Snow today, hard snow blowing in from the west. By late afternoon it was turning to rain, but for a time it was a blizzard, with the sun just burning behind it.turning the world a bluish grey out over the ocean, swirling particles of white blowing up onto the grey/green shore. I did not hear birds anywhere. Last night a big moon splintered through the cold bare trees, waking me up when it was perfectly framed in my window. Dot got up wanting to run, she frolicked hard all around, dancing and throwing every ball and every toy over her head. She rad full tilt from one end of the yard to another: ears flopping, loose limbed, still a puppy but weighing over fifty pounds now. I’m not sure what it was but if you told me it was storm or full moon energy or both mixed with puppy exuberance I would believe you. Before Jan went upstairs to work she wanted to throw the ball for Dot and she did. I came inside to write some letters for a friend who is sick and having a hard time, I looked out and caught sight of Jan’s hat flying through the air and Jan laid out flat on the lawn not moving. Dot was dancing with Jan’s stocking hat, throwing it in the air and catching it. I ran outside to Jan, Jan said, “I’m okay, she just knocked me down and I don’t want to try and get up when she is like this because she comes right over to me to play some more and knocks me right over when I am most vulnerable, trying to stand. “ It took me a while to sort things out. Get the hat get it back on Jan’s head. Get Dot and get her inside then get Jan on her feet. Jan was a bit damp, but unhurt. I asked her again if we should look for another owner for Dot, and Jan looked at me like I was crazy. “I love Dot. She is just so enthusiastic, and I am a bit wobbly. It’s not her fault. We worked it out. I fell on in a soft place and didn’t get hurt and I just stayed down.”
Falling in a soft place. We are lucky if we can do such a thing. Also we are lucky if we can love enough to take these kind of bumps and not turn the indignities into someone else’s fault. Jan could have easily blamed Dot, but she didn’t. She took it on herself. She fell in a soft spot and just stayed down. What a good person she is.
I read about the Captain of an aircraft carrier who was worried about his crew getting the virus. This seems like a reasonable thing for a captain to worry about. I don’t know the whole story. I don’t know how the story got out to the press. I just heard that he has the virus and he was relieved of duty and walked off his ship alone while his crew looked on. A civilian vice secretary of the Navy said that he must have been “too dumb to command the ship.” Which I don’t really understand, I have to believe that there is more to the story than the pettiness of someone’s ego involved.. I hope this Captain is able to fall in a soft place and live out his life with his dignity intact.
Today Jan and I both tried to do one kind thing for some one else. As I said I wrote some letters for a friend who was having problems writing letters for herself. It was an easy thing for me to do it. She just told me what she wanted to say and I was able to type them up and send them to her. It was easy and she was very appreciative. Hardly an heroic act in fact it was fun to do. Jan printed out three chapters of a new edition of Ed Ricketts from Cannery Row To Sitka, Alaska to give to Nancy Ricketts at the Pioneers Home. We stopped by McDonalds drive through and bought “One Senior Coffee with Two Creams” and asked them to put it in a bag. This is how Nancy likes it. We took everything to the home and gave it to the nurse on duty who is stationed by the back door to make sure no visitors come in, and she told us that Nancy just came in from her “smoke break.” Now, Nancy doesn’t smoke, she is ninety two years old and I think she may have smoked at one time but not for a very long time, but the home allows people outside for “smoke breaks” and she takes advantage of that to get some fresh air and visit some people from a good distance apart only on the outside. Today she had stood out in the falling wet snow and spoken with our friend Norman Campbell about his artwork and then rolled her walker back inside to warm up, where she was met with a “senior coffee with two creams.” She called us to tell us just how happy she was, in fact I think she was ecstatic.
Doing something to make someone else happy is a good thing to do during this pandemic. No, it doesn’t make you a hero, like the doctors and nurses who are working twenty hours a day and risking their own lives trying to save strangers lives. But throwing a ball for a goofy young dog or writing a letter for a friend or taking a friend in retirement home is something that puts a little weight on the side of happiness in the great balance of things, and by doing so, we feel a bit lighter in our own step, a bit happier ourselves, and what’s that worth? I don’t know, but I do know there have been moments when I had run out of happiness. completely drained the tank and I would have given anything… the last full measure of my life to have that bit of uplift to put my feet forward, on to the next day. So I remember those times, and I think it’s always worth it to make someone else happy if the chance comes along, because I will always need that uplift again.
Many years ago I wrote a poem about suicide here it is:
One Sided
On the day after you killed yourself
we spoke over the phone.
You said it wasn’t over,
this life you thought
you could turn off
like a light.
You said you’re stuck near a phone
with my number scratched in the paint
and all you can do is talk to me
without even changing your clothes,
stiff as meat wrappers
with your own blood.
I thought of saying how much I hated you
for that pitiless betrayal,
that turning away,
but I wanted to hear your voice again
so I stayed on.
You wouldn’t let me say a thing;
you talked and talked
but in the pauses
when I heard your breathing
on the end of the line,
I remembered the autumn
we stood on the precipice
above the crushed shell beach
and the wind took our voices away
into that immaculate distance
where there is always room enough,
where there is always time enough.
You started to justify yourself and I hung up.
there is nothing I want to hear from you now.
At night I take the receiver off the hook
but when I sleep, I hear you dialing,
doing everything in your power
to get through.
The big round moon woke me up last night so I took her picture.
I was teaching at a high school in Whitehorse Yukon with the great Canadian Poet, Patrick Lane, I read the poem and we were discussing it with the students. I was talking about it and about the friend I had written it about, a friend of mine in high school. Patrick Lane spoke up and said, “I don’t think this poem is about that friend at all. I think it is about the death of your little whiney self.”
We all stopped and I thought about it and of course I was embarrassed.
“No,” he went on, “you were tired of thinking of killing yourself and having this little whiney voice holding you hostage and you got sick of it and you grew a pair of balls and hung up on him.”
And of course he was right…. but we didn’t discuss the last line of how I heard him “trying to get through.”
But he was right none the less and it was a great act of kindness. it was the uplift I needed at that time. I suppose a jewish person would call it a mitsva.
So now during this pandemic, I look for this small things that I can do for others, little acts of kindness I can do for someone else. Calling someone to check on them, giving to a charity or just buying some one a cup of coffee.. Helping without putting yourself at risk. People of all faiths do it. Republicans do it, Democrats to it. Libertarians do it. Why don’t we do it more? This might be the lesson we take out of this mess.
Wet snow, down my shirt,
bringing you coffee today
I miss seeing you.
jhs
Here is a recording I made today, reading from Richard Nelson’s The Island Within. Dot was in her crate.
