Sometimes I have to wait for the words, then they come.

Lily stares up at me from a puddle of fur and bones on the floor. Her eyes move where I move.

I fell asleep on Jerry as if I just landed on him. I sit up and reach for the computer; Jerry asks, why won’t you just come to bed with me and sleep? Nice, restful sleep.

Why? Wiggling my fingers between us I say, it’s the little parade of words…I have to get it down I have to put them someplace, give them ink and shape.

They come from Lily, mostly, until I hear: Get OUT of there Ozzy. We’re going to have one extremely fat pug and skinny cats, Jerry said.

I guess Ozzy snuck over to the food bowls.

The leash, a metallic click and creek as I open the door and Lily and I are out and up the steps and my feet press into mud. I smell the softening soil letting go of moisture that spent weeks trapped in spikes and crystals that crunch in the winter. Timid snowflakes flutter around in the floodlight then melt on the ground.

I breath and the air makes me think of moss tree bark trillium and footprints in the woods. The same smell brought me an answer earlier today when they asked me at work, what do you look for as the first sign of spring?

My answer: the moist aroma of winter melting under a late February sun.

Late Monday night Lily and I dragged our feet through ground like pudding and she needed to go out over and over again.

In the house again she finds a place to rest and I listed to her succession of bones collide with the floor. She drops onto a little braided rug -- knees hips and side then elbows and shoulder and head. We bought her a fluffier doggy cushion for the basement, but upstairs she makes space there.

I am going to finish her second round of liquid treatment for parasites, then consider changing vets. They want to test her DNA after this if the medicine does not work. I don’t like this groping for an answer.

For the first time in four years I went to work Monday without exhaustion or anxiety. I woke late, ran with the dogs and drove in after 12:30 without rushing and racing the clock or yelling at other drivers at stoplights traffic jams cars cars cars near the highway. I did not fall asleep at my desk once today, which is a huge change for me. I have been falling asleep at my desk since sixth grade all day long over and over again.

Anxiety in the last week had been pressing its thumb against my neck making a small knot that ached, then ached more, then ached at times with a sharp jab. I did not realize that this companion that had pitched its little lousy tent in my neck had packed up and left until I drove home from work after 5. Lily.

Before bed I scratch Jerry’s back and he says, you haven’t done this in a long time.

Lily, I say. Everything is different since Lily.

That dog has ruined my life, he says.

Jerry? Do you regret that she is here, I ask?

It wasn’t my decision, he tells me.

OK, do you wish that she wasn’t here? He says, sometimes. Look what it did to you, he tells me.

Oh.

I am an unhappy person and with just a little more stress I snapped. It's the difference between resting a foot over a lightbulb, and actually stepping on it. Sadly, because we both know it is completely true, he agrees. I don’t process stress. It just passes through without dissipating and drags everything with it. My sense of humor was first to rip away from my body. Without it there is no chance at happiness in even fleeting bits and pieces. Without a sense of humor you may lose appreciation for details kindness and the value of other people, or you lose the interest to look.

I stand in the bedroom and hear Jerry’s words and am regretful but I look at Lily who looks at me and know of no other decision I could have made. I understand why Jerry is exasperated despite the many times he tells me Lily is a great dog. He wants me back but I can’t pull away from the crumbling edge where I peer into a dark bottomless nothing hoping for answers.