Thankful: A Dog's Lament

Thankful: A Dog’s Lament

I wake up to good morning to you good morning to you good morning hello Dolly

but go to bed with Honolulu baby trailer for sale or rent lamppost what you

knowin’ on the streets of Laredo.

Last night I heard today while the blossoms still cling to the vine from the living room and

ukulele strums leaving on a jet plane.

Carly Simon Burt Bacharach Karen Carpenter  

are so vain with a pin to burst your bubble close to you.

I’m thankful the three-year-old on the front porch sings “I’m so beautiful!”

instead.

Cleaning out an Office

Last week I cleaned out my work office, clearing out a three-shelf book case, a double-wide desk, and a three-drawer filing cabinet. In one drawer, I found poetry from the last 30 years. And in another I discovered journals that went back more than fifteen years. I hauled the poetry home, stowing it up in the top of a closet, but I couldn't help reading one journal volume recounting the months before my divorce. It was interesting to read my focus on the mundane--workout schedules, lawn care, and housework. Every once in awhile a few sentences would pop up showing the pain behind the every day.

This tendency to bury negative emotions runs deep with me. There are few friends who really see sorrow, anger, or fear from me. But I can't help wondering why I felt the need to hide it from myself. Was I worried my ex would find the journal and retaliate? Was I trying to follow William Glasser's reality therapy to an extreme? What I do know is that poetry offers me an emotional outlet missing in my search for normalcy. When I feel up to it, I'll go back to that (enormous) stack of poems and see how I was really feeling. For now, I'll just make lists and move on.

Of Trees

The popularity of Central Park demonstrates well the transformative power of the natural world. But it is not only the birds on display but also the park itself that feeds humanity’s love for the natural world. Parks and gardens also benefit humans, providing what Timothy Beatley calls biophilic urbanism. 

As Central Park’s architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s claimed, “It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character is favorable to the health and vigor of men.” 

Drawing on E.O. Wilson’s notion of biophilia, biologists Bjørn Grinde and Grete Grindal Patil assert, “Humans have an inherent inclination to affiliate with Nature [and] an affection for plants and other living things.” 

This affiliation with the natural world provides “social, psychological, pedagogical, and other benefits,” according to Beatley (211), even in urban areas. Beatley asserts “the nature present in dense, compact cities (such as a rooftop garden, an empty lot, a planted median) … can have restorative benefits” (212).

While walking my dog around my neighborhood, I wonder about Beatley and Wilson's claims. Do humans affiliate with nature inherently? And if they do, why do they destroy the very nature that sustains them? There are at least two observations that dispute biophilic claims: lack of human interaction with nature and prevalence of tree cutting.

Rarely do I see other people on my dog walks, even though I live in a working-class neighborhood of small houses and cul-de-sacs. And nature is everywhere. Birds flock in groves of trees. Squirrels and rabbits race away from my lab mix. Berries, crab apples, and walnuts cover lawns. People, though, stay inside. I catch glimpses of their television sets and hear reverberations from video games as I walk past. The furthest most of my neighbors walk is from car to house. Only a couple of dog owners traipse outdoors for longer than a few minutes--if they're over the age of 14.

Lately too my neighbors have cut down dozens of seemingly healthy trees. First my across-the-street neighbor chopped down a large oak tree that sheltered the birds I fed each winter. Then the owner of a small apartment complex around the corner cut down all of the trees in front of his building to expand a parking lot. In an adjacent neighborhood, a duplex owner cut out nine trees in one of the few shaded areas on his street. And near a condo complex, owners destroyed four massive oaks. 

So, if we have an affiliation for nature, we're doing it vicariously, perhaps through the Animal Planet station or a potted plant.

Broken Elbow odes

It's been more than a year since I fell on the ice in the dark parking lot outside the Jazzercise studio. I parked on the other side to avoid the multiple cars backing out, but that meant I had a longer walk on unsalted asphalt. At this new studio, we have no room to store weights, so I carry mine in each night. That evening I held my mat, water bottle, keys, and weights tightly as a slipped downward so fast only my elbow halted my fall. I thought nothing of the hit, thinking I'd just have a bad bruise until I looked at the arm at home and saw a misshapen stump swelling beyond recognition. A friend took me to urgent care and nearly vomited when he saw the x-ray that sent me to the emergency room and surgery the same night. 

I've nearly recovered from the break but still feel the plate holding bones together and the long scar that puckers when I lift weights. Here's a poem about my recovery: