Pickled Grace

“A dog is the only thing on earth that will love you more than you love yourself.” Josh Billings

As I turn the lights on to the Christmas tree, Pickles steps up beside me and nudges my hand. I absently stroke the top of her head. There is a silent agreement between us, dog and human; it’s that time of the year again. We recognize this place, this starting point that became us – the working dog and the human who so desperately needed her.

In a couple weeks it will herald the third year of our beginning, our friendship and my biggest lesson in life – how to love unconditionally. December 12th is not just an ordinary day, its Pickles arrival date in my life.

In the meantime, Pickles curls up beside the tree and I sit typing this story on my laptop. Chuckling, I can’t help but think how things have come full circle, for in a way this too resembles the beginning.

This is Pickles’ story and mine…perhaps more hers.

However the actual beginning started with me. I often mistakenly say I got Pickles a year after my encroaching deafness, in reality it was two years. The first year of my silence is another story for another day. I will say this – I fought my deafness with all I was. And yes, it was a futile battle. The quiet absence of sound would be my life from then on in. When I stopped fighting and started accepting the inevitable, I became determined to find a way back to me. You see I thought I had lost far more than my hearing and had become something less than. The reality being I had not even begun to find me - until then.

In desperation I was driven to the computer exploring every little tidbit I could find on late deafened individuals. Just as I was about to give up the ghost of finding my answer, an article highlighting working dogs for the deaf, caught my eye. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had read and how it would work to my advantage. Sadly yes, it was all about me in those days. I was lost in self pity and forlorn depreciation of life in general.

The picture above was my introduction to Pickles. I fell in love with her right then and there, more so when I discovered her story. Not only was she a Katrina survivor, she had spent the past year being passed around in shelters until the agency I obtained her from, found her. Not unlike me, Pickles was looking for a place to belong, a place to fit in.

She was the animal equivalent of me. Somehow I knew her before I ever laid eyes on her.

Pickles and I would discover all we needed to know of each other in the following two weeks after her arrival. We would be literally attached by a leash 24/7 as part of her training, to make sure she understood I was the human she would be working for. Honestly, she is a working dog with all the restrictions that come with that title and yet so much more. I no longer think it’s training but something more spirited that exist between us. Six months later I would understand that last assertion intimately.

The night before I had been sick with a lung infection, struggling to breath, weak and confined to the bed. I remember seeing Pickles pad into the room, watching me with concern in her eyes from the end of the bed before I faded off to sleep. When I awoke the next morning, Pickles was beside my bed (no small feat as there was barely enough room for her 65lb body), sitting there with her head nestled against my arm. Her bloodshot, drooping eyes signify she had been there all night, going without sleep to watch over me. I think I knew then there was much, much more to her quirky personality and me finding myself amidst the silence. She wasn’t just my working dog - she was fast becoming my teacher.

And if you’re wondering…yes, Pickles was instrumental in helping me accept my deafness. As a matter of fact, she can even be credited with me becoming a writer. How? It all began with those first few entries entailing Pickles arrival in my life.

How fitting that Pickles training with the leash ended on Christmas Eve. How perfectly she fit into my life and I hers. I get up and join Pickles staring at the tree lost in contemplation. It stands as a reminder to us of how far we’ve come. Pickled grace - indeed.

*If you’re looking to make a donation this Christmas, a chance to give another individual the miracle that is Pickles to someone else, you can do so by donating to the following agency:

International Hearing Dog, Inc.
5901 E. 89th Ave.
Henderson, CO 80640-8315

www.ihdi@aol.com or
www.pawsforsilence.org

Your donations help deaf individuals who might have otherwise not been able to afford a working dog, obtain one. They work exclusively with re-homing shelter dogs. Give the gift of human connection, a gift of hearing to a deaf individual this Christmas in the form of a hearing dog.

From my heart to yours - Indigo

The Time Thug

“The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.” – John Dryden

Sometimes I get lost in ambiance. I’m cocooned in my own safe world of oblivion and forget not all is as it seems.

As a writer I should know better. It’s there in the pages of my writing, all the malice and splendor of existential human traits. Still, some small part of me and I believe all of us knows that other world exist – the rampant ignorance and disrespect for life. We just don’t want it to touch us, stain us with its residual tar of bitter noxious taint.

Ignorance is bliss, or is it?

Wednesday evening a thug, a disreputable denizen of wanton moral standards thought it would be amusing to bust out the back window of my car. Those last sentiments are putting it lightly. I’ll bite back the curses of abject hatred I had for whoever did this.

Nothing was stolen. As horrible as it may sound, I would have perhaps understood if they had been a thief instead of a mere vandalizing thug. At least in my mind a thief would have had some purpose, given some kind of meaning to their actions. Instead I’m left to wonder at the cruelty of such an act that had to be for no other reason than malice, petty vindictiveness in a show of bravado.

I’ve run the gamut of emotions. A stranger breeched my safe haven and made me question myself and those around me. First there was inconsolable anger, foul ugly visions of what I would have loved to do to this person. Then came a sleepless night, followed the next day in the secure knowledge my insurance would cover it.

Sounds easy enough, cumbersome, bothersome, and troublesome, but easily fixed – right? Nothing in life is ever that straightforward. I was left to ponder, how was I responsible for someone else’s vulgarity in my life.

Me? How could the fault lay with me? How was this responsibility mine? Did I leave myself vulnerable?

I live on a dead end street, the only house beside the woods. There is a path that meanders through those woods which would make an easy getaway. My driveway is hidden beside the house, right before the wooded lot and it’s not visible at night. There are no motion detectors or enough light to see an intruder. So was this an open invitation to disrupt my life?

Two days later living with the inconvenience of changed plans and little to no mobility due to traveling with a busted back window, I’m no longer angry or puzzled. I recognize the vandal for what he is – a time thug.

That’s all he accomplished - earning a descriptive moniker.

The window gets replaced. I’m still able to move forward with a slight change of plans for the weekend. And I’ve decided this alone wasn’t worth any changes to my home. A motion detector would frighten off the numerous deer who visit my property (Not much to weigh there, a blinding light shining in my windows or a chance to watch a small herd of deer).

So what changed? Life. It’s too precious to waste any of it on someone hell bent on stealing my time and ambiance. Some day they too will have worked hard and given of themselves for something of worth and someone will do the same to them. We all earn our lessons at one point or another.

Thank you time thug, you succeeded in enriching my life experience to feed the muse in me. Don’t be surprised if someday you play a part in something I’ve written. Just as I have my place in the world, so do you. Objects are easily replaced. Peace of mind is for those who live fully. A reminder that ignorance was never bliss, just a postponement of the reality that surrounds us all.

Writing material comes from the most unlikely places. Amusing is it not? - Indigo

Picture derives from here

New York State of Mind

"Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today

I want to be a part of it - new york, new york

These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray

Right through the very heart of it - new york, new york"

- Frank Sinatra

It was bound to happen.

I spent the summer and most of autumn writing frantically with no end in sight. I was in a state of pure ecstasy as my mind emptied out on the page in a possessed frenzy. Before my first book was even on its way to an agent, I was already finishing the first draft of yet another.

Unfounded, without warning or reasoning my flood of words trickled down to a slow siphoning stream.

My mind was still creating and building, writing away as if nothing had changed. My fingers however weren’t exactly moving across the keyboard in a race against time. It was obvious in varying degrees of distracted bedlam.

Distracted bedlam consisted of being frightened by the fur covered cat toy mistakenly thrown in the dishwater instead of the bin with the other toys. Misplacing things so often; I doubt a well trained blood hound could help. The worse however, is the food I wrapped and put back in the oven instead of its desired designation the refrigerator. Take it from me, two days later the pungent smell coming from the oven leaves something to be desired.

In the midst of all this came an invitation to get together with a friend in the city. And thus begins my journey into a New York State of Mind.

For anyone who has ever lived and breathed the city at one point or another - I can't help but ask, if you have ever experienced the silence.

From the moment I emerged from Port Authority, the writer in me surged to the forefront as NYC came alive in a visual palette. I found myself turning down an offer of an umbrella in lieu of constantly turning my face upward to take in the majesty of the buildings and colorful lit backdrop. Even through the light drizzle of rain an unmistakable milieu of grandiose presented itself.

It was a miasma of bodies and cars swimming in every direction possible. I couldn’t take in enough and wanted for more. My eyes explored architecture juxtapositions and details. I took in the merging ethnicity, the heart of New York – rich and poor weaving amongst one another to the pulse of the city that throbbed from every crevice possible.

And I smiled; submerged in my silence, my deafness…I saw the city in all its visual interpretation that was possible. I imagine if the traffic and all the various voices, construction and noise that reverberate from NYC had intruded in my thoughts, I might have paused in my overwhelming wonderment. The writer in me thinks not. It would have been just one more descriptive nuance to chip away at the dam that had been holding back my words.

Therein was the hidden mystery. There is no such thing as writer’s block. It’s a simple matter of changing things up. Stalemate is nothing more than boredom or lack of tenacity.
Life has too much too offer – if you’re willing to keep yourself open to the possibilities.

NYC was the nectar in which I was able to sup for inspiration.

My muse was still operating overtime; she just needed to be visually stimulated into movement - From imagination and reality, to fingers tapping out the storyline one word after another.

I live in upstate NY. I have a feeling I’ll be making quite a few excursions into the city that literally breathes life into this writer’s mind and helped kick start my prose back into overdrive. - Indigo

Picture can be found here