Three Geese

 

Three Geese / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping! 

sold! 

(If you want this painting and the button doesn't work, you can email me or paypal me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com, and I will mark this painting "sold"! Someone might have gotten there before you, or the PayPal button might just not be working.)

EVERY MORNING, the dogs greet me with delight and unabashed celebration, licking and kissing me, wagging, rolling around on the bed. Doing dog stuff. 

I realized this week, that that morning greeting includes sneezing! Every day, all four dogs sneeze at least once every morning. What a lovely way to start the day. Wish human waking involved a good daily sneeze. 

I TRIED TO EXPLAIN the time change to the dogs this week, and they did not understand. In fact, it made me realize that I truly don't understand why we still do this. 

DOC AND I started dog school last week. My hope is that Doc will learn that while he's on a leash, he shouldn't lunge, barking and snarling, at golf carts, trucks with trailers,  other dogs, or humans holding things in their hands. He seems to be making progress. 

One primary notion of dog school is that I must and can stop him from practicing the behaviors that I don't like. Mostly, this has to do with distracting him with food and positive feedback. I think this concept is entirely applicable to me and my own life, though maybe less with the food and more with the positive feedback. 

Doc, bringing me a toy one morning when I was sad.

***

Coda

"Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen." 

- Orhan Pamuk

Egret

Egret / Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

This bird has flown! 

AT HOME THESE MANY MONTHS, I think of what I am not seeing. I imagine that azaleas glorified the woods near Richmond in May, and that springtime dogwoods blossomed, bright angels in the dark groves of western Virginia.

I imagine that cornflowers sang their summer songs at the edges of the roads in Pennsylvania, and that in July, hydrangeas shone blue and pink in the shady gardens of Rhode Island. 

I imagine that all my friends and all the people who usually go to the shows are safe at home, maybe a little bored, maybe a little stressed, maybe digging in their gardens and planting their own landscapes. 

I imagine that the summer has gone on, with cats sleeping in the sun on front stoops, and children learning to ride bicycles on quiet, dead-end roads. With skiers dreaming of winter, and homeowners wondering how the lawn could look greener and more lush, and everyone enjoying the sweetest peaches in years.

I imagine that even now, the West is alight with the brilliance of aspens and cottonwoods, blazing in yellow and gold along the silvery rivers and the fields of soft green sage. And in Wisdom, Montana, I imagine the snow is already shining on the mountains, and maybe even on the streets at night. 

I imagine that soon, the leaves in Maine will start to turn yellow and red, and fall from the branches. The ground will harden, the birds will fly south, and soon enough, the snow will fall there, too. 

I imagine, from the quiet safety of my little house, that the world is going on, more or less unchanged, without me. 

***

A Last Thought

Resolution

There's the thing I shouldn't do
and yet, and now I have
the rest of the day to make up for, not
undo, that can't be done
but next time, 
think more calmly,
breathe, says here's a new
morning, morning,
morning,
(though why would that 
work, it isn't even
hidden, hear it in there,
more, more, 
more?)

- Lia Purpura

Fat Little Wren

Fat Little Wren / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

This bird has flown...

THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY of Peter's death is coming. It's Oct. 10, so it is still a ways off, but I can see it out there. A dark patch in the approaching future. 

I told my counselor that I am dreading this anniversary, and she asked why, and the question brought me up short. Partly, I realized, it's because anniversaries by their very nature demand measurement - of time passing, of accomplishments, of healing - and there is something in me that feels, always, always, that when there is something to be measured, I will come up short. 

Those of you who know me well probably have seen this in me for years, but today was the first moment that I recognized it in myself. 

And whether I would or wouldn't measure up isn't the point. The point is, really, for me, at least, that there is no measurement. There is no set rate of recovery, of re-entry into the atmosphere of the living, of daily life, of the joyous. 

Even if there were something like that, there is no one to do the measuring. And even if there were both of those things, who cares? I am doing as well as I can, and that is all that anyone can ask of herself. 

***

Dog of the Day

IT'S KOKO, on home base. Almost every morning, the dogs and I walk with our friend Liesl. We let everyone run in the fenced-in ballpark down the street, and Lulu races like a rocket around the entire field, while Dr. Cooper sometimes runs with her and sometimes just lopes a bit, and Koko, bless her heart (in the southern sense of the phrase) just hangs around home. 

***

For Today

Reunion

Already one day has detached itself from all the rest up ahead.
It has my photograph in its soft pocket.
It wants to carry my breath into the past in its bag of wind.

I write poems to untie myself, to do penance and disappear
Through the upper right-hand corner of things, to say grace.

- Charles Wright