Loving In Raw Times

How many parents can boast a necklace braided by one of their child’s stuffed animals?

Photo by Anthony Ievlev on Unsplash

The three of us are crashed out on the day-bed couch, a delicious tangle of hands, feet, and paws. Being close to her vulnerability is a balm for my edgy heart. I wonder how I will feel when she doesn’t want me to hug her and put her to bed after a bad dream. Someday that openness won’t be mine to visit as I wish.

Yesterday one of her last remaining baby teeth pushed just far enough out of its place to move a jagged edge over the gumline. Now whenever she talks or chews it pokes her over and over again, adding blood to the already raw roots. She wakes me up at 11pm and then again at 2am to comfort her because of the pain, and because Dandelion is in heat and restless. It turns out our 15 month old GSD is not the only one cycling in our house right now. True was delighted when she and Dandelion were cycling together, me not so much. I am living in the land of Estrus, which is apparently not sleep friendly.

I toy with the braided necklace she gave to me over a year ago. Of all the talisman, medicine bags, crystals and sacred pendants I’ve worn, this is by far the most precious and powerful. She still swears one of her stuffed animals, Monsti, made it for me. How many parents can boast a necklace braided by one of their child’s stuffed animals? It contains powerful enchantment to be sure.

We’ll be getting up soon for the drive in to school. I’ve never seen freezing fog before, but I’ve seen a lot of it this year. It lays low on the land, a thick white cloud crawling across the brush newly exposed by unseasonably warm days. The fine needles of the forest trees become menacing wands wrapped in spiked frost tendrils. This is not the same world we went to sleep in. Truly and I speculate on what spirits might be hiding themselves in that world between worlds.

“Some peoples think there are special spirits that live only in that fog.”

Truly considers this but decides to use this as an opportunity to further her theory that almost all hauntings can be traced back to Big Foot.

“No, I think Big Foot hides in there and then slips away silently…”

Our morning commutes have been dramatic and wildly varied. Blizzards are followed by downpours. Vehicles that slid off the road stay stuck for a few weeks while their owners wait for good weather and low traffic to finally pull them out. Drives that took 30 minutes now take an hour. Tadg has had a lot of great snow experience as a new driver, but I’ve had to take over more than a few times. Even the best drivers can’t avoid a car leaving their lane sideways and heading your way fast. Better for me to take that kind of hit than him.

The world is spinning faster around us every day. Standard fair for these raw times.

I don’t think there’s been a slow news day since before Covid first hit. Politics, mass shootings, genocide, wars of conquest, global warming, take your pick. This winter we’ve been down below zero for so long Coyote packs hunted in daylight just beyond our block. The heat has been so strong my Juniper dropped all of its berries in January, the first time there have been no birds to pick them as they fell. There is an urgency to our times that even the humblest creatures are feeling acutely.

It’s getting so I don’t want to leave the couch at all. When Dandelion decides it’s time to get up she hops down and boops me in the eye. I rub her head all over my face, like my daughter does but with less delighted violence. She relaxes and sighs in my ear, loving the morning nuzzle. I’ll make her wait just ten more minutes before breakfast.

It seems that as things come more and more apart at the seams the best thing I can do is get better at loving. Being able to love, even when everything hurts, is the real work of living. I think I learned that a few years ago but now, in the rawness of our times, love feels like the great work that lays ahead of all of us.

As everything falls apart we have to open up more, show up better for everyone and everything around us.

Maybe thats always been the work of elders, to open more deeply to everything around them. Maybe thats what’s happening, I’m just getting a little older. Still, nuzzling this dog and setting the covers right on this 11 year old feels like a special gift, one that is almost as rare as a talisman woven by a stuffed animal.

It’s not trivial, it’s a seed that needs to be nourished, tended to, so that it will grow to be something that provides shelter for all of us from what is to come.