Just Between Us

 

   Wayne says that he’s the one who took care of Clyde.  He does not want to take care of another dog.  

 

    But Clyde and I know differently.  Clyde and I had an agreement.  Wayne needed someone to take care of and Clyde and I agreed he would be the one.  This was our secret. 

 

     That was partly why I loved Clyde so much, because he and I agreed that he would take care of Wayne by making Wayne take him for daily walks, and give him treats, even bake him special liver treats handmade by Wayne, and feed and water him, and teach him how to behave.  I’m the one who really taught Clyde how to behave, but that was our secret as well.  Wayne did not know any of this and he will not believe it now.  It was just between Clyde and I. 

     Right when we very first got him, I taught Clyde to stay off of the Persian rugs in the house.  I did this by using a spray bottle filled with water and squirting him whenever he went onto the rug.  Clyde thought this was a dirty trick and looked at me askance, sort of with a sideways glance, to tell me that not only was it a dirty trick, but that he knew it was a dirty trick.  He agreed to stay off the Persian rugs and the Himalayan rug too, but from then on he always put one paw on the edge of the rug just to let me know, just to remind me that the spray bottle was not nice; it was a dirty trick but he still forgave me.

     Clyde was a big dog but he did not feel like that should count against him.  He thought that even if he was a big dog, he should get to jump on people like any happy ass dog would so I had to teach him a special command, “Off!”  The way I taught Clyde that was I would turn my body away whenever he jumped on me and ignore him.  Clyde hated that.  Wayne would probably say he’s the one who taught Clyde this, but Clyde and I know it was me, even if Clyde is no longer here to verify it. 

    We had to teach Clyde that because, even at nine months old, when we first got him, he was huge and beautiful.  He had a shiny coat of black fur and a long red tongue that fell out of one side of his mouth because he lost a tooth when either a moose or a horse kicked him - back when he was an orphan before his original owners, whoever they were, abandoned him and left him to die by the side of the road.  Or maybe it was a ranch.  The story varied every time Clyde told it.

          But Clyde never forgot to remind me how we fell in love at first sight, he and I, when he almost knocked me over with that long happy tongue and his big happy grin just like I never forgot to remind him that I hated dog licks until I met him and it wasn’t the crazy wet tongue on my face, it was the quivering ecstatic shaking of joy filling his big 60 pound puppy body that got me, that made me feel it too, that joy deep in my cells, a joy Clyde brought with him, his purpose in life, to remind me.  Life, his joy said.  Live!

         Clyde knew, as I knew, that he had been a wild mustang in his previous life and that I had been a wild girl, a barefoot girl, who once rode him bareback through meadows where high golden grass grew tall and waved in the breeze like Clyde’s mustang mane did that lifetime, like his proud tail shaped in an S flew proudly behind him.  Clyde and I both knew this, though we spoke of it rarely, and in hushed tones.  We knew we were not supposed to remember such things in this lifetime, but sometimes we couldn’t resist and then we would just run and run down on the beach on Kachemak Bay behind the house in Alaska Wayne built us.

     Clyde and I shared secrets we never had to put a single word to, like the one about taking care of Wayne.  The day Clyde chose to leave; he was sick with a rare blood cancer that came suddenly and out of nowhere, at least for me, (Wayne had known, Clyde told me in our secret code, even though I hadn’t, that he was that sick, not just sick like in getting better sick like I thought) so it was terrible for me to suddenly have to face losing him in one day and he knew that but he knew too, and told me clearly and in strong language, how it had to be for Wayne – that he couldn’t linger, that he would if it was just me, because he loved me, but he reminded me of our deal about him taking care of Wayne, and, of course, how we both knew Wayne couldn’t handle that, Clyde lingering, Clyde suffering.  Clyde could, if I needed him to, he said, just to hang out together a little bit longer, but is that what we wanted to put Wayne through, he asked me?  No, he said so clearly.  I’m doing my job here, he said.  I know, I said back.  I know you are, Clyde and I love you for it and we both love Wayne, don’t we?  Yes, Clyde said.  We do. 

     And so, just between us, we said goodbye and part of our goodbye was thanking each other.  We thanked each other for loving each other, but mostly, we were just both so grateful to each other for how much we each loved Wayne – that we were a team – and how we shared that.

     Now I keep thinking maybe if we had another dog, I wouldn’t miss Clyde so much even though I know that I will always miss him that much.  But Clyde is still with me and he says be patient; he says that I am not just missing him, but I am missing how we shared our love for Wayne.  Clyde says we may or may not have another dog someday.  He says remember our pact that he will take care of Wayne?  Yes I say.  Well, Clyde says, I've never stopped.  Besides, you never know when a great spirit may enter your lives again.  It could happen.

     Clyde shows me this picture then (because Clyde mostly thinks in pictures) of him climbing into the truck with us the day we brought him home, how happy he was to find us, how perfectly we fit. 

     When and if another great spirit comes, Wayne will know, Clyde says.  Just like he did when you found me.  Remember?  Yes, I nod.

       I came as a dog this time, Clyde reminds me.  In another life, I was a mustang.  Who knows in what form we’ll meet again?

     I swear I can feel that big lug of a puppy lick my face again. 

     Keep an eye out, Clyde tells me. 

     I promise.

     He sends me another word picture.  He is headed down toward the beach, right at the beginning of Jeremy’s trail.  He pauses a second, looking back.  Our eyes meet, and then he disappears into the brush, leaving the fireweed and the devil’s club behind.  I get a last glimpse of his tail, shaped like an S, then he’s gone, headed, I know, straight for the water he loved, the ocean he once swam in, chasing some imaginary ball out on the horizon.

     Any minute, I know, he’ll come trotting back with it.  I just need to keep an eye out.

    

     

    

Barefoot Days

Condo at La Paz Tres Lirios de Cala oil canvas by Kelly

Arrived to whites, browns, maroons, and greens in Homer, Alaska and the crisp embrace of fresh snow, clear skies and sunshine on Friday, February 7th. We left the blue, oranges, and reds of La Paz and the soothing warmth of blazing skies via Cabo San Lucas Wednesday, February 5th.

I began to choke on the closed air of airplanes by the time we reached the Anchorage leg of our journey and a stay in the downtown Sheraton overnight. Turns out it was so cold while we were gone that the hotels water pipes froze and burst. There was huge repair and renovation going on. With the stale, moldy air and a "ventilation" fan in our room that blew constantly, I could barely breathe by the time we departed for the airport and the last leg of our journey home, so the blast of cold as we climbed off the commuter plane and onto flat ground was welcome. El Sol pulled a fast one and burned so brightly in the Alaskan sky that I had to pull out my shades and put them on. It was 26 degrees.

A sweet reunion with Clyde the Fraud dog, who kept the Alaskan home fires burning for us, followed and today, my quick jaunt with him up the road and back served to refamiliarize me with my snug Ugg boots, long underwear, and the need for wearing, well, clothing and shoes.

I'm a bare foot girl from way back, so the freedom of bare feet and shorts in La Paz, with local residents asking me, "Aren't you cold?" (January and 65 degrees in La Paz is considered cold by local standards, but by Alaskan standards it was positively go-naked weather; besides, it was more frequently around 80 degrees the entire month, which, we were told, was unseasonably warm for that time of year. Either way, we are talking tropical and nothing feels better to me than terra cotta tile beneath my bare feet.)

So, while the sun is high and bright in the sky, remaining visible our first few days back in our part of Alaska, and while daylight increases exponentially as the earth continues its rotation (we gained, roughly, 5 minutes and 31 seconds of daylight today in Homer, Alaska), the need for warm clothing, shoes, and propane, wood, or other combustibles to generate heat remains paramount. Even indoors, I have to keep socks on my feet or they turn into cold bricks. Did I mention that I like to go barefoot?

In any case, though I've had to put on shoes and long pants, it feels much warmer than the 20 degrees F reported by the weather underground. On our walk though, Clyde calls me a "wuss" and reminds me that the average low in January was 6 degrees F at Cooper Wounded Bear Kennel, where he toughed it out while, his brown eyes accuse, we were on our "spa" vacation in La Paz, Mexico. The average low in Homer in January was 17 degrees F. The average low in La Paz, Mexico for January was 56 degrees F and the average high 76 degrees F.

We are getting a warm Alaskan welcome home, but I'm going to miss my barefoot days in La Paz.

Note: The above image is an oil I was inspired to paint for our hosts, Al and Michele during out stay in La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico. (image: Tres Lirios de Cala by Kelly O'Neal Thompson, copyright January 2009 do not reproduce without express permission of the artist)

Clyde The Fraud Dog Days

Summer 2005: There is a rainbow, the last fourth of it shining out from the depths of a billowy white cloud with grey edges sitting over some small cove across the bay. The water today is cerulean blue and the trees myriad shades of bright green, the kind of green that comes from mixing blues with yellows, and Clyde is running in what we call a yard, a little over a acre of grass edged with alders, devils club, fireweed, nettles, and raspberry bushes clinging to clay soil as though their fragile roots could hold off high tide and wind and all the forces of erosion that chip away at the bluff our house sits on and just above.

Clyde’s coat is shiny black, almost achingly gleaming, and feathered strokes of white wisps curl off his chest and toes. Clyde prances like a proud horse, if his nostrils were larger, I swear I could hear him snort like a mustang. He paws the ground and throws his head back, glancing at me to see if I’m watching. He finds his new toy and brings it to me but then changes his mind and runs the other way trying to get me to play the game his way. I watch the neighborhood pheasant make an awkward u-turn as he stupidly wanders in Clyde’s direction, but Clyde is sufficiently distracted and not much of an animal chaser anyway.

I walk with Clyde up the dirt road we call our street for half a mile or so and then we turn around and slowly walk back down, stopping every few feet just to stare at the rainbow and how it just sits there without fading over some small cove across the bay, how it shines color on some happy place blessing the entire bay with its presence and how it is not by any stretch of the imagination the first rainbow I’ve seen since moving here and I wonder if I will ever become desensitized to rainbows.

Wandering down the dusty lane flanked by green I notice a neighbors log house and how like a kingdom it seems. It is a home assuredly grown over decades of living in one place and it reigns over at the same time that it seems to serve the land it sits on, the ocean it looks out on, the open sky it surveys, the mountains and glaciers and coves over the water that beckon.

When I was a girl, I played outside for hours. I hated coming inside even to pee. In the face of this- yet another rainbow- I strain to remember myself, a girl who climbed trees, caught crawdads, played in creeks, built bridges over ditches, and took long solitary hikes out of the subdivision and into nearby farmland. A girl who built tree houses and forts, I wandered the outdoors, swam, rode bikes, skateboarded, and pitched tents in the backyard. When my parents took us to visit relatives who lived by the river and the woods, they were the first place I headed, with another child or alone. Let loose from the car on a Sunday drive in the mountains, I scrambled headlong up the nearest rock as fast as I could, my lungs screaming until I could climb not one inch further and had gotten myself into a spot I surely might never get out of and always did, inching my way back down eighty degree inclines of slick rock to taunt my younger brother for not keeping up and then turning abruptly to lead him up yet another direction and possible disaster.

These are the things I remember now staring at this perfect place and this perfect rainbow. Clyde is patient with me, sitting beside me as long as I want to stand in one place, motionless. Homer, and the bay it calls home, appears, a long lost prince come to catch me sleeping, showering me with rainbows and light that turns shadows into glitter, waking me up from my adult slumber. Three cranes fly overhead, their necks long like their legs, their bodies a brown oval. The sound they make is haunting and beautiful. It is the sound that desire might make if it were made into music. It is the sound of a mother calling a child home at the last light of day.

I tell Clyde that we will be taking long walks on the beach, to prepare to spend entire days wandering up and down the east end of the bay. I advise him that it is time for me to go outside and play again, for no reason at all. That it is time for me to stay out long after I have to pee. He can come with me and we will look for dead crabs on the shore and circle rocks and more. I will throw sticks for him and he can swim all he wants in the ocean. Clyde’s tongue hangs crookedly out of his happy mouth and he meets my gaze with his, evenly as though to say I’ll hold you to that promise. We finish our short walk of long pauses and sit on the deck together. I wrap myself in a blanket and watch the sky until it is very late. Clyde sits at my feet with his head on his paws.

The rainbow does not fade. Stubbornly, bands of red, yellow, and green hang in the midnight sky of deepening dusk. The billowy cloud drifts away revealing more of the rainbow, which now arcs over half the sky, even as I retire for the night and the sun slowly makes its summer descent. Sleep comes slowly and I think it is my imagination when I hear the cranes again, whooping faintly, but insistently in the distance.