28: In honour of Audrey-Hepburn-Mouse, RIP (post from September 2019)

I must have written this on 22nd or 23rd September last year.  I don't think I posted it. I want to, so here it is. The tree I planted for her at the time has just begun to leaf. It's sprouty and all over the place. I think she may be growing through it. Thanks, Mousticle. Still miss you, always love you, little silly dog. 

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A Man Who Is Gentle With Dogs

First photo I ever saw of her

It’s been quite a day. This morning, after resisting it for a few days, I returned with my beautiful, skinny little girldog, Mouse (aka Audrey Hepburn), to the vet. She has been vomiting a lot. I thought she just had a grass fetish, and I failed to notice how much weight she’d lost. It’s a lot, and she’s lost even more over the last few days. She’s very thin, with her little bony pelvis all pointy and her ribs showing. Looking back, I’m embarrassed to say that I’d noticed quite some time ago that she was losing weight, but that I hadn’t taken it in as an ongoing thing. She was still eating well until this morning.

She was sprightly on our walk today. I let her off the lead and she ran around joyfully after shaggy old Ossian and her beefcake sister, Baba. She hadn’t eaten and she was a little bit reticent in places, but running free, she was boisterous and waggy.

She wasn’t keen on going back. Last week, a gentleman who seemed quite friendly at the start stuck a cold stick up her bum. She wriggled it out before the temperature was fully taken. And then he gave her an injection that made her writhe and bark (quite normal, he said, and it did stop her being sick, but it wasn’t nice). So in the waiting room, she looked like a completely different dog. Cowering, her skinny made her skeletal, where tail-up and dressage-stepped in the open field, she’d looked lean and healthy.

In the waiting room, she shrunk next to me and made to leave whenever the lead was slack. After a while, a man came out from the vet we would later see with two cats in a carrier. Mouse, enemy of cats, didn’t so much as sniff at them. Not so the man. This timid girl pulled towards him, gazing up. He was grey-haired, soft-eyed and solid. Quite pleasing to look at, but more to sense. He had a gentle groundedness that Mouse and I both loved. His wife was there – it wasn’t a hit-on thing – but Mouse was smitten. Before long, she was locked underneath is leg, leaning in with all of her sligthness. He held her gently, laying his hand softly on her scruff and on her chest, stroking and then just letting her be there while we talked. I could see how safe he made her feel and I was grateful to him for that.  
He made me feel safe too. That, I thought, that is the kind of energy I want too, in my man. That solid, unapologetic masculinity, that protective gentleness. Fatherly without control. Husbandly, perhaps. I don’t quite have the word. Gentle with dogs.

He was so sweet and very loving with the Mouse (who is a dog). His wife commented on how all dogs love him and I felt such gratitude to him for soothing her in a way I couldn’t.

Later, talking with the Eagle Owl again, I was drawn into a yearning and a sudden knowing. First, that I want this energy in my life, that I yearn for it, and know its welcome touch. This is good news. With that energy (his, but not his… the generic form of his energy – GentleMan-Wife, you have nothing to fear from me).

 I felt in my body how much I want to be held in such safety, and I felt how it would feel – to lean back into a body that can take my weight, whose active, gentle presence supports me like a wall, with warmth and softness and with affection.

Two things were clear:

First,that I want this in a man in my life – someone whose pleasure it is to hold me and to receive my nurture – a sweet flavour of a different giving energy, flavoured with the feminine. I fantasised how I would feel invincible with someone of that strength and gentleness on my side, ready to step in.

Second, that I have that energy too. That I can make that in my own body, generate that feeling of always being held, of someone (in fact, me) having my back, with loving eyes and a hand resting gently on my scruff or my chest, saying ‘I’ve got you. Do your thing. I’ll love you whether it lives or dies. I’m here’. Divine masculine, says Eagle Owl, and it feels divine. Full of respect and nurture.

I felt elated. Today has been rich in so many senses of the word. On agreeing to leave Mouse at the vet’s, I had some fear. I’ve left myself short for emergencies, or even basics. I’ve had a temporary rock-bottoming and it has, I think begun to bounce.

A beloved friend stepped in and agreed to lend me the money I need – for now – to keep the girl in care. Not only that, she took the time to say wonderful things to me, things I really needed to hear. I find myself turned around – from a feeling of deep lack, and fear that I’ve been rejecting to no avail (instead of loving it – aaaahhhh, such gifts to realise) to one of lushness, provision, flow. I sense something I have been striving to feel and missing, feeling it tickle my fingers as it slipped though… and now here it is, fat and heavy in my hand, weighing it with meaning. Here is everything you need. You can have what you need but you must must must learn to receive. By rejecting this receiving out of pride, you turn away untold riches at the gate, all dressed up and ready to come and dance with you. But no, you say, I must provide for myself, I must fight my own weakness, I must, I must, I must…

And so the tension, shame and lack had won the game, but with this cut-wide openness to flow and to what is, I sense that the change has come. A blissful, blessed time.

Mouse is still at the vet’s. She’s being well looked after and has a drip to fill her little body with fluids and keep her well. She’s having tests. Whatever happens (and of course I’m worried – she’s my sweet nugget of dogness, and such a gentle thing herself), I hope I will accept it. I love her, and I send my love to her. She hasn’t had to strive to earn that bounty, and I hope she’s wise enough (and so much dog, so little human) to let it in and keep on filling her up.

27: Sad Magician

Teaching improv to homeschooled kids this morning (even though they're officially on holiday right now) and grateful for the chance. We were playing with characters. They came up with loads. Among my favourites were evil hippy, excited executioner, lazy superhero and sad magician. Sad magician was a proper delight, lots of lacklustre card wrangling and a good few tears. I find it very odd teaching improv as a new skill to a small group of young people. I don't think it's ideal, myself. But they do enjoy it and that's the thing. Zoom has been a real gift. I'm delighted with its flex.

The sun was bakey today. Dogcheeks had her tongue almost dragging along the ground. The dogs are having separate walks at the moment, because cheeky lady silkchops is far from angelic of a walk. She's the anxious decision-maker, so she tells the shaggy, laid back protector what his job is. When there's a cat or another dog, any natural propensity to chase or bark (of which there is ample) is ten-folded by her dog-language instrucion to protect the shit out of her/bite the cat. She gives him proper little rile-em-up bites at him, sending him semi-rabid. 

Hunkering into my thighs with two shouting hounds straining at the leash while some pert little chihuahua tiddles past, I have a glimpse of what it might be like having a tantrumming toddler in a swanky cafe. So they've been separated. They're not allowed to sit together right now. It's a shame - I love walking with both - but it is much more relaxed this way. Without her bully-boy, my girl trots along with pleasing poise like a dressage pony on its parade. She makes mostly happy howls when she sees other dogs, and wags her whole body up them. She is easy. On his own, he is also more chilled, though occasionally a bit of a dick with certain breeds (with gentitals intact). It's for the best. 


I have started my tax return. I shall have finished it within the week. I've done this only once before. It made my year so, so, so much lovelier! I actulally enjoy it very much once I get strapped in to do it. So onwards. May this time of shut-inness bring other such mental wellness boni. Because not thinking about doing your tax return is a proper gift. 

26: Perspectives

This afternoon, kissed by the sun, returning from the beautiful garlic-green banks of the river into a wide field, I felt a nag and kept Baba-girl on the lead. At the lip of the next field we both spied three deer, still at first, then running. The were 45 metres or so away - small fry for a lean and zippy dog - bounding up the side of the field. 

They waited half way and nipped through the hedge, out of sight behind it, then I saw their heads above it, bounding back down. Baba was transfixed. She lay on the ground, staring at the spot we'd last seen them.
Minutes later, they (or three identical deer) were right over the other side. Neither of us had seen them pass us. I watched them for ten minutes or so. Baba (the most beautiful, but not always the wisest of creatures) was still transfixed on their last-sighting spot, fully ignoring their actual presence in a new field. I was reminded of myself, sometimes fixed on something I know to be true, because once perhaps it was. 

I'm aware of the need to meditate more, to centre, to ground in, so that the small trials of nowness don't tip me so easily off balance. I am meditating some. Such things are not instantaneous. Nor are they fixes. They are long, slow dissolvers of ingrained perspectives. There are rarely fireworks or other such epiphanies, just a gradual noticing of what used to be no longer seeming necessary, a reshaping of the eyes that see, not the objects they observe. 

This morning, a wonderful conversation with my beloved Victoria Sandison... a salve, a boon, a sweet nut by all accounts. And then a podcast practice with the inimitable bag of wise that is Sammy S. And later still, cousin Ruth. Thanks, tech, for the wonders you make possible. Thank you, good friends, for the perspectives you make possible.

Important post-script: current names for my dog:
Official name: 
Baba Yaga Claybourne (Baba)
Also: 
Barbara, Babs, Bubba, Bob
Chops
Barbara Streisand/Barbara Streisand Dog
Babaji, Ji, G
Baby Girl, Sweet Girl, Lady-girl, Girlface
Sausage, Sos-chops, Sos-mix, Sos
Dogs (collectively with the Handsome Mr Chops)

In case you wanted to know.

Post 25: An Exceedingly Post-Modern Apocalypse Now

Great skies, there've been

It's the end of the world as we know it. Post that. It's after the end of the world as we know it, or, in some ways, so I may hope. Because if all this was for anything, surely it was to make some lasting changes to the rabid, grasping, consume-fest we've been partaking in. 

And if one thing makes a difference, it's gratitude. Everybody's doing it! So let's get in there. For my own mental wellness, I'm starting up this gratitude blog again, and lordy, it's time, it's time, it's time. If 'everybody practising gratitude' is the one thing that sticks from this whole thing, that will be a fine result. We don't get to choose everything that sticks, but we do get to choose that. Because nobody can practise your gratitude for you. It's up to you. Do it. Or do what you like. I'm in. 

I am blessed with a dog who is Actually Golden. She glimmers on the tips or her fur-hairs. She is silky of cheek, howly in a good way (a spoon-nosed happy gr-howl, she makes, when she is pleased to see you, be you dog or person) and she barks at tractors, wheelbarrows and anything upside-down. She flumps her body onto any part of mine, sleeps in the C of my side-sleeper legs whenever she can (above the covers).

I'm also blessed with the company of a scruffy prince of a dog, straggled, doe-eyed and solid as a wall (more in the way he is than the meat of him - he's more fur than anything else). He does and indignant growlette with a backwards walk when he wants 'pudding' after his meal. He has brains to burn and he communicates his wishes clearly. This one's a bed-burrower. He'll make a very quiet barklet, waits for the lift of a peek of duvet, then in he gets and settles along the bottom half of the bed, pack pressed against my legs. 

I realised today, in conversation with two fine beings Emily and Tim, that one thing I miss since 'Two Metres' became a thing, is touch. The uncomplicated nourishment of it. Hugs of greeting and goodbye, playful touch, companionable touch, massage (I have been LOVING giving more massages, was about to start up a massage, yoga and coaching combo thingy, with an embodiment focus). So these two dogs bear the brunt of my gratitude today for their willingness to nuzzle, play and love me stroking them. You hairy little saviours, you. I love you. 

Post 24: A Little Mouse

It's taken me a while to post this. It's not a 'good piece of writing'. It's a love song to a dog who is no longer here. I feel tearful even writing this introduction, and yet here we are, and here it is.  Goodbye, sweet little Mouse. I love you.

A very special day 

A day of paradoxes, contrasts, sadness, gratitude, deep emotion and, I hope, relief. Yesterday, 27^thSeptember, 2019, I had to say goodbye to my beautiful, gentle, playful little dog, Mouse. She came to me from Bosnia, bringing her sister with her and they have been my companions for the last two years and then some. 

Mouse had been getting skinnier. She was always sleek, a hunter, a streak of speed whipping through a field, a skinny-waisted, lizard-bellied little wriggler. I’d noticed it. The vet had noticed it too, last time we went, but she was happy, healthy, silky of fur, eating and pooing, generally enjoying things. It did get a bit more extreme, and I joked that maybe Baba was eating all the dinner, again, she was a happy girl and her coat was so shiny I could do my makeup in it. If I did makeup. 

She’s also been eating grass and throwing up a lot, but dogs do that, right? And having her tail under a bit more, but she’s an anxious little thing and we were not at home – we were in a much bigger city place with all the noise and all the unfamiliar smells. 

Finally, we went to the vet. He suggested keeping her in for tests but I was reluctant, so he gave her an anti-nausea jab and sent us home. When I took her in a second time, 5 days later, she stayed. Tests were thorough but unclear, so her next stop was Langford referral hospital. She was there two days. Cancer of the biliary duct, liver, pancreas, small intestine, and further. She’d been slowly declining without my noticing and that is one of the things for which I am immensely grateful. 

She was not in pain. Perhaps discomfort, and I think she was nauseous a lot, but she ate and played and chased and pounced and pooed and weed and bit her sister’s face. So instead of diagnosing her early and having months of wondering ‘is she ok, is she suffering, is now the right time?’ we had one day of that. 

Four days of worry and sadness and denial and hope that it was something simple that would just clear up, and one day of having her home, loving her SO insistently, holding her, stroking her, kissing her, talking softly to her. She was held by me, her beloved Alyson and second dogmama to her, Michelle McFarlane, who came out specially to say goodbye. Mouse had been very subdued but she had a proper bout of joy when Michelle arrived, pawing her face, lick-biting her nose.

We had the help of the brilliant Lucy Guy, who held her, calmed her, talked to her and gave me information about what she was expressing. It really helped. With this, I knew to hold her gently, keep things quiet, talk to her and reassure her, and give all this to myself as well. 

Anyone who met her knows what a treat she was. A dog who made eye contact all the time, though sometimes with Princess Diana coyness, who would back onto your foot with her bony little arse and sit on it, or on your lap, if you were sitting on the floor, drape her body across you if ever she could. Who’d leap up and lick your nose, put her paws in your face and generally love the shit out of you in her playful way. Her favourite place to sit, when in Alyson's company, was on her chest, gazing into her eyes, interrupting everything else with her actual body. 

Off-lead, she’d take herself 20 metres away and sit in the grass, like a cat, watching. When it was time, she’d arch her ample ears and start to tense, even to wiggle, laser beam eyes on her sister until the moment came and she’d pounce, growling like a little hell-grown pig demon as she made contact. 

 

And when it was time to go home, she had a habit of allowing me no closer than a metre and a half. Then she’d skirt off and keep that distance. The only way I could entice her was to lie on the ground on my side, or totally give up physically and let things be. Then, if she felt like it, she might come for some serious loving and I could catch her, but any move to grab would result in a proper escape. 

Over the last year (and I’m now wondering whether it was linked to her illness), she enjoyed nothing more than flipping onto her back in her waisty harness and being dragged along the grass. She’d collect her legs in a little stack above her and ride the ground. It’s not something I ever videoed properly, being always the dragger (she weighed very little but she still took some effort to haul along) and this, I am sad for. It was a sight that would make park-walkers laugh and point, and, I’m sure, for some, be concerned for her welfare, but she adored the ride.

She was SUCH a lovely girl. She had such a pleasing little form, with ears as big as her face and a surprisingly human expression (complete with massive dogness). A play-bow champion and a consummate paw-giver. 

She and her sister did a huge amount of affectionate morning bitey-face, which involved grungeing and emitting creaky-door-meets-Chewbacca noises, knawing on each other’s limbs, flouncing at each other. They fought way too hard when off-lead, but always stopped for a little pant break and a sprightly wag. They were always together and often slept with their arms around each other. Mouse, if she felt like it, would land her arse on Baba’s head or torso and just have a little sit. They were a yin/yang pair, Mouse almost black and Baba mostly blonde. They looked a real treat. 

It’s immensely sad, and I miss my irreplaceable, sweet little girl dog, and it’s ok. I can focus on missing her, and sometimes, I'm afraid I will, and I can also focus on the absolute gift that it was to have her. Because it was. 

Together, these dogs have burst my heart wide open. I’m definitely a lot more loving and affectionate since knowing them. They are my twins. They were. And they still are, only one of them isn’t here any more. 

I'm grateful, with every ounce of me, to have had that ridiculous little Mouse-dog in my life. Thank you, Mouse AudreyHepburn Princess-Di Fruitbat Claybourne of Bosnia for all the very special days you gave me. 

Day 23 - Just the Ticket

Yesterday, I got a lovely lesson from the universe, and the best parking ticket EVAH. I mean, the last one wasn’t bad. I was in Sheffield, parking at the hospital in pretty intense times, I read the sign wrong and got a ticket.

I asked a parking attendant about it the next day, just checking what the rules were in that area and he gave me two gifts. The first, that parking attendants check the position of your air valve to determine whether or not you’ve moved your car.. like a clock face. So even if you move your car a few feet forward and the valve position changes, you’re considered to be ‘new’ in a parking area.

And second, - it was Christmas Eve after all – this festive tip. “I’m not supposed to tell you this,” he said, “but everyone’s off till New Year’s Eve. There’ll be no parking attendants in the whole of Sheffield. Park where you like. Park on double yellows. You won’t get a ticket. There’ll be nobody on duty to give you one.” And smiling, off he went.

I’ve been working like buggery on this abundance mindfulness stuff and I have to say, I’ve found it rousing and I spend my time enthused and full of a sense of possibility. I’ve started a delightful practice of leaving a shiny pound coin in entertaining places, for a stranger to find and every day I find a more pleasing place to put it.

I’ve also made a commitment to speak positively and with this same enthusiasm and excitement about all the work and wealth that’s all around me. I remind myself that I’m sitting on a flat that’s worth about £250,000 in the right market, and that I am ridiculously well equipped to earn lots of tasty money to do good things with. I catch myself when I start with ‘I can’t afford...’ anything, because I know that my words are broadcast through the fibre of the universe and that they create the reality I’m living.

Yesterday morning, though, I had a relapse. I heard myself say ‘I’m not sure I can afford it’ to a friend. She talked me round, mainly by reminding me of the depth of connection that I’d be flying towards, rather than focusing on the money outlay. The universe, however, had its ears pricked.

When I finished our call, I planned to take the dogs out for a wee. I was going to the back garden, but I’d left the key upstairs, so outside we went. I had every chance to remember that, like every morning, my car was parked in a zone where it needs to be moved by 8.30. It was possibly about that time when I went out, but did I go that way? No, no I didn’t. I walked them the back way to do wees on their favourite shrubbery and then on towards the park before suddenly remembering the car and legging it back to find a big fat parking fine slapped on the windscreen.

Even as I ran towards the car, I was grinning. I felt elated. I kind of knew there’s be a ticket. Part of me hoped there wouldn’t but a bigger part was hoping that there was. I mean, that’s pretty clear as far as signs go, right? And I love a bit of meaning in the mundane, me. So there it was. I really was properly glad that it was there. I assumed it would be £35, and instead it was only £30.

I paid it immediately and felt truly joyful about it, knowing that I COULD pay it, and knowing it would come back to me many times over. I was hoping to speak to someone, but it was an automated line, so I paid it, smiling, and radiating gratitude for the abundance to pay for it. I did feel a pang of desire to speak to someone, so when I saw a parking attendant on my street five minutes later, I bounded up to him and said

“I think you gave me a ticket today, and I just wanted to let you know that it made my day!”  He looked at me as though I was an idiot, or possibly a psychopath about to pull a knife.

“How?” he said, with absolute incredulity.

“It’s a long story,” I said, “and I want to get back to the dogs, but look at my face – genuine joy. So thank you.” And then I bounded off again, like a puppy after a ball.

It really was the best parking ticket ever. I might frame it, just to remind me. I think I will.

Day 22: Tiny Wasp Epiphany

It’s a buffetty day in Edinburgh. The wind has been making the window frames sing and there’s a sliver of very faint rainbow dancing in and out of perception above the tenement rooftops. I feel abundant, and the creature I have to thank for this is a half-dead wasp.

This morning at 6.27am I find myself sitting writing my Morning Pages in my car on a soon-to-be busy road in Edinburgh. I have a flat tyre. I’d called the RAC and they’d suggested that 11pm was not a useful time to get help (to be clear, if I had realised all they’d be doing is changing my tyre to the little runty one in the boot, I’d have done it myself, but in my mind I had the idea of a superhero made of rubber magic who would blow life back into it and with a tiny glob of his versatile spittle, plug the hole in my tyre with a fat nail in. This was not to be). So there I am, in my car with a cup of tea and a notebook, doing my morning, just a bit earlier than my morning is normally done. 

At some point, I become aware of a wasp in the corner of the window. The combination of my not-quite-right readers and the morning light makes it hard to see if my visitor is inside or out, and while I’ve been nurturing affection for all things, there was a moment of ‘mind the sting-y little bastard in the corner – he’ll have you!’

I lean close. He’s on the outside and the wind is wobbling him. He looks slow. Autumn wasps are said to be grumpy and likely to sting, but as I sit, I remember two things. Firstly, a video I’d seen about these hated little beasts who, by summer, are starving and in desperate need of food. They bug you at your café table because their life is at stake. You’re having a leisurely mouthful of your sweet treat and they’re stumbling across a sugary oasis that could save their life. No wonder they fight for it. 

Secondly, as part of my prep to run a course on money mindfulness, I’ve been listening to the revelation that is Wallace Wattles. Seriously, check this guy out! 1910, and nailing The Secret right there. He says the universe is made of a ‘thinking stuff’ that responds to our gratitude and thought, and gives us exactly what our thoughts request (what we focus on). He also explains that we are all made of this stuff, you, me, the table, the clouds, the air, the pebble that sits on the mountain summit cairn and the granite slab at its base. We are all made of it. And the wasp.

As I’m having my car-based mini-epiphany (the best kind, roundly integratable in a single bite, has potential to travel), I remember a third thing: in the glove box, I have a tiny pot of honey! So I find a business card and dip the corner in.

I open the window just a crack, post the honey-laden card out, and zibb it shut again. The wasp responds to the movement of the window. Then its antennae start to wave around. Then this slow, sleepy creature is suddenly vibrant, moving fast, finding the gold and suckling on it, waggling everything it has (legs, antennae, wings, little waspy bottom). 

I feel like it’s become brighter, like I can see it in glorious technicolour, picked out like those black and white photos with a flash of bright. I feel my breath, I feel a smile in my whole body, and joy seeping through my sleepy mind. I imagine the wasp’s tiny consciousness full of wonder, delight and honey, marvelling the perfection of all things and the truth of Mr Wattles’ words lands in my body. Everything I could possibly desire is right here, on the invisible hands of a benevolent universe.

As I watch, I am the wasp and the wasp is me. I am the hand reaching out the food and the insecty mandibles receiving it. I am the nourishment itself and the body it moves in. I feel totally held, absolutely at ease and full of joy.

And suddenly, the wasp is gone. Not so much as a goodbye. It’s eaten all it needs to eat to sustain its form and, full of life again, off it has flown to do its next bit of the business of being a wasp. It had no need to eat and eat and eat, no need to stay where the food source is and limit its life to that corner of car window for fear that wherever else it goes, there will not be enough.*  There is enough.

"Word in your ear. We are all one. You're welcome."

There is a great force all around us just waiting to give us everything we want, need or wish for, if only we can open up to receiving it, taking our fill and moving on in the knowledge that wherever we are in the universe, there is enough. I, you, we are enough. There is no competition and no shortage of anything. There’s no shortage of money. There’s no shortage of time. There is only mind that creates these concepts, which, if we believe them, create a very unpleasant and unsteady experience of being alive.

Our job here is to enjoy our existence and, trusting in the friendly, abundant, naturally generous universe, be all that we can be by letting our joy take us lightly by the hand and lead us towards what we most want to fill our time with. If something doesn’t exist, we can imagine it into being and find it already there, waiting for us. All we need is all around us and within us. I’m sitting in my car, grinning. I feel full and happy and safe in the world.

All this thanks to a wasp. And it's not yet turned 6.30.

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* Anthropomorphism junkie. Go with it.