Everytime We Say Goodbye

 

JOURNAL

Everytime We Say Goodbye

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

I had a somewhat profound and touching experience a couple of days ago.  I woke up unusually early, unable to sleep.  I heard some erratic scratching of little Rudi’s claws on the hall carpet.  He’s not the kind of cat who ever sharpened his claws on the carpet and in any case, this was not a claw-sharpening kind of sound. 

I got up and there was Rudi laying on the floor facing the wall.  “Are you OK little boy”, I said.  He stood but staggered unsteadily then collapsed on the floor.  I lay my hand lightly on his back and he let out two deep, low moans – then stopped breathing.  I waited for quite a while trying to see if I could detect any sign of breathing, but there was none.  He had died. 

He was an old boy, nearly seventeen, and had been slowly deteriorating over the past few months.  Breathing heavily, more difficulty walking despite the pain med I gave him every morning and evening.  He slept a lot, moving from one favorite place to the next for long naps.  Still eating, but less then he used to.  Letting go.  I knew it.  I knew he was near the end but he was still always waiting at the door when we got home.

Many years ago as I was getting ready to leave the office, the last one still there, I heard a loud plaintive meowing outside my rear office door.  It opened onto a kind of wild storage area behind the building.  I went out and tried to find where the sound was coming from but couldn’t find the kitten.  There were feral cats that lived back there.  I figured the mother would find her baby.  I left for the night.

The next morning I was the first one in and I still heard that loud distressful calling out of a lost kitten.  I went out again looking.  The only place I hadn’t looked the night before was in a big pile of old signs stacked up randomly.  I slowly, carefully unstacked the signs one-by-one.  There at the bottom was a tiny kitten.  How he got there I will never know.

I picked him up and brought him inside, setting him carefully on my jacket on the deck.  I called Frank Grasse, our vet and asked if I could bring this kitten in.  “Come right over”, Frank said.  He was the kindest of men and an old friend who had cared for many dogs & a couple of cats for us over the years. 

Frank examined this tiny, little kitten then said “This cat is only eight days old.”  Without even asking me, he handed me a little doll-sized baby bottle and a couple of cans of baby formula then told me “You have a new family member.”  I called Joe and he came to the office and cupped the kitten in his hands to warm him.  We filled the bottle and Joe held it to the tiny mouth that eagerly sucked on the nipple, happy and content.

When we brought him home our dog, Sophie, who had never had pups, immediately began to groom him.  I had filled a box with kitty litter and set him in it.  He immediately knew what to do.  What he didn’t know was how to clean himself after pooping.  If a dog can have a disgusted look on her face, Sophie had it.  She carefully cleaned his little butt, and was his mommy from then on.  We fed him but Sophie watched after him.  We named him Rudi.

Joe was still teaching at the time and brought Rudi to school with him each day, in the box he lived in to keep him from wandering off.  Joe’s students delighted in holding this little guy and feeding him with the tiny bottle of formula.  They were learning how to care for a baby.  Learning how to care for a “pet”.  These kids really grew to love Rudi.

As he grew he did all the cute kitten stuff.  Jumping straight up in the air when I yanked a ball of yarn on a string.  Hiding under the tarp covering the wood pile with his tail sticking out, bring lizards into the house then letting them go.  Lizards would pop up in the strangest places.  I would catch them and let them go well away from the house.

One day a big stray black cat began turning up near the house.  Sophie would chase it away.  I would catch a glimpse of it but figured it would find its way home, but after a few weeks it was clear this cat didn’t have a home to go back to. 

One day when Sophie wasn’t around I called to it and it came right up to me.  Although he seemed quite large, it was a male, I picked him up and he was skin and bones, and fur.  I made a home for him in our large fenced garden that Sophie couldn’t get into.  I would bring him food and water every day.  There was plenty of shade from the tall tomato plants, peppers and rhubarb.  We named him Big

One day I came out to feed Big and there, neatly laid across his bowl was a dead rat.  Not partly eaten or torn up.  I realized it was a thank you gift for me.  I was so touched that I almost cried.  He wanted to let me know how much he appreciated that I had given him a home.  Yes, humans are not the only animals with feelings – like gratitude. Eventually, as winter came on, we moved Big into the house.  He and Sophie came to a truce and eventually became friends.

After some years the country place became too much for us to take care of and we all moved into town - Sophie, Big, Rudi, Joe and me.  They had a big yard of their own.  Eventually Big died, then our beloved Sophie.  Rudi was the last to go, just a few days ago.  The first time in well over four decades that we don’t have a “little one” in the house. 

I’m so grateful that Rudi died quickly and at home.  “That’s how I want to go”, I said.  Of course, none of us knows when or how our inevitable death will come – just that it will someday thank goodness.  Can’t imagine living on and on.  Getting used to death is one gift our pets give us.  They teach us that life, at least physical life, comes to an end.  A lesson I’ve been taught over and over again.

We grieve, but for me, I’m grateful for their friendship.  My dogs and cats have always been family.  Over the years beloved friends and family have died.  How we grieve differs for each of us but ultimately, hopefully, we learn to be grateful along with missing those that have gone on before us. 

Pretty much every day I think of loved ones that have moved on with life’s journey.  Each person, each dog and cat.  Life is a kind of stream that flows.  Sometimes smooth, sometimes rough.  The death of someone we love is one of life’s most difficult experiences.  Illness and disability are certainly part of that journey too.  Life is not always kind, none-the-less that’s part of it all.

 We laid Rudi’s body in front of the fireplace, one of his favorite wintertime spots, as he let go – does some sort of spirt leave the body slowly as some believe?  I don’t know.  It just made us feel better to let him be there for a while.  It’s difficult to let go of the ones we love sometimes, usually.  Inevitable but not easy.   Good bye little boy, and thank you. 

The Day to Day Thing

 

JOURNAL

The Day to Day Thing

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

“I just try to live every day as if I deliberately came back to this one day.  To enjoy it as if it was the full, final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.  We’re all traveling through time together every day of our lives.  All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.”  A few years ago I quoted these words from director/writer, Richard Curtis’s wonderful and idealized film – About Time.  I love this story about a young man who discovers that he can go back in time in his life to “get it right”.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful! 

I always feel lighter when I watch this film.  There are so many things I wish I would have done but didn’t.  So many times I wish I would have done it differently.  Probably everyone thinks about that at times.  Michelle Obama says in her newest book, The Light We Carry, that her mother Marian Robinson used to tell her & her brother when they were just children that no matter what happened in the world to them as black kids growing up on Chicago’s south side “We will always like you here.” - meaning at home. 

Mama Robinson didn’t coddle her kids.  She gave them alarm clocks when they entered kindergarten and they had to get themselves up, make their beds and get ready for school.  Michelle says she learned young how to take responsibility for her life, and also that she was loved unconditionally.  Mama never criticized.  She’d listen, love, let them learn about life.  Learn from their teachers and get past personalities. She was also ready to go to bat for her kids if they needed it, but they learned to figure it out themselves most of the time.

I have to admit that these days I have trouble sometimes getting past personalities and the “stuff” that some people do - unkindness, fear-mongering, lack of any real empathy for others, including animals and the Earth itself.  Just gets me riled up, and I know that’s not healthy for me.

I remember a mediation that my late dear friend, Sally Gearhart, told me about. She would imagine herself as a great sail in the wind.  She’d let the wind blow through her sail-self and blow away all of life’s debris.  Just let it blow until the debris, the unwanted hurtful stuff was blown away – gone.  I love that image and that meditation.  I use it more often these days.  It helps.  Thanks for leaving that gift with me Sally!

Life has its struggles.  We all know that.  We all struggle with “stuff” sometimes.  The stuff is one way we grow, how we learn to survive and get stronger.  Also, how we empathize with what others may be going through and help out if we can.  It’s not always easy, especially with people who are close like family, spouses sometimes, friends.  Yet we do it when we can because we care.  Most of us care anyway.

That doesn’t mean one has to put up with everything someone may throw at you, especially abuse.  Sometimes it’s best to just distance from someone.  Some people are not a good match for one’s life.  It’s best to let their stuff be carried away with the wind.  Sometimes things change and a relationship comes back into one’s life, perhaps a little differently than before.  We all grow and change. 

Like the guy in About Time, we can sometimes get it right.  Not by going back in time, but by seeing things differently, more understanding, kindness – and the really difficult “unconditional love”. Of course sometimes distance is really the correct solution.  Change is the only constant, ironic as that may seem.   

In 2001, Harriet B. Braiker Ph.D., wrote a book that became a New York Times Bestseller called The Disease to Please – Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome.  Apparently a lot of people could relate.  She notes that pleasers “… will rarely if ever feel satisfied with the job you are doing.  You continually expand the circle of others whose needs you try to meet.  The pressure this produces and the inevitable drain on your energy create profound feelings of guilt and inadequacy that you will attempt to repress by trying harder to please even more.” Ugh!

 

Social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, in his fascinating book The Righteous Mind – Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, claims that genetic research has actually found genetic differences that predispose people to be more on the “conservative” or “liberal” spectrum.  He likens these two to the Asian concept of Yin and Yang – opposites that together create a complete whole. 

The motto of the United States of America is E pluribus unum – Latin for "Out of many, one".  We’ve often heard that it’s our differences that make the U.S. stronger; many different points of view, different races, the diversity of philosophies, religions or lack of religion – the “separation of church and state”.  Haidt generally defines Liberalism - caring about care, liberty & fairness.  Conservatism - caring more about loyalty, authority & sanctity.  He suggests that these work together to create the ideal of “out of many, one”. 

Where current U.S. politics has, in part, lost its way is extreme and intractable positions taken by inflexible narcissistic elements of both philosophies.  We are sometimes seeing in our society, pathologies such as psychopaths and sociopaths.  www.verywellhealth.com defines psychopath as “someone who has emotional deficits, chief among them being a lack of remorse… or inflicting pain on others” perhaps a genetic sickness; whereas a sociopath is defined as” they are antisocial and violate rules” in a way that intentionally hurts others, often learned behavior from the environment they have experienced – but a choice. 

Excluding the above mentioned unhealthy behaviors, “liberals” and “conservatives” can choose to work together finding common ground to create a stronger society.  This goes for day-to-day social interactions of people, local governments, national politics and the choices that voters make.  Diversity is a characteristic of nature, therefore of humankind.  “Moderates” tend to look for mutually beneficial common-ground solutions. 

Now, why might one choose to “deliberately came back to this one day” as a time, place and circumstance to “relish this remarkable ride”?  I posit that to do that one might have to essentially exclude much of what goes on in the lives of almost everyone in the world and politics – even the frequent brutality of Nature itself – and focus on one’s ability to live their individual life moment-to-moment always choosing the thought that feels better; appreciate and be grateful for what one has here and now on a very personal level, without causing harm to others or one’s self.  Hummm. 

As Hamlet says “'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd”.  Would I, or anyone, truly be grateful for each and every day in my / their life?  Buddhist philosophy contends that suffering is inevitable and even good in that one learns from it and in a sense purges one’s soul.  Can most of us truly appreciate the suffering along with the pleasure of life?  Of course Curtis says “I just try to live every day as if…”  Yes, it’s possible to try - usually. 

Being “happy” in normal circumstances is a choice.  Most of us choose where to live and actually settle based, at least in part, on the issues I’ve discussed.  Health, housing, work, economics, location, friends and family also figure into our choices.  ” We’re all traveling through time together every day of our lives.”  Together being the operative word.  That’s important for healthy Community and “home”. 

Year’s End – A New Beginning

 

JOURNAL

Year’s End – A New Beginning

Bill Barksdale, Columnist

Something about the year’s end makes one take stock of all that happened in the year just ended, and muse about what’s ahead.  Perhaps it’s the fact that one is inside more on these shortest of days around the Winter Solstice.  I think of this time of year as the architype of the feminine, from my studies of Jungian psychology.  The internal.  The old passes away in order to prepare for the rebirth of spring. 

I was grateful for the big rainstorms recently.  Our drought isn’t over yet and the forest, not to mention our reservoirs, need a long drink.  The ground geology of much our area is called the Franciscan formation.  This geology, formed as marine sediments from 20 million to 140 million years ago were compacted at the bottom of ancient oceans then folded from movement of the Earth’s crust over time, from layers into mountains and pockets that hold water.

The sediments of compacted clay called shale, sandstone which is basically sand that has cemented, and chert which is sedimentary silica – are hard layers that hold the water in pockets or allow it to flow on top of those layers.  There are other geologic formations as well, too much to cover here.  The point is, these formations are replenished each year by rain water which is what our wells and springs tap in to.  In a good year, topped off with snow pack that gradually releases water over a longer period.

If a pocket of water is completely encased in a hard formation, like a balloon, the water will eventually be used up and the well will go dry permanently.  If the pocket is open to the surface, like a bowl, it will be replenished with the rain.  The Little Lake Valley has a different type of geology, but all depends on rain, nature’s great cyclic process for recycling and distributing water. 

Of course, too much rain at once is a problem that causes flooding and landslides.  In our region there are areas of blue clay.  When clay gets saturated is becomes slippery, like oil.  In some hilly areas with heavy concentrations of clay that gets saturated, the land slips.  There are local areas where house foundations have cracked and houses have even slipped or had a landslide because of saturated clay geology.  

In times of drought we must conserve & recycle water, and use it wisely.  Flood irrigation is a wasteful use of water practiced in a now bygone era.  Now we must find ways to slow the runoff of our precious rainwater so that it permeates into the ground.  We must capture some of that rain in aquafers, reservoirs, wells and storage tanks to use during our dry, hot season while also letting enough flow for our precious fish to survive.  Conservation of water is essential.  Without it there is no life.

Just as in the womb, water is the cradle of life.  We must share it.  Water belongs to all life on Earth.  Private ownership of large quantities of Earth’s water is a violation of Nature’s plan.  We must find crops in our drought-prone area that provide what we need for our nourishment and also use less water.  Israel has studied water conservation methods for many years.  We would be wise to borrow their research and apply it here.  They’ve learned to cultivate deserts.

Such are my thoughts as the year comes to an end.  For me a connection with the spiritual nature of nature itself is the very essence of survival.  Ceremony, science, friendships, doing unto others as you would have others do unto you, kindness , the connectedness of humans & nature – all combine to create and maintain quality of life and our precious planet itself. 

As was said so profoundly true in the movie Jurassic World Dominion “We’re part of a fragile system made up of all living things” including our dynamic planet. 

Moving on - with gratitude in this new year, I’ve never been one to make New Year resolutions but this year it seems appropriate for me.  The great 19^th century American poet & essayist Walt Whitman once wrote “I exist as I am, that is enough.”  These words of wisdom seem to have a special vibrancy for me as this year begins, to learn to trust my inner wisdom.

The year 2022 had some great challenges for me and I felt my life-force kind of low.  I allowed Covid, politics, war, “the news” and a disappointing project that never came to fruition, as well as illness and a difficult plane trip all combined to drag me down.  I felt rundown. 

I realize that I can choose not to marinate in that dark place.  After all, I choose how I feel about anything.  We each choose.  Challenges and difficulties happen but how I feel about myself or the world is my choice.  I don’t have to be wrecked flotsam floating on the ocean of life’s many possibilities. 

As I seek a more satisfying direction for my life, I must begin with myself.  It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that we each choose to honor ourselves as individuals, or allow some institution to tell us our worth and what we “should be”.  We are taught and pressured from an early age to believe that those outside voices should tell us what to trust instead of our own quiet intuitive inner wisdom. 

Those who teach one to either take control of their own life direction, or be a follower - know that repetition, sometimes often in the form of a mantra, a repeated self-suggestion, is one of the most effective ways to teach oneself change.  Religion, political parties, and goodness knows advertising, are all experts at trying to influence how we think about ourselves and the world.  I call this corporate vampirism. 

These social institutions have many tools to convince us to ignore our own inner knowingness of truth, and follow them.  Among the tools they use quite effectively are fear, shame, guilt, self-doubt, social ostracism, feeling inferior, tribalism and desire – all cemented into our brains by repetition.  The tool of the internet has made it even easier for these institutions to reach further with their often hurtful influences and suggestions through “social media”. 

Social media is a new science of mass control cleverly disguised as “just keeping in touch with loved ones” or “keeping informed”.  Of course social media and the internet actually do provide these benefits but also insidiously insert a very real and often harmful brand of mind control over millions, even billions of people.  Why?  Because controlling what you think benefits a few, not necessarily you. 

I’ve decided to take back control of my life and thoughts by repeating better mantras, through repetition.   Taboo subjects - as we’ve been taught - such as “I love myself”, “I exist as I am that is enough”, “choose kindness” – and from writer Anita Moorjani “God is not a being. God is a state of being” and I add to this “and that state of being is Love”. 

“And in the end, the Love you take is equal to the Love you make.” - Paul McCartney.

Happy New Year 2023!