Friday, February 14, 2025

Lion-Hearted

Looking around the 110-year-old home that I share with my husband, I notice intricate wood lovingly restored; an old steamer trunk; artifacts from journeys around the world; the viscera of words, drawings, and maps; a blanket lying across the futon-like a lover’s shirt. On the walls are pictures of railway trains and posters anatomizing mighty machines veined with steam and joints of steel.

Sitting here, I realized how much I had gotten rid of over the last twenty years, especially those years spent with Barkley the Lab before I met my husband. By selling or just giving them to people in need, I had probably reduced my possessions by three-quarters. What I had when we got married would fit in a two-bedroom house, nothing bigger. I occasionally look at photos of the showpiece that was my previous home back East, 3500 square feet custom built, vaulted ceilings, and a new BMW in the garage, and feel a twinge of “Wow, that was nice.” But I wasn’t happy there; it took all my time, all my money, including money I hadn't even earned yetand the only people who were dazzled by such luxury were the kind of people I didn’t care whether they were impressed or not.

Smaller was better; everything paid for but the roof over my head; the things I have left around me are only the most meaningful possessions that speak of history, not ego. But looking at some wiring that was recently redone, I thought, what if the place caught fire some night or a flood was imminent, some sort of disaster? What would I take with me? It would be books, pictures, some mementos of my brother, badges of damage, and ribbons of courage.

Most things can be replaced: clothes, videos, a lot of books, music, cookbooks. A lot of our photos today are on a hard drive backed up somewhere, not a photo album. But there are those things you can’t replace, memories captured in small boxes, small heartbeats of time you can’t get back. The small crafted things, made for you by others, or your dad’s old military uniforms. It’s your life, and you only have a moment to grab those things that confirm you’re alive, this archaeology of dreams.

First would be any living creature in the home, family, dog, or guest. If I had time, I’d grab the briefcase with the paper trail of my life, my pistol next to the bed, and whatever precious things were on the nightstand, my mom’s picture, my badge, and my wallet. I’d also take if I could, something that would make absolutely no sense to anyone but myself. I’d take a beat-up stuffed lion that stands guard.

Larry the Lion showed up one Christmas when I was about four. There were always wrapped presents under the tree, but on Christmas morning, there would also be something just from "Santa"  that would be unwrapped and lying on the big brick bench around the fireplace.  It was usually something good to go with the stocking loot. But it wasn’t a lot. Dad explained later that he didn’t think it right to get a ton of fancy toys from Santa and then tell some kid at school who only got a shirt and much-needed shoes from Santa about all the toys he left for us. There are some things that aren’t fair, Dad said, but Santa, like Baby Jesus, never loves unequally, only unconditionally, the gifts not always being what is held in your hand.

Christmas mornings were always the same. We would wake up Mom and Dad around 5:30 a.m., and they’d come dragging out to watch us look in wonder at what we’d been given, shreds of wrapping paper scattered on the floor like spent brass. 

I initially got the prerequisite baby doll stuff, but my parents soon learned I was more of an “action toy” type of girl. I later grew to love the trains, my Daisy rifle, and Legos, but one plush toy sort of stole my little heart when I was so very young, and he and I were inseparable for years.

It was Larry the Lion. I got him for Christmas one year when I was running around on chubby legs, and I never let go of him.

Larry talked, and not the “goo goo gaa gaa” of most dolls. Larry talked in Mel Blanc’s voice. (Bugs Bunny, anyone?) When you pulled his string, he said about twelve different things: “I’m ferocious, aren’t I?” and “(Growl) OOOH! I scared myself!” and “I’m a very, very, very brave Lion... Grrrr.” When he spoke, his whole mouth moved, a soft plastic lion’s mouth that responded to both the pull of a string and the gentle kiss of a little girl.

Larry the Lion was my favorite stuffed companion for several years. Then he was put aside as I discovered adventure that lay outside my playroom, launching myself like rapture from tree limbs, building models and trains, a carpenter of light and noise. That was fine with me until I turned thirteen, and stuffed animals among young teenage girls were suddenly cool again. But Larry was nowhere to be found.

I was certain my brother had taken him as a prank, holding him out in the playhouse or another secret fortress of play, waiting to trade him for something valuable. I also knew that wherever he was secreted, he was waiting for me. Listening with a quiet “I’m a very, very, very brave lion,” as he stayed on a silent watch until I claimed him.

But he was just gone, never to be seen again. When I told my brother I thought he had taken Larry, he got that expression, sudden, intent, and concerned, that you just can’t fake. My brother had a penchant for practical jokes, but he wouldn’t hurt me for the world, and he helped me search. I missed Larry with that awareness of pages missing, longing with the unbridled hope of children even if I was much older. I tried to act like it was no big deal, being a cool teenager and all, bluffing my way into impending adulthood. But after combing the house for Larry, I went into my room and cried, sound rupturing from someplace deep inside. I cried hard, perhaps because I had to cry quietly, perhaps because I felt the way about tears as I did about weakness: don’t show itbut if you do, get it over and done with quickly before anyone sees.

I looked around the house one last time a few years ago. Funny how some things just stay with you, but Larry was truly gone. After Mom died, Dad had gotten rid of so many of her things that were hard for him to see, touch, and feel. A putting away of memories that he believed were his to dispose of as he pleased. But these memories were still connected to my brother and me by tiny strandsfilaments of touch and smell that would bring Mom back to us in those quiet moments when we’d sneak into a closet to touch what was gone. Things we needed, things no longer there. I don’t blame Dad; he dealt with his grief in the way he could. But other than her badge from the sheriff’s department, some cookie molds, and her housecoat, all Mom’s clothes and personal things were given away, including most of the crafts and artwork she had done. Gone as if she’d painted a door and walked through it, never to return.

I figured Larry accidentally went out in that general removal of pain for my dad. As I entered adulthood and learned about loss of my own, I totally understood, even as I mourned with a lover’s urge the dismantling of white picket fences and happy endings.

Then, about a year before my brother died, I got a package from my hometown. While cleaning out a closet in the guest bedroom, he had found Larrycarefully packed by my mom in tissue and placed in a hatbox to be found after she passed. My brother got him boxed up and sent him to me.

Larry arrived, carefully carried by the UPS man. On an afternoon as quiet as the closet he had been hidden in, I opened the box, gently unfolding Larry from the tissue paper—still missing a whisker. He was a little dusty, needed a comb for his mane, and smelled of the sleep of reason, which was childhood. When I pulled him carefully from the box, he looked at me intently as if waiting for me to speak, if only in my imagination.

Surprisingly, he could still talk as clearly as he did years ago, and I pulled his string again and again, laughing like a child.

In the rush of life and all it brings, Larry was sometimes ignored. But like all true things, he was always there, waiting quietly in the wings until I was ready.  One night, I’d come in from a day out in the field. One of those days that followed me home, leaving invisible footprints from the door to my bed where I would walk in circles all night in my sleep, looking for that one thing I might have missed. Such days were hard; having to be tough, having to be impersonal, not knowing who was watching or if the media was nearby, brain deeply engaged, but heart floating spectral above the immense yet demarcated ruin filled with the voice of fire and grieving water.

I could call my husband, but he would be asleep in another time zone, far away. Years ago, I would have called my brother. I wouldn't tell him the details of the day, just as he didn’t share his details; some things were kept silent by choice or by honor. But we would talk until I couldn’t talk anymore, my way of simply telling him I missed him, sharing those stories of childhood.

But he'd been gone 10 years, and the phone is silent.

As I walked through the house before bed, I saw Larry’s shadow on the wall, the well-rubbed ears, the little ring on the stringand I pulled him close to me. I’d spent the day being tough, watching fate arrange the remains of what was left like a still life. I’d spent longer than that proving that such things don’t leave on me the bruises of stories unfinished, that I don’t get too attached to anything or anyone. But I do, with a capacity that has surprised me greatly, finding out emotion is not a measurable container.

I stood there, tired and dirty, with a knee that felt like it was made of gunpowder, barbed wire, and scorpions.  I could only stand, a grown woman, breathing deep the small form of a well-loved stuffed toy with a ratty mane and a missing whisker. There were no words for the time when holding something that was precious, however untranslatable. Holding on tight because he was all I could hold on to at that moment, sticking my face down into his fur, and for that instant, being small and strong at the same moment.

I looked out onto a night that resisted words and to a photo of my brother by the bed. With a small smile, I gave the string another quick pull as I held him close if only to remind ourselves that we were both still very, very brave.  - Brigid

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Lady, It's Cold Outside.


 Things dogs don't understand when it's minus 6 degrees out.

Why do I have to be in the house when:

(1)  The garbage trucks are out.

(2) There are other dogs outside in the cold barking at the trucks

(3) Yes, there's $200 worth of dog toys in the house, but there's a stick in the yard! 

(4)  I need to go for a car ride to the Vet to see about my Cheese Deficiency.  You took Dad to the doctor for Third Degree Sideburns or something, and HE got a ride in the CAR. 

(5)  No one is barking at the birds - a Lessor Spotted Timberdoodle may show up and how will I alert you?  

(6) Squirrels are plotting world domination.

(7) Did I mention there are other dogs outside barking at the garbage trucks?

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Cold - with a Chance of Cold


I don't know where this first week of January went. My husband got sent out of state on a business trip just as we were hit with an Arctic blast.  The snow was only a couple of inches, but we had freezing rain on top of that, so the driveway/sidewalks were an ice rink. The photo above?  My kitchen window as the sun came up. The backyard is fenced, and though it was slippery, Sunny and I got some outdoor time with her favorite toy since walking wasn't safe. I wore a stylish white parka that I thought would make me look like a glamorous ski model but instead made me resemble a giant, walking marshmallow.  But it was warm.  

Just to give you an idea of what winter in Chicago usually looks like, here is our fully grown senior rescue  - Angel Abby Lab, plowing through the yard about 8 years ago.  

Brigid and Sunny

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Waiting for the Ball to Drop

New Year's Eve at my In-Laws farmhouse.  They rescue/foster Schipperke dogs and usually have a half dozen at any given time, the very senior ones often staying as "foster failures."   Have a wonderful New Year, everyone - The Johnsons

Holidays with Geeks and Their Dog.


Each year, my husband and I exchange an assortment of gifts only a geek could love.  None expensive, all silly.  This year was no exception.  Whatever your New Year brings you, may it be filled with wonder (and a grin or two)

A mini catapult for the desk and a Corner Gas key fob.
Monday morning telework pants.
And an appropriate T-shirt to match.
If all else fails, load up on sugar and play a came of Smart Ass. 
For sharing at the next in-person meeting.
Please address me as MISTER Pooper Scooper.
Hand-made foragers bag.  
You can't fit the body in here, but it will hold a lot of mushrooms, herbs, or tool parts.  
Another hand-carved addition to the Secret Squirrel collection.
New bow ties - the Constitution and a circuit board. 

From the U.K. - this IS going to be hanging up in the bedroom. 
There always has to be a reference to The Dr. at Christmas. 
New hats - because Godzilla playing chess with a monk is more interesting than a Taylor Swift hat.
Burlington Railroad coffee mug.
Let's see someone take my sandwich from the work refrigerator NOW.
OK, we have to have some books.
Putting to bed that myth that men can't wrap gifts.  
Framed record album - Yellow Dog Blues.  Appropriate in our house.
We didn't forget Sunny. . .
Thanks for the couch Dad, hope you're enjoying reading in that tiny, hard chair. . .

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Merry Christmas!




 Wishing everyone here the most wonderful of holiday seasons!

Friday, December 20, 2024

On Friendship


I'm not very social, outside of a very small circle of friends with a shared past, some here in Chicago and Indiana, some out West, one in Pennsylvania, and several in South Carolina.  I tend to hole up and write in my spare time; my hobbies are singular.  I'm perfectly happy being by myself for days on end.  But it's always interesting when you meet someone in person that you'd only encountered peripherally, seeing them but not really talking to them.  Then you meet and feel like you have been friends for years. 

I met Partner in Grime after we'd been the best of friends online, having met through family and mutual friends.  That switched to lots of long phone calls for a couple of years. One day, I met him in person. However, I would have never, with my scientist's brain, said "love at first sight." But as I waved to him under the fierce August sun, it was as if the earth had released some secret store of its fiery heart, and I think we both knew. Two years later, we were married.


But there is always that bit of uncertainty when you meet someone where you finally have time to exchange more than pleasant banter.  Sometimes, you find you don't have much in common, and part on a kind note, knowing you likely won't talk much again.  Still, there's some sadness there, as you wanted a connection, yet in meeting them, you felt they had such wonderful things in their heart to say, but you couldn’t decipher the words.

And then, sometimes, you are blessed to discover someone whose life stories mirror your own, not just in some shared deeds and events but in how those things made us into the souls we are today. When you have a moment, between family, rescue dogs, and careers, to sit down and share a meal with them, you realize how truly blessed you are.  

As I sat here last night, watching the moonglow seep like liquid into the newly fallen snow and the spreading crowns of trees outside slowly withdraw into the night, I realized that even if I'm alone this week before Christmas, I’m not alone. I have old and new friends who enrich me in ways I can’t articulate, offering with their kindness a tremendous healing balm to those wounds that a lifetime can lay down and a single year can reopen.  


As people who have lived life fully, sometimes recklessly, sometimes isolated by our own accord, we all have had our hearts broken at one time, sometimes more than once. In that brokenness, so many things can enter our hearts - fear, shame, betrayal, anger, hope, faith.  But when gathered in friendship in a room or at a table and saying our prayer of gratitude, there is only acceptance of those bits of those elements of light and dark that find a home in a human heart.  That is our blessing at our own table, just as it's our forgiveness at the Lord's. 

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Holiday Kitchen Failures

A few of my girlfriends were sharing "cooking disaster" stories recently.  None of my personal stories ever matched the one of my childhood. Mom had read somewhere that cooking the holiday turkey in a bag would render the turkey very juicy (this was in the 60s, long before they sold bags specially made for roasting). Except she missed the part about low temperature and the type of bag. So Mr. Turkey went into the oven in a Safeway paper shopping bag, pop-out timer side down.

As the turkey roasted, the juice and grease pooled in the bottom of the bag. When the timer popped, "turkey's done" it popped THROUGH the bag, releasing all the hot grease onto the hot burner.

WHOOSH!

My brother calmly said, "Mom, the turkey blew up!"

It was the first and only time I heard my Mom say a four-letter cuss word. Dad told her to leave the door closed and the oven off until it ceased burning. He then just stood in the corner of the kitchen, muttering "Oh, the Humanity", like the narrator of the Hindenburg disaster, tears rolling down his face as he was laughing so hard. We had KFC that year as the remains were removed in a bucket.

When Mom was fighting cancer and sick from the chemo, there was another memory that stayed with me. A time at the vacation cabin on the Oregon Coast where Dad cooked pancakes. I'm unsure how he did it, but you could hardly cut through them. He gave one to our dachshund Pepper, who took it outside and buried it in the sand along the shore. My brother threw another one in the fire. It didn't burn.

I can picture that as if it were happening now, the splash of sunlight on cedar, the memory of the smell of wet dog, and the taste of laughter, of where people have lived and will always. Good times.  

Sunday, December 15, 2024

The Dogfather


While working on her training, Sunny learned "trade" - when she picked up something she shouldn't have, she would drop it in exchange for a toy.  Wise to it now, she grabbed a good shoe and wouldn't trade it for a toy.  No, she had to have a toy AND a treat.  That's not trade - that's paying for "protection." 

WELCOME TO THE DOGFATHER:

Me: “Come on, Sunny, give me the magazine.”

Sunny: “That was going to be 1 treat; it’s 2 treats now.”

Me: “No, I already paid you.”

Sunny: “Dem's some nice-looking slippers - be a shame if something were to happen to them." 

Me: (sigh) hands over treats.

Monday, December 9, 2024

Life, Labs, and Lodestar



My husband travels a lot in his job, though not as much worldwide since COVID changed the dynamics of meetings (there are still those calls from the Australia facility at weird hours, but they're a great bunch, and I don't mind). But he is often away from home, and the dog and I have our own routine, especially during winter. After coffee is brewing and I'm showered and dressed, she gets playtime in the yard or a walk once it's light out. After work, evenings are quiet, with a few chats with friends on the phone or the computer and a cup of tea while she sets up a watch by the back door, hoping, against hope, that "Dad" will come home early.

Last night, she was expecting him, but work extended his trip another week, so it was only with a little coaxing that she left her position by the back door, came, and lay by my side with a huge sigh.  But God willing, he will be home.  
We get to expect such things -  the sound of a car in a driveway, perhaps the phone call from a child or grandchild that they too made it home safely with the giant load of clean laundry they did at your house, or most of the contents of your wallet. But I only have to look at a flag carefully folded into a triangle on the mantle next to three spent rounds and three small wooden boxes with a favorite dog toy on top of each to be reminded that getting home is never guaranteed.

It makes me cherish what times we have, all of us, my female friends who run the gamut from a beautiful blond with long blue-tipped hair to an author/equestrian who crafts her creativity from a small homestead out west to an African American minister who grew up in the inner city. All completely different women, but alike in what we have overcome, the fears we have vanquished, and all having lost too suddenly, and with little warning, someone we loved, that sharp edge of a horizon that suddenly vanished like an illusion.

The young don't seem to comprehend such moments, not the youth of childhood which knows no pauses and introspections, the world one large play station, but the "youth" that when I was a child, I would have considered "ancient." That time of life when you are busy with your own young children, jobs, parents, subdivision turf wars, and the constant undercurrent of needing to be liked, acknowledged, clicked on, hit on, and validated by people that 30 years from now you won't even remember the names of.
Don't miss it. At all. Especially those moments of boredom, of bone-searing weariness from wearing four hats, of dissatisfactions that could be relieved by only the rashness of staying out too late, having one shot too many, giving up a job or a relationship, like a bird leaving the safety of a comfortable perch for no other reason than you "felt like it." Only years and more than one empty bottle of regret put such days in their perspective.

You wake up one day to an empty bed, a silent phone, and a cold house, and it's as if you'd suddenly heard a whisper, a soft cryptic uttering that cuts deeper than any rogue tool in your shop can, one of your mortality.  But instead of being something to fear, it's a way to savor your day, whatever it brings. It may bring a day of doing little or a lot, but it doesn't matter. What matters is the little scratching made on paper, of fingers on a keyboard, of a clear, undistanced voice across the phone from another soul who needs your support, wisdom, and ear as they count their own days.
I had a meeting with my tax guy, getting ready for this coming year, and as always, he lifted an eyebrow at my 17-year-old truck and said, “You still live there,” noting the address in an old working-class village in the city. Like always, I didn’t say anything but smiled, and he said, “You know, you’re a millionaire, you could live anywhere?”  I just shake my head. I’m happy here in my fixer-upper with my elderly Veteran neighbors, writing a check any dang time I feel like it to support an animal shelter or the less fortunate. I have no desire in the world to live in one of those overtaxed, glass-walled, neat, and orderly homes that blot out the sky, as cozy as a dental lab.

No thanks. I smile and pour another cup of good coffee, not because of a pounding head of a late night, but because it simply makes me feel right with the world.  I look out an old window, the aged glass, milky with frost, coalescing a view that is as old as time, a sound, a whisper, murmuring from outside of time, a time as old as an ancient tree, the smell of the forest here in the middle of a city. A view as old as a hundred years ago, or maybe only ten. 
On the worn rug lies a yellow dog, her head on her dad’s slipper, left underneath a table. Her comfy dog bed is disregarded, it's not the most comfortable setting but one in which she is secure, knowing that he will come home, living unaware that it’s so very fleeting, that time that waits for us all, as inescapable as lodestar. 

Outside stands a hundred-year-old spruce tree, one of what used to be more than half a dozen, reduced to just two due to blight, age, and storms.  It has survived, it endures; it has its inevictable part in the memory of this place even when it too is felled.
 -LBJ