Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Truth is not a warm thing, but at times a listless, plodding message that we just have to swallow: The vet tells me that Lily is 48 pounds. For more than one month she has eaten much more than dogs twice her weight and has not gained anything. He assures me that if one method does not work, something else will. I should feel better, but I feel again like the mountain top I thought I was approaching is really a far horizon that runs away snickering because it has my heart.

Lily stayed with the vet for 24 hours. Dad comes with me and the vet tells us something good and bad. Lily didn’t go to the bathroom all night! We walked her this morning but her kennel was clean she is a clean girl. I wonder about all that crap I have been cleaning and mopping and bagging up and cleaning and mopping.

But, we learned that she can hold it.

Dad seems encouraged; I won’t be running after Lily with paper towels and cleaner anymore. But then I think a little more about this. So, Lily won’t poop if Lily is in a crate. So ... Lily lives in a crate.

That’s not a cure. That’s just fewer paper towels.

I come home from a meeting and Jerry tells me, she’s starving. She keeps going into the kitchen and pacing and I fed her a little but she’s hungry I think.

I hear him say starving and I panic. Can’t get the food into a bowl fast enough. I feed her. She jams her snout against the bowl like a prize is at the bottom. I feed her some more and the frenzy slows.

Watch her, Jerry warns, she just ate. Well, If I had a crate she could go there and just hold it already, but I take her out instead to decorate the dried leaves poking through a dusty snow.

My life is segmented by baby gates. Between the kitchen and living room. Between the living room and dining room. The trainer says they create little safe spots separating the dogs and while I teach one to sit, down, wait, leave it, and sing arias in French, the other guys can watch. Getting in the front door means leaving my bag groceries mail laptop outside and using both hands to slip inside to a sea of snouts. One round and bug-eyed little pug hops around and snorts, rushes under Lily’s belly and bounces against Bandit’s legs. Hershey wags like she is trying to pop herself in half.

Getting out of bed requires another sweater a scarf hat gloves fleece jacket and hiking boots. I love the smell of brewing coffee that Jerry makes on the stovetop. A few tablespoons of grounds go in the perforated canister that sits at the top of a metal tube. Add water and boil. I can smell it all the way in the woods where my guilt drags Lily and I so she gets exercise and I have peace of mind.

Outside next to the stonewall Lily and I walk and I wait for the unnamed scary thing in the dark to hit me in the back. My anxiety creates demons and they live in the dark. Shadows scare me. The cold is frightening, and I begin to imagine all the impossible fears that follow me around like tin cans on a string for no reason.

I say to Jerry: you know my most giant fear? Being adrift in space, all untethered and the Earth from here is not beautiful but unreachable.

A dream taunted me as I woke. I visited a neighbor and Lily’s leash flashed bright red. The red stays with me all day. We visit our neighbor and I remember thinking, wow the pale wood floors shine and the rooms are really tidy like a geometry puzzle. Sliding doors open to a backyard that is no larger than the little patch of grass you find surrounding the picnic tables in a camp site. A beautiful undulating and deep river meanders across the yard. What? OK, It’s a dream and in that perfect backyard with a picturesque river are my neighbors. I think my mind actually borrowed characters from people living at the end of my road. They have a healthy, full, tall, strong and bold German Shepherd. I have Lily and a bright red leash.

I will stay with the vet’s recommended diet and supplements and follow his stern orders: no other foods or scraps or anything! She has another appointment two Mondays from now.

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