Possible

October 29, 2018

Greetings from the depths we plumb,

The moon spied on me, peering between thin grey clouds. Behind the moon was blackness, a few white freckles to break up the emptiness.  It was technically morning, but if you were looking for clues to prove it, you would conclude ‘night’ instead.  Darkness, sealed with the last of the rainclouds, held night in place over the morning’s realm.

I was dressed as black as the night, a ninja.  Well, not exactly. I also wore bright green shoes and a reflector vest.  Like a ninja with an overprotective mother who is also a circus clown.  It takes a confident runner to pull it off.  I went out into the dark with a jumble of things to think about, but after a few miles I had whittled and sanded the knot in my brain until there was only one thing.  A word, really. 

One advantage of running in the dark is that the reality around you does not disturb your imagination.  The dark does not offer the shapes or colors to distract you.  I could not see autumn’s wreckage.  It is a unique experience that encourages thinking.  And talking.

It is not unusual for me to talk out loud while I’m running, to hear how the words I’m thinking would sound to someone.  It might also be how I keep myself company.  I dare say it has made a few nervous witnesses.  I tell stories, I have conversations with people I can’t otherwise, I will sometimes work out things I want to write.  If it seems normal to you, you’re probably a runner.  Or a seer.

Some of you know how a word will seep into your mind and make itself at home, right in the center of things.  I have been carrying a word like this with me all week.  The word is: Possible.

When I crossed the road that left my town behind, night had finally loosened its grip.  Beneath my bright green shoes, the rain had dried on the pavement, still wet in the creases; it looked like alligator skin in the almost-light.  In the first miles in that dark, damp run, my legs were not quite willing.  I asked for possible, from myself, from my body, an exchange I’ve had thousands of times.  I brought the run to me, pulled it on like a favorite pair of jeans, just out of the dryer.  Moved and stretched until it finally settled on me like it was meant to.

Earlier in the week my brother shared a thought about his daughter Cali, wondering where her singing talent would take her.  I had seen videos of Cali on stage, and I saw someone who was talented, surely, but natural, graceful, comfortable, not so much a performer as a living expression of her possible.  Cali’s voice, her presentation of the words and music, were also created and shared to change things for the listener.   She brought possible into our lives.

I turned onto a gravel road, the light finally pushing the morning’s agenda.  The gray sky framed the morning, and the trees sighed at me in the light wind.  The leaves emerged from tintype dimness, becoming cranberry, lemon, orange.  Each step I took formed a brighter, more colorful world. 

The miles tumbled, and my body warmed to its work.  I ran faster, felt the ache of the effort, and left it behind.  The lungs and heart and muscles did what I asked, with some questions at first, and then made possible with me.

I have been a writer for a while now, and every time I sit down to put words on the page I ask for possible.  Sometimes possible is on the other side of a lot of staring, of failing, of mistakes.  Often the purpose is a mystery.  But sometimes it is in me so large I can’t control my hands to type what I want to bring possible into reality.

A few days ago, I spoke to a woman whose only purpose in our conversation was to share an understanding of Islam to those who are willing to know. Her only desire that I could see was peace.  I watched her face and eyes, listened to what she said, both of us uncertain, unprepared, no idea what will come of her effort, only willing to offer possible. 

The morning rolled out brightness like it was the first time. Running toward home I felt a freshness that surprised me.  I surged into the next miles, the world now full around me.  People were out looking at the day, making their own noise, pushing their way into whatever they would make of Sunday.  I sliced through their morning with my possible, splashing it on either side of the road in big messy waves.

Each morning we expect something, maybe not always enough. Not of ourselves, or other people or of the exchange among us.  Sometimes even in discontent we remain wedged in doubt or cynicism.  Perhaps in part because we don’t allow for possible.

Maybe this sounds too mystical to you, but try walking around saying it out loud and see how it feels.  Asking for possible is creating hope, it is a prayer, it is plumbing a potential that exists in all of us and among all of us, and in every day we step out into the beauty that waits.

I ran from darkness, my legs stiff, my mind in ordinary chaos.  With each step I created possible.  I breathed it in and out.  I left the dark emptiness, demanded of my body what it could, unwound the chaos, ran into color and texture and light.  I ran into possible, filled my hands with it, my heart with it, and carried it into my day. 

Hope this finds you open,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith

Dose Cafes

October 22, 2018

Greetings from the Gringo,

Earlier this year we made plans to visit Colombia to visit my son Carson.  Quick primer on that country; it is in South America, which it turns out is not near South Carolina as I previously thought.  I also learned, (thank you Wikipedia) the language of Colombia is Spanish. 

Naturally, the most sensible thing would be to wait until linguistic imperialism overwhelms our neighbors in South America and makes it possible for us to travel without the inconvenience of having to squint to understand other people.

But that eventuality is still a way off and our tickets were non-transferrable.  And so it became apparent that I would need to learn Spanish before we travelled.  Not ALL Spanish, just what you can get on a free app. 

I actually got to where I liked learning, which is totally contrary to a lifetime of resistance to the process.  I studied every day, learning new words and phrases, using them in sentences and then forgetting them so deeply that I suspected Alzheimer’s. 

I would walk around the house practicing Espanol with a Midwest accent.  “Hello!  I am living in a magazine!  What is your toaster today?”  I would say to my dog Max, who, even if he were not as deaf as a rock, speaks no better Spanish than he does English.

I realized after a month that I was not advancing.  The app kept failing me on things I already knew, which I totally resented.  Regardless, when the time came to travel to Colombia, I felt confident that I could hold my own in the fundamentals.  “Where is the bathroom?”  “How much does this cost?”  “What is your toaster today?”

One of the things that the travel blogs do not explain, which I think would be helpful to know, is that when you go through security at the Colombian airport, there is some sophisticated equipment that somehow detects any knowledge of the local language and erases that from your memory.  Hence, I could not even remember how to say “No hablo South Carolina”.

Thankfully our son Carson speaks Spanish very well, and when we met him in Medellin he was already a seasoned traveler.  He guided us through the city, cautioned us about crossing the street, helped us figure out a menu, or where to stand to get off the train.  He helped us to understand it is rude to slam the door on a taxi.

At one point Carson observed that our roles had swung around, from us taking care of him, explaining the world to him, protecting him, to the reverse.  Very possibly a glimpse of our future.  It was both disconcerting and reassuring at the same time.

Colombia has a well-deserved reputation for danger and violence.  We saw none of that thankfully, but there were plenty of hints.  One was this; in Medellin there were security guards that roamed our neighborhood.  They carried machetes. 

There was some concern about safety, but my son gave us the fundamental guidelines to keep us safe, which focused on not attracting attention to ourselves as Americans. (Americans wear shorts, talk loudly on the Metro and slam taxi doors.) And so that was all well and good.  Until there came a circumstance that became more pressing than our safety.

We left Medellin and flew north and found our way to Arpatado.  We were staying in very simple accommodations, Carson was staying perhaps a mile away with a friend.  Even though we visited the place I am not sure I could have found it a second time. 

 Like any other town of its size there were probably folks intent on the malicious, but we did not intersect with them.  Still, it has not been too long since kidnapping, and worse, were fairly common.  My son Carson suggested that we not go out of the hotel without him, not to risk getting lost or into complicated situations without the gift of language.

We planned to meet Carson at 7 am to go for breakfast and then start our day.  The time came and went.  I watched out our second-floor window.  A motor scooter went by with two parents and three children on it.  A man herded some horses by.  Another man wheeled cart full of fruit with a dog balanced on top.  Carson did not appear.

After a while, it became a worry. We didn’t have phone service and there was no WIFI to send him a text.  As time passed we guessed what might be going on and sketched a plan to find him. But first we had to deal with the most immediate and imperative priority.

Coffee.

I have ranged the narrow alleys of Miami, prowled through the seediest part of Atlanta, scoured the wet predawn streets of St. Louis, searching for an open coffee shop.  In almost any large city you can name, I have wandered the sidewalks before sunup looking for the life giving elixir.

Armed with that confidence, and a pocket full of pesos, I went to find java.  I knew approximately where there was an open air café that was not too far, unless I was wrong.

I walked through the streets of Arpatado, greeting the few people I met with ‘Buenos Dias’ which means ‘Where is the coffee?’ It turns out everyone I met had the same question.

Soon I found the corner I wanted.  A woman was working behind the counter, a glass case filled with pastries and bread.  There were plastic chairs and small tables set in the gravel around the café.  A few patrons already were situated there, sipping coffee, eyeing me with the same look I have seen in small town diners everywhere I have travelled, where the locals peg you for a stranger.

I summoned up my massive library of Spanish phrases and said, “Dose cafes, por favor.”

The woman behind the counter didn’t miss a beat.  “Con leche o sin leche?”

I knew it was a question because of her arched eyebrows, and so experience told me that a response was required from me.  I wasn’t counting on that, and so my confidence eroded, and I suspected this is where I would now be kidnapped.  I muttered something that might have passed for ‘Con leche’ and she seemed satisfied.  I muddled through the exchange of approximately one million pesos and walked away with two plastic cups of what seemed to be coffee flavored milk.  Success.

It turns out Carson was fine.  He arrived to pick us up at the time we had agreed to and forgotten along with fundamental phrases in both Spanish and English.  We set out exploring his adopted country, guided by him and a few of his kindest friends.  It became natural to rely on Carson, his knowledge of the place and his mastery of the language, which allowed us to maneuver in ways that would have been impossible otherwise.

Even so, I missed being able to ask cab drivers questions, or to make small talk with the woman at the café.  I missed overhearing the stories around me, of becoming part of the dialogue of every moment.  It is a powerful lesson I will never take for granted, no matter what language surround me. 

Oh, and I meant ‘Sin leche’.

Hope this finds you talking pretty one day,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith

Tim

October 15, 2018

Greetings from the share,

The richest aspect of my life consists of the people I know.  Within that space, there are those who have connected in a way that has changed me for the better, and for good.  These connections, which I feel in my breath, in the beating of my heart, are what makes every day worth having more of.

One of the first things I knew about Tim was that he was a vegan.  Technically I didn’t fully know it because I didn’t know what it meant entirely.  Tim was sitting at my kitchen table one night, explaining why he wanted to ride his bike across the country with a group of people, of which my daughter Katherine was one.

Tim has an even way of speaking, the kind of cadence of a man who is comfortable with himself, but not someone who is trying to impress the room.  We talked for a long time that night, but I knew in the first five minutes that I liked him.

He asks a lot of questions.  I bet he doesn’t even know he is doing it, but it is because he wants to know about other people, other places, other things.  He is curious and open.  Despite an impressive intellect, he is very comfortable saying “I don’t know.”  Usually with a smile.

Tim has taken a few different jobs since I have known him, work that is so technical I cannot describe it to people who ask, and he always says the same thing when he considers a move: “I think I can learn a lot there.”

And he does.  His capacity for taking on new ideas and information, and the attendant challenges, is impressive.  At least it would seem so to me, the guy who can’t describe Tim’s work without using made up words like ‘interweb thingy’.

In another era we would have classified Tim Johnson as a ‘Renaissance Man’.  He is well read, well educated and has travelled extensively.  But he is an athlete; an ultramarathoner, a rock climber, a long-distance cyclist.  Today, like every day, he will ride his bike nearly 30 miles to work and back home.  He is an ambitious hiker.  The closer he is to nature the more content he seems.

He plays the guitar, is an accomplished juggler, a ranked chess player, a skilled skateboarder, tosses a mean frisbee.  When he wants to relax and hang out, he plays complex board games or reads convoluted fantasy novels that are so dense I can’t read the flyleaf without lying down to rest.

I have seen him with children, worked with him installing a wood floor, seen him fix his bike.  He is a patient person, with others and himself.  Patient but not complacent; in fact, he has a competitive streak I admire.  He tells me when his goal is to do 100 pushups a day for a month, usually some kind of competition with his Dad.  Tim and his brother compete in everything; running, rock climbing, chess, board games, tree climbing, you name it.  It’s impressive.

But you don’t see it in the way he behaves toward people.  He is willing to push himself, and if you make a pact to compete with him, that’s different.  With everyone else he has this same friendly acceptance that first caught my attention when we met.

There are patches of red on his cheeks when he laughs hard, and he enjoys those moments.  He has fun in him.  He works hard, has plenty of serious things to do, but Tim’s natural state is smiling.  Just writing those word right now, I picture him and it made me smile.

Tim and Katherine, and their friend Han, rode across the country on their bikes, meeting people, seeing the world, raising money for the hungry along the way.  Before they left I asked him to watch out for my daughter.  I believed him when he replied.

When the two of them came home from the road they chose a new journey together and Tim became woven into our lives.  There has never been a time that I haven’t been glad to see him and that he hasn’t been smiling when he saw me.  He is a good friend; that part I could write about all morning.

                                                                                                      

When they decided to get married I was a thrilled, a little amazed, and said to myself ‘Well, that seems exactly right’.  He is my son-in-law, a term I resent a little, as if that defined it, or as if a law could ever prevent him from being my son.

I love how my daughter and Tim cook together, choose together, make a life, solve challenges, help others.  They respect each other, find ways to make each day good for the other.  I love my daughter fiercely, and the more days that go by I realize that love has grown to include another person.  I am pretty certain that’s a big part of why we are here.

You might have read all the way to this point wondering why I am telling you all this, and it’s simple.  Because today people are going to send you pictures of what they ate, or memes of dogs, or political positions, and an array of stuff that will make you cringe.  To balance that I wanted you to have an example of what I care most about, a person who makes my life richer.  And maybe remind you about what you care most about.

Hope this finds you calling whoever this made you think of,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith

Lisbon

October 8, 2018

Greetings from Lisboa,

Every place expresses itself in its own way. The expression is created to be an exchange between the place and the people who pass through it, live in it.

I would not share any of what follows with the simple intention of telling you about the city, although it would a pleasure. This morning I sat on the terrace overlooking the park, waiting for the first light to appear over the Tagus river. It is a cool morning, but in a short while it will be summer-warm and the streets will fill with Lisboans shaping another day. I will leave tomorrow but not without realizing, again, how a place expresses itself.

The history of the city, rich and varied, thousands of years of it, is etched in the place. It is in the shape of the hills where wars were fought, where earthquakes fragmented the place. It is in the castles, the monasteries, the forts, the palaces. You can touch places that are five hundred years old on the way to the cafe. And talk with people who are making the history today.

Exploring the city I learned there is a texture here. The cobblestone streets and tiled plazas and walkways, hand made, the same places where others have walked for hundreds of years. Nearly everyone says something about how slippery they are. And they are right.

You can taste a place, and here you cannot resist that expression. I could create a long list, fresh fruit and coffee and cod, but every taste should begin with the custard tarts from Pasteis de Belem. Naturally, every meal, every taste, is seasoned with conversation, with the sounds of people interacting with the expression of the place.

It smells different closer to the water, navigating the narrow streets between the oldest buildings, zig zagging toward the river. The market here, filled with flowers and produce and fresh fish, is the aroma of a port, of a place where people gather to trade what they have brought in from the rest of the world. I can sense the explorers who left here, who came back with pepper and coffee and stories of other places.

There is music here, like all places. We stood in the street and listened to Fado, an evocative, passionate music created over hundreds of years here. This is the sound of the place, as much as the clanging of the funiculars, and the rigging on the sailboats. The rich mixtures of languages from all of the world can be heard in every square where people gather.

Lisbon has expressed itself in myriad ways, but made richer by the company of friends in the expression. These last few days, under the spell of clear blue skies, we have explored every alley and cafe and centuries old building and soaked in the place, all amplified by the warmth and laughter of good friends.

I am not a travel writer, there will not be a `Top Ten Places To See` Every place, not only “other” places, expresses itself. There is a personality that is part history and part now, shaped by us, by our reaction to the place. It is more than the buildings, whatever their age. It is more than the food or the music, it is what all of those things become when they are expressed to us, and our response.

When I go home I will bring with me the memories of this place, of this exchange. And I will bring a new respect for the expression of the place I live.

Hope this finds you taking part,

David

Web of Webs

October 1, 2018

Greetings from the web of webs,

I like to think that I am a digitally sophisticated person.  It’s not true, but I like to think it.  This thought occurs to me as I send these words out through the sorcery of the internet, which I stopped trying to understand when we lost modem screech.

Before you read any further, let me assure you this is not a letter from an African prince asking for help transferring $15 million into the U.S.  Also, I am not from Google asking for your password to your YMCA account so we can fix any bugs.  Phishing, (purposely misspelled here to promote an innovative rock band, which is purposely misspelled to avoid confusion with the singer ‘Fish’) is so common these days that you don’t know who to trust.  So let me assure you, I’m ok.  Not exactly a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval but it’s all a risk nowadays.

Disreputable denizens of the cyberworld have been working overtime to find ways to delude trusting sorts.  Among the most aggravating methods is Ransomware.  (Purposely capitalized to avoid confusion with the band Phish.) This is where some teenager in Russia hacks your computer and locks it up using digital peanut butter.  To get your computer back, and the imperative files therein, you have to pay a ransom.

Ransomware, or cryptoviral extortion, is paid off through cryptocurrencies.  I seriously hope this doesn’t happen to me because I am already struggling with the ATM, and the idea that I am going to have to learn ‘cryptocurrency’ (which you just KNOW will be in metric) makes me shudder.  Shuddering makes my screen freeze up.

Obviously having your computer kidnapped would wreak havoc in anyone’s life.  I know people who have dealt with this problem and it brings out compound curse words in the kindest soul.  But part of me was thinking that this could be a blessing in disguise. 

Suppose someone locked up my laptop and took all my files and then I told them to just keep them.  Right now seems like a good time.  If you find anything of interest, feel free to keep it or put it on the Dark Web or Wikipedia or print it on the menu at Choo Choo’s restaurant.  I’ll go back to doing whatever we did before AOL.

I might be better off without it.  Imagine if you could not access your calendar, or finish that vacuous document, or miss out on Words with Friends.  What would happen next?  Sure there are consequences I wouldn’t like; maybe it would be harder to pay my federal income tax for example.  But it’s also possible that there would be a simpler life on the horizon. 

Not having to wonder, for example, if my appliances are being used to steal my identity would be a relief. I could go back to just worrying about ordinary burglars and whoever is stealing my free newspaper from the end of the driveway, instead of being anxious over whether or not I’m being spied on by a Lithuanian money launderer through my steam iron. 

It is tedious trying to avoid smart appliances, not even knowing if I have any.  To be safe I am careful not to let my toaster see me sign on to my email account.  (password; refrigerator)  Doorbells, garage door openers, even crockpots, are all connected to the internet and all have the same capacity for malevolence. 

I am not a Luddite. (Not referring to citizens of Ludington, this is the other Luddite that I’m not.)  I enjoy technology and its conveniences and access to the vast wealth of intelligence on the internet. (Plus those great goat videos.)  I am just a little frayed from being afraid.  So, perhaps, taking a page from Elmore Leonard; if I’m asked for ransom I’ll suggest the kidnapper keep what they took.  Let them deal with Outlook.  Don’t forget my sister’s birthday.

Someone out there is right now saying to themselves ‘Better be careful what you wish for.’

So before I start attracting bad internet juju let me say I am not asking to be targeted by African princes.  Or Fish. Or Prince.  I am just feeling a little nostalgic for a time when getting an email from a friend didn’t require a virus detector.

So onward.  We can be careful without it crushing our spirit.  And while the world sorts itself out, I may take to writing more letters. 

Hope this finds you dialing up,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith

Time after Dad

September 24, 2018

Greetings from the timekeeper,

                                

“I don't believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.”   Jayber Crow

Time is heartless.  

It rushes at us, by us, hapless commuters on the station platform, terrified at its power.  We watched the moments just before pass as if they were weeks and knew in our hearts it would be that way forever.  And Time arrives, as it always does, to instruct us on the truth. 

I saw my Dad as a young man, paint splattered t shirt and pants.  I saw him washing our car in the driveway, the Tigers playing on the AM radio sitting nearby.  I saw him at the dinner table, surrounded by family, saying: “Eat up, yer at yer Auntie’s"

He was in our living room, dancing the Highland Fling to raucous bagpipe music, red faced, yelling “Whoop!” as he whirled around with his family, the house literally heaving with their joy.  Stopping to quench his thirst between laughter; “Och, it’s a braw bricht moonlit nicht the nicht.” His brothers called him ‘Oor Hume.’

Then there was this swelling of the moment, pages of the calendar whirled in the vortex, Time roared between us, and we were scoured by it, moved to stand in new places.  My Dad was not a young man and I was not a little boy.  We were new versions of us, taught and formed by Time.  We became father and grandfather. 

Time kept up its relentless work and in many ways Dad remained separate from it, other than the lines etched in him, the grey that snuck in, the thinning and thickening.  He was still full of mischief.  He seemed to collect friends wherever he smiled.  He was always positive and formed a simple, satisfying philosophy about his life.  Even when the apocalypse rolled in.

We watched as disease first tested him, then punished him, tried vainly to humble him, pushed by Time at a pace that astonished us.  Even as I write this it’s hard to believe how many years it took for Parkinson’s to gain an edge and how slow and fast those years passed.  Time was inexorable, but no match for my Dad.  For a while.

I leaned my forehead against the window in one of many anonymous places in the hospital.  Behind me my Dad pushed back against Time, somehow slowed it until one tick of the clock was the same as a season.  We all stood in a doorway between wanting Time to wait and to please please please take the moment away.

We drew in a breath, and Time, merciless, shuddered to a stop altogether.  Our eyes raw, our hearts twisted in knots, we teetered in that tiny moment that went on for my Dad’s lifetime.  And then we breathed out and he was gone.

Fifteen years ago, Oor Hume passed away, having filled more than seven decades with the unique story that Time will not dull as long as we exist to remember it.  And to grieve his loss.

Instead of knowing his presence in our lives we were given an ache to fill that place.  We talked about it for a while, laughed and cried the stories out.  We kept Dad with us, alive and not alive, and in a way made the ache worse and better.  We talked to everyone about him for a while and then less and less and then only to ourselves.

Time is kind. 

One day piled into another and there was an avalanche of weeks and months and now fifteen years have passed.  The only way any of us who miss him has lived with the loss is that Time has made it possible. 

We can share his memory, live out his legacy, but we don’t stop grieving.  It just becomes part of the texture of his life with ours.  Only Time, merciful, makes it unbearable and then tolerable and then livable.   Time sands the sharp edges of grief, slowly wears it down to something we can hold in our heart.

Yesterday morning I stopped on my run to watch the sun warm the east.  It was a morning just like the one fifteen years before.  The leading edge of fall, clear sky, the promise of warmth and chill.  I looked out on that morning from a high window in the hospital and watched a ladybug fly past.  It shook me a little that Time had already dissolved that many years in just the moment since Dad put down his burden.

Time is heartless and kind.  It flows by too fast and too slow.  Its truth is that all of life is filled with this paradox, and our only hope to solve it is to live it.  To live in this moment and carry the last with us.  To know pain and joy.  To grieve and be grateful. 

See you on the other side, Dad.

Hope this finds you in time,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith

Max

September 17, 2018

Greetings from man’s best friend’s friend,

Every once in a while someone will ask; “You still got that dog Max? He must be old by now.”

This question, usually proffered in a tone of incredulity, is often prompted by some mild complaint on my part, one of the classics I am compelled to wheel out from time to time. 

To be clear, I am not prone to complaining, or to talking about Max.  But, it is a rare moment that I might mention Max that it is not paired with a complaint.  It usually has something to do with some inconvenience put upon me by the dog.

The lifespan of dogs of Max’s ilk is typically somewhat shorter than what he is currently enjoying.  This leads not only to the incredulous tone when someone asks about him, but also provides something like 100 dog years of material with which I might pair with less than complimentary commentary.

Depending on the era, the dog produced different reasons for complaint.  There was a number of years that he barked at everything from squirrels to passing cars to the sound of a toilet flushing.  There was a period of time when the dog slept on my bed.  There have been various things torn, lost, stained, and scratched, which I blame him for.  I’m not prone to harbor grudges but they must be kept somewhere.

Honestly I have no reason to write about Max today.  He has not done anything particularly remarkable, other than a certain air he has taken on, or given off, I’m not sure which.  The only reason I mention him at all because there might come a time when I’ll mention him for the last time, and I want to resist becoming maudlin on the subject.  And avoid any regrets.

I don’t like to overlay human attributes to dogs, it’s a pet peeve of mine.  I don’t think of Max as a person, he is a dog.  I believe if he thinks of me at all, he probably does not think of me as a dog, but rather as whatever the mind of a dog thinks of when it sees a person.  That is our relationship; somewhat formal, somewhat awkward, somewhat laughable if you look at it from far enough away.

But I will admit that I have had more conversations with him in the last year or so than perhaps previously.  I use the word ‘conversation’ loosely since Max is deaf as a stone and being a dog does not speak or understand English, which also true of a stone. 

It is more of an instinct when I speak to him.  It might be 1:30 in the morning and he has been yowling at me from downstairs for some reason and I show up and ask, “Do you want to go outside?”  He does not have any facial expression that I can discern.  He looks at me the same whether he wants food or water or to pee on the floor.  So my question, posed in the miasma of near-REM, might just as well be “Do you want to fly a dirigible?”   But I am making an effort.

On our walks I will sometimes confide in Max.  I will tell him about things I am thinking about, sometimes asking his opinion, if it seems appropriate.  It really never is, I’m just trying to be nice.  I don’t think it matters to him, but it sometimes does to me. 

When I am home alone with him I try to be kind, friendly even.  Maybe our tenuous-relationship momentum is too strong.  His response, one honed to razor sharpness over years of practice, is that of total indifference.  The only sign he gives that he knows I am there is to leave the room I am in to avoid having to raise enough energy to show annoyance. 

Max is not as steady as he once was, and I am not certain how good his vision is, which can lead to some comical standoffs with walls that he might think of as doors.  He still looks out the window, and for all I know sees the squirrels who were once his nemesis, but evidently has forgiven them.  Mostly he walks between the places where he sleeps.  Which is not in my bed.

Once in a while a little of the younger dog appears; when he comes in from the rain and gets dried off he may bound around a bit, or perhaps on a walk he will break into a little lope until he gets winded.  It’s probably not true, but I think he does it for us, to show us he’s still in there.

When I am out on the deck eating breakfast, somehow he knows it, even if he has been sleeping. I will hear him tap at the glass door and see him staring at me, same look as 1:30 in the morning, but we both know it means “I want to be with you.  And eat your bagel.”

Max is old by now.  I don’t know how old exactly and I am not going to guess because I will get corrected later in the day.  He has developed old dog habits, including some that no one would want me to mention while they were drinking their morning coffee.  I can mention that he has become much more vocal, particularly in his getting up and lying down.  Even as I write this he is lying behind me in the living room complaining, I think, probably about me.

Like any relationship of this many years, Max and I have had our share of good and bad.  In spite of all my complaining about him, I know he has been a good companion for my family.  In our way we have reached an accord of sorts.  I have to guess at his share of it, being that he

does not speak English, and I imagine he is guessing at mine, what with my limitations.  In some ways it’s a beautiful thing.

Hope this finds you in good company,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith