mild seizure and when it ended, my jug-eared, carrot-eating, endlessly optimistic canine Mr. McCawber – Kidogo Hodari Kasimu, my Brave Little Keeper of the Forest –stepped alone and forever into the green darkness.

I buried his ashes under a newly planted sacred white sage plant. Soon his white bones will be part of its pungent silver leaves. And when I sit in the corner of the garden and look at its silvery softness, I will be reminded of what Kasimu’s dying had to teach me about living, lessons that I clearly hadn’t learned yet: Be brave. Don’t assume anything – each moment is brand new so things will always turn out differently than you expected. That’s why you must have the courage to wait and see what will turn up.

And if kibble’s off the menu, try carrots.