Writing in the Dark of the Year: "I Stand on All Fours, My Fur ..."

 On this fourth week, the writing prompt that hit me between the eyes was this:

"I stand on all fours, my fur ..."

I couldn't actually read this piece - or any piece, for that matter - aloud this week. But here's what I wrote:

I stand on all fours, my fur rising ever so slightly from my suddenly unfamiliar body. (Is it my body that is unfamiliar, or is it everything else?)

Last Tuesday night I went to bed, stretched out as usual on the blanket on the floor behind my Friend's bed. She turned out the light, then she said, like she says every night, "Sleep time, SLEEP time, my little Earl Grey. Sleep time, my Faithful Friend. See you in the MORning!" 

But the morning never came. The dark night got blacker and blacker. The Good Rancher got up and made his breakfast and left. My Friend got up and called to me.

I didn't know where she was. 

I didn't know where I was.

I bumped into a hard edge and did not know how to get around it so I stopped. I needed water, I needed to go outside, I needed to have my Friend say, "Good MORning, my little Earl Grey!"

She came back to find me. I almost didn't hear her footsteps. I was so scared that my entire body was shaking. I could hardly breathe.

"Come on, my dog! What's going on?" I looked at where I thought her voice was coming from. She cried my name like she never had before - "GRAAAAAAYYY!" 

She pushed me with her legs and put her hand on my head. She got me to where I could feel cool air on my face. So many smells. Birds chirping. Cats meowing. Musket yapping from the porch. I was so confused that I just froze.

I put out my foot, but there was nothing there. Suddenly I felt her next to me. Her hands on my shoulders. "Step!" she screamed, "Step! Step! Step! Step!"

I didn't know what to do. She had never raised her voice at me before. Except that time when she saw me with a baby barn kitten in my mouth. Was she angry with me, like then?

I heard tapping right below me. "Step," she whispered. I could feel her breath on my face. Salt water dripping onto my nose. I leaned toward her and my foot dropped down to reach a spot just below me. "Step," she said again and that same tapping below me. I followed her breath.

And then I felt the cold bristles of grass beneath me. "Go, on, Earl Grey," she said. I inhaled the scent of previous outside visits, both mine and the other dogs'. Some stronger than others.  I took a few steps into this blackness. I had to pee, but I was too scared to lift my leg. 

She called to me and I heard her truck running. Maybe we were going for a ride? But I could not find her or the truck. Suddenly she was in front of meIbumpedintoherlegs. The Good Rancher was there and he picked me up and put me in the truck. She was already sitting right next to me.

The movement, the noise, the smells. I could hear big trucks coming toward me and I pressed myself low on the seat because I couldn't see them and I was scared they were going to run over me.

We stopped at the place where the people give me treats, and the girl came out to help my Friend get me out of the truck. They put a noose around my neck and started to pull me, but I did not know where I was going so I sat down.

And I heard my Friend's voice. "My Faithful Friend," she said. "Come with me, Earl Grey."

They got me into a small room. I tried to walk around but I kept bumpingbumping into a huge box in the middle of the room. I put my head on my Friend's lap and everything was quiet. 

But not for long. Two other people came into the room and they made my Friend put a muzzle on me. Then they poked me in my foot, and they put something cold near my heart, and I felt whooshing air near my eyes. I started to pant.

My Friend and that girl got me back into the truck. The truck started and then there was a howling sound, like the coyotes on the hills at home every night. I tried to reach for her hand, which was always there when I put my head on the console, but I fell off the seat.

The howling stopped. So did the truck. The door next to me opened. She helped me get back up onto the seat.

We got home. I got onto the floor of the truck but when she tried to get me down I couldn't move. I could only shake and pant. 

She went away and came back and there was somewhere hard to put my foot. It was covered with something soft that smelled like her jacket. "Step," she said quietly. "Step." 

And I was on the blessed ground again.

This last week has been long. Cold weather. Accidents in the living room. I can't find my food until I am standing in the bowl. I spill the water. My head hurts all the time. I sleep a lot. The dogs avoid me, but those kittens stay close to me now. 

Nothing is the same. 

Except for one thing.

A long time ago she went away for a night, and when she came back the next afternoon, she smelled of blood and bandages and medicine and sadness. We could not jump up on her, and she did not bend down to give us our milk time, milk time. Something was wrong. 

She lay on the couch and I lay on the floor next to her. When she got up she went to the small room with the loud rushing of water. I felt I needed to go look after her. So I waited for her outside the door. 

And from that day on, whenever she goes to the small room with the loud rushing of water I always lie down, blocking the door, waiting for her, protecting her from the unseen enemy. Now everything is unseen, everything is the enemy.

Still. I still know when she is in that place, and I have still been able to find the door. And I would still protect her with my whole pitiful being.

She opens the door. I stand on all fours, my fur turning into shield and breastplate and helmet, and my useless eyes glowing jade green. I stand on guard for her.

And I hear her say the words she always says as she bends to stroke my back and head:

"Grey? Are you waiting for me, Grey? Oh Grey, you ALWAYS wait for me. THANK you for waiting for me, Earl Grey. Thank you for being my Faithful Friend. Do you love me, Grey? I think you LOVE me!! From the FIRST time you saw me, you loved me, and you wanted to BE my friend. And now, you are my FAITHful Friend, Earl Grey, and now, you are MY dog."

Everything has changed, but nothing has changed. I would give my life for her. 

I hope she can see that.

Writing in the Dark of the Year: How People Drink Their Tea or Coffee

 The assignment was simple: "What does the way a person drinks their tea or coffee mean about them?" We had 15 minutes.

My mind immediately went back to Solly and Erna, two of my favourite people to drink tea and coffee in the little tea house in Three Hills. I don't know if it answered the question of the evening, but I knew I wanted to spend a moment or two with them again. This is what I wrote:

"Welcome to Nilgiris Tea House. Here's a table for eight, if we just pull these two together ... May I take your order?"

SOLLY: "Coffee. Black."

ERNA: "I think I'll have a pot of tea. Now, do I want black tea or ... no ... it might keep me up. What about that Winter Palace Marzipan tea? It reminds me of the sugared almonds my daddy used to give us -"

SOLLY: "Erna! Just order! Everyone is waiting!"

The order is taken: five coffees and three teas. Four cinnamon rolls and three scones. Erna won't have anything, she has to watch her sugar.

Three minutes after all at the table are served:

THUMP.   THUMP.   THUMP.

THUMP.   THUMP.   THUMP.

ERNA: "Oh Solly, STOP! She's busy. She'll bring the coffee pot over as soon as she can -"

SOLLY: "I might die before she gets here."

ERNA: "Oh Solly, the doctor was just making a joke. Living in town is not going to kill you!

"Oh thank you, dear. It's his 88th birthday, and -"

SOLLY: "Erna! She doesn't have time for this! I just want to go back to the farm. Nothing wrong with me. I can still run my tractor. And out there I can pour my own coffee when I want to."

THUMP.   THUMP.   THUMP.

THUMP.   THUMP.   THUMP.

ERNA: "Oh Solly, stop!"

And then the news that he had died. Impatient in life, he was not impatient to leave it when the time came. At the reception following his funeral, Erna said that now she could come to the tea house and not be embarrassed.

"Welcome to Nilgiris Tea House. Here's a table for four. May I take your order?"

One coffee and three teas. Two orders of scones, to share.

Three minutes after all at the table are served:

THUMP.   THUMP.   THUMP.

THUMP.   THUMP.   THUMP.

She's sitting there with her empty coffee mug in front of her. Tears are getting caught in the creases of her face. She stares at the mug, stunned.

ERNA: "I can't believe I did that. I hated when he did that. Oh Solly -"

    

Writing In The Dark of the Year: All About Snakes

Week 2 of Writing in the Dark of the Year. For the first exercise we read Sylvia Plath's Rhyme and then we were asked to think of a story and give it a twist.

When we were in Coonoor, India, and going for walks with Mum on the Lamb's Rock road we would have "Snake Drills." Mum would call out, "Snake!" and we would have to freeze in whatever position we were in at that moment.

I saw my first snake at the ranch in the garden in 2023, a beautiful garter snake. I didn't know whether to freeze so I took a picture and shot it to Ivy and the Good Rancher. They both assured me that this snake wouldn't hurt me!

All this to say that the writing course I'm taking took a decidedly reptilian turn.

This is what I wrote:

Once upon a time in a land far away there was a garden, a garden full of the scent of eucalyptus, the sparkle of cinnamon, the punch of Tellicherry pepper.

Through the garden ran a river where fish would sparkle silvery in the cool, clear water. 

And the birds would flit and preen and coo. 

It was very good.

But there was a serpent in that garden, of course there was, hiding in the eucalyptus leaves, lying in wait for the innocent maiden who he knew would pass by him in the heat of the day. Surely she would notice him today. He would wait for her.

The maiden did come to the eucalyptus grove. She gathered her basket of leaves, piling them high as she breathed in their heady aroma. She paused for a word with her companion; and as she did, the serpent slithered surreptitiously into the basket of leaves, slid to the bottom with the faintest rustle, so soft the maiden never heard him.

She lifted the basket onto her head. It seemed heavier than usual, somehow. Maybe she was just tired, she thought to herself, as she trudged down the path to the factory.

She took her place in line, setting her basket down with a sigh.

From the depths of the basket appeared a sleek head with two obsidian eyes and a forked ruby tongue.

The maiden, lost in her thoughts, did not notice.

"Look at me now," the serpent hissed as his tongue flicked against her left heel and he made a loop around her ankle.

Almost faster than thought he wrapped himself around her, his head curling around about her neck, squeezing her in his vicious embrace.

The courtyard froze in horrified, helpless silence.

The girl, choking, petrified, fainted and fell to the ground as one dead. The snake exhaled, a victory hiss. She had noticed him. They all had noticed him. He had triumphed!

Slowly, slowly he unfurled himself from the maiden's supine body. He began to crawl away on his belly, back to the camouflage of the eucalyptus trees, back to wait for his next victim.

BOOM! The foreman's gun blew his head to smithereens.

---------------------------

For the second exercise we look at a picture the facilitator has selected for that night's work. This is what she had selected for week 2:

(Untitled by Katerina Plotnikova)

She showed it to us after I had read my piece ... Because of this weird coincidence, I thought I would include the second piece I read to the group that evening. After looking at the picture and gazing at the fresh face of the young woman with the world-weary eyes, my mind was transported to that first garden in the Book of Genesis.

The first part of the next piece is clearly not my writing, as you can see. My comments start immediately following the old, familiar story:

Genesis 3:1-7 (The Message)

"The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the woman: 'Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?'

"The woman said to the serpent, 'Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It's only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, 'Don't eat from it; don't even touch it or you'll die.'

"The serpent told the woman, 'You won't die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you'll see what's really going on. You'll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.'

"When the woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it - she'd know everything! - she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.

"Then they understood what they had done. And they realized that they were not wearing any clothes. So they took some leaves from fig trees and sewed them together to cover their nakedness."

The man went to work, tilling the soil, setting up empires, toiling until he dropped with exhaustion.

But the woman, with the weight of the serpent's words wrapped around her head, looked down through the generations with knowing, tired eyes.

And the guns roared and the bombs hissed and the buildings dropped and the mothers wailed, Rachel weeping for her children, unable to be comforted.

And so it continued for 100 days and counting.

And the fig trees - unwitting props in the drama between good and evil that began to rage that day in the garden - bowed their heads and withered in Gaza.

Writing in the Dark of the Year

 I have signed up for a course, encouraged by my friend Susanne, who persuaded our friend Sharalynn and me to join her.

"Writing in the Dark of the Year" started on Tuesday night when indeed Winter, flying in the teeth of El Nino, showed us who's boss in Alberta.

I locked myself into my room, away from dogs, away from cats, away from the pandemonium and drudgery of life at -40° on a cow-calf operation.

Our leader, Kelsey, got the nine of us to introduce ourselves; then she asked us to write a list of things we cannot do.

THEN she asked us to pick one off the list and address it. It could be a how-to; it could be humourous; it could be whatever we wanted. 

We had ten minutes.

I reviewed my list and found it somewhat melancholic and a little bit waspish. So I went with the first one: "I can't reach high shelves or the floor of the passenger side of the truck."

And this is what I wrote:

Stretch.

S-T-R-E-T-C-H!

Waggle the tips

of your fingers as if

they are periscopes to the

submarine mass of your body

One more inch. That's all

you need, ONE

MORE KNUCKLE appended

to your index finger.

Still no?

Step back, then several steps back, and look up:

It's there, the object of your desire,

there in tantalizingly plain view

on the third shelf of the cupboard.

Align yourself again, and this time

Stand on tippy toes, your left hand

on the second shelf for balance

as your right hand flaps vaguely 

in the area you remember

the object to be.

It's an existence of inches:

Shortest in my family.

Short arms short legs short trunk

short temper short memory -

62 1/2" cohabiting with 75" rancher

who is never on call

except for supper.

It's me and the dogs and the cats, all

people shorter than I.

Still no?

I sure could do with a drink

but I just can't reach

that glass ...

(📷  by the GR)

Two hours more till this evening's class!

On the Anniversary of Pearl Harbour

"Did you know," he said in a conversational tone, a few days ago, "that Debbie died on the anniversary of Pearl Harbour?"

The room seemed very still in that moment. 

The Good Rancher is also a Good Dancer, light on his feet. I saw him as he led his and Debbie's son's brand new mother-in-law onto the dance floor at the wedding reception.  

He can dance out of the way of bulls charging directly at him.

And from childhood he has mastered the art of dancing deftly around anything that could cause him pain.

From the outset of our acquaintance the GR has said that the past is the past; there is nothing a person can do to change it and so we need to appreciate the moment and look to the future. This year he has reminded himself more often than most. 

So in our household his simple comment that evening was something out of the ordinary, something that gave me pause.

I am the product of the union of a Baptist and a Brethren; I certainly did not learn the quick-step or the two-step, but I am very practiced at the side-step in an attempt to avert any misstep. I will go out of my way to avoid pushing people's buttons or causing them pain.

I went up to Edmonton for an appointment the next day and came home late on the 6th night. Just before I joined the checkout queue at Costco - a must-stop for people who dwell far away from the purchase of even a jug of milk - I impulsively swung by the florist corner. Every instinct inside me screamed, "Leave it alone. Don't intrude. Respect privacy. Don't be pushy." 

I selected a bouquet of two dozen ivory roses and added it to my cart.

I handed them to him when I got home. "These are for you. in honour of. Pearl Harbour. and Debbie."

We put them in water and took them down to the basement, the only place safe from cats.

December 7th was a busy day, but not in the way we anticipated. We couldn't process calves because of the snow that hit us sideways, driven by the wind that shaped those flakes into arrows of ice; so the men did some catch-up work and some planning in the shop. That evening the GR and I headed into Hanna to see a couple of people. On our way home he said, "I have to take milk out to the barn cats and then I think I'll run into Endiang." 

I heard him going downstairs.

Some time later he came home and enveloped me in a hug. "You are the person I love most in this world," he murmured. He had reconciled us both in his head and his heart.  He seemed truly at peace for the first time in a year and a half.

The next day I took coffee and doughnuts over to our gathering place behind the bale stacks. I saw them almost immediately. Twelve ivory roses.

Twelve for her, left tenderly on her final earthly resting place, one for each year she has been gone.

And twelve for him here, one for each year of missing her.

There is no statute of limitation on how much grief a heart can hold, of how much loss a person can bear. Everyone sorrows in their own way and in their own time. When you're bereaved of the one you love at age 48, the rhythm of your world changes.  

And yet you can't stop, even for a day, to process this unspeakable reality. After all, the cows don't know your heart's broken. You barely know it yourself. So you have to keep going: one step after another to take, one orphan calf after another to feed, one water hole after another to chop, one load of hay after another to fork, one bill after another to pay. Repeat until the numbness wears off, until it feels like the new normal is almost normal.

But, as with grief, there is also no limitation on how much love a heart can hold. When the gift of a new love is proffered, it does not cancel out or supersede the old love. Each in its own mysterious way makes the other more precious.

Sometimes it just takes time to figure it out, how to weave the strands of the new with the old and make the fabric of a heart even stronger.

Sometimes it takes twelve years and twenty-four roses divided by two.

But it's worth it. It's worth it to be able to admit finally that "love is stronger than death."

And that "two are better than one, because ... if either of them falls down, one can help the other up." 

And that "love never fails."

And that "the greatest of these is love."