In Waves

Orphan Puppy gets sick in the night. Spends hours pacing and by morning we are on high alert, our hearts breaking before our eyes, as she hangs listless from her bed. We prepare ourselves, yet again, and I go to work with heavy steps. But by afternoon, she is back to pitter-pattering around the apartment, inhaling food and wagging her tail at every flicker in the lights. I laugh, relieved and delighted at her antics, and she spends the afternoon snuggled next to me as I work. These days are tough our emotional sanity, but every good day in the wait, is still so much better than the alternative.

And suddenly I sit here with an airplane ticket in my inbox. The greatest solution to every itch, to every dead feeling, to every restless fear. A deadline looms, more like a promise than a stressor, and I ready myself to write lists and check them off in time for departure. I run through the nerves that need to be stretched, and paint the romantic images of spring in France to tempt my palate. France, spring, wine, work. Open roads and people to win over. A project of passion in the making, the passion long since there. I know there is much work to be done before this trip, I know there are obstacles to overcome. But the trip is worth the effort. The Trip is always worth the effort. That's what makes airplane tickets sparkle so.

Attached

Trains never run proper on weekends; I found myself upended on the far end of Bleecker street, and the torrential downpour followed me home. Restaurants along Bleecker stood empty in the rain, but the line outside Poisson Rouge stretched around the block. We pick our battles. In Brooklyn, the windows shuddered from the storm, but the company was worth the trek. We pick our battles, indeed.

As I turned the corner on Morton, I found myself slowing down, reluctant to return home and hear the news of Orphan Puppy's condition. The morning had seen a setback and we were again reminded of Reality, of Mortality. But when I got home, her wagging tail and eager eyes reassured me, bought us another day.

Faced with mortality, every day lived is another battle won.

Repose

Suddenly, she eats. Devours entire slices of smoked turkey deli meat and triple cream cheese from a Brooklyn co-op. It brightens her eyes and perks her walk. We skip down Leroy Street in the sunshine and death feels so far away. Lurking around the corner, certainly, but no longer entrenched in every breath. Friends come to visit her, my sister calls to say goodnight via webcam; everyone wants to spread the love into every available space in her tiny body. We rejoice in the good moments, smother her in five times as many embraces as before.

But it is not that which is truly the best part of getting these last few days with her. The best part is when I wake up in the morning and stumble into the kitchen to make my coffee, and I see her lying there in her bed under my chair, nuzzled into her blanket like so many mornings before. It is turning a corner and seeing her great big eyes stare up at me before she pitter-patters away down the corridor in search of new adventure. It is all those normal moments that have become routine, that have become a part of our home. It is that which will be so empty, once she is no longer there to fill it, that I truly cherish now.

Absorb the everyday magic. It is that which makes up your life.

And In the End

Orphan puppy sleeps. I put my hand on her body to make sure she is still breathing. Wrap us both in my blankets and try my hardest to fill her tiny body with my warmth and my love. Make the best of this last time that she has.

I am already exhausted from the day's emotional exertion. My heart is lead, my eyes brimming with tears at every turn. We sit at the kitchen table discussing our ideas of death, of love and loss, of the life after. We don't agree on any of the topics, but today it doesn't matter. We are making the best of this last time that we have.

Everytime she stirs, I am grateful. Everytime she looks up, walks across the floor, sees that she is home. It's another hour we get to spend with her.

Life is precious. The reminder is painful, but it springs little blossoms of joy in my heart. Precious. We should all be so grateful.

Epitome

Fates conspire against us. Great yellow machines dig up Leroy Street and cut all our cables; we live the week without connections and I can't decide if I miss it.

Orphan puppy spends another night at the hospital. There is an empty space where her three pounds used to lie, and we don't know if she'll ever curl up there again. I miss the patter of her feet on the hardwood floor, the softness of her inquisitive affection against the groove of my neck. The thought that she is spending her last days among strangers breaks our hearts and we long to take her home, if only for a few last moments of peace.

Life is precious. We must remember to be grateful for what we have, and make the most of what we can get out of it. The weather clears. March beckons on the horizon.

How heavy my heart, tonight.

Play. God.

I return, after such a long absence, to the Book. It lies there, waiting, dogeared and unkempt. I forget where I ended. I forget what the whole thing is about, or perhaps I only pretend to. I turn on a playlist from long ago, and I get to work.

Perhaps it's the music. Perhaps it's the sad note on which I last ended. But within a minute I am engrossed in the story, I forget about the room, the cold floor, the list of things to do before bed. Orphan puppy lies on my chest, wrapped in my college sweater, while I type furiously, trying to fight the story that is already there, the path of which is already clear.

I cannot save it. I cannot paint a brighter ending. It wrote itself in my mind long ago, and I fear with it, I wrote my own story as well. The playlist like exit music. End scene. I see a deadline looming up ahead. When I have to be finished with the book. When I have to be finished with the adventure.

Maybe people are never satisfied, she says. Maybe we always have the dream that got away, while we revert to what's safe, what's comfortable. I still regret the things that never were.

The draft from the window rushes down to the floor where I lie. It makes me shiver. How late is too late to rewrite our endings?

of Sand and Sea

Such a sunny Sunday; when I woke up, my window was open, and mild, cool air wafted in over my warm bed. I can only assume I had opened it in my sleep earlier that night. After a week of procrastination, finally I collected my quarters and went to do laundry, to wash the clothes of my trip. For so long I had put it off, reluctant to rid them of their salt and sand. My gawdily colorful beach towel came out smelling of clean, soft, dryer sheets and it made me sad. I left the trip behind. We couldn't throw it out, said my mother of the sand, we emptied it into the flower pot. My mother is not one for nostalgia. Such is our love for Australia.

Meanwhile, orphan puppy has taken to sleeping in my bed. I allow my sleep to be interrupted, inconvenienced. I find myself postponing things on my to-do list in order to bury her in love that will mend her broken heart. I upend my every container of tenderness on her for the last few days she is with us, seemingly doling out more affection the nearer the farewell comes.

Typical.

It is easier to love what I know will not last. This is no comment of the safety of objects lost.

I just tire so quickly, of commitments.

Friday Nights

We are going to dance! she exlaims for a week, preparing for the weekend of her birthday. A motley crew trundles through Williamsburg to the narrow bar where lumber jack-wannabes crowd onto the nonexistant dance floor, and the DJ loses himself in 1980 and 1991.

Eventually, I walk home alone down glazed streets along a row of cat calls. New York City sleeps when no one is looking and only the garbage gets picked up. Orphan puppy is tumbling about in my week's worth of dirty laundry; when I go to bed she nestles in my armpit and putters happily while I sort through work emails that were lost in the excitement of Friday evening.

How simple the pleasures of life, sometimes.

New York, New York.

The dog smells of winter and burning woodchips. The streets are slow, navigating mounds of slush and deceptive pools of icy water. The snowfall picks up again. After hours of Brooklyn laughter, I made my way down Hudson Street to nestle in my jet lag and my home. White Horse lay quiet and cosy on its streetcorner, the bright red sign like a beacon of familiarity through the falling flakes. Last night, by the time I was on that E train riding towards Manhattan, the car filled with so many different types of people, all united by their place in the city, already I felt at home. Already, the beautiful trip of sunshine and new faces, of family and escape from reality, was dripping off my skin and disappearing into the gutter. How quickly it happens, and I almost wasn't sad to see it go.

Hours later, unable of course to sleep despite the promising start, I lay in my own bed, in my own sheets, with orphan puppy nestled into my armpit, tickling me with her content, deep breaths, devouring music like I had been starved for a month. (I suppose, in a way, I had). I could barely force myself to wait out one song before jumping to the next, trickling through playlists like they were Baskin Robbins flavors handed out on plastic trial spoons, letting each one slide down my taste buds and fulfill my senses before it was gone and I was on to the next.

Perhaps, tomorrow, I will remember what I until so recently had, that my feet danced on Australian soil and my life had not a care in the world. But as my Home seeps in to my pores and words yet again run rampant through my head, I can't help but giggle, my heart can't help but sigh. That is the magic, of home.

That is the magic, of New York.