It’s been a perfect storm. Sometimes life is just that - an alchemy of events, thoughts, feelings, memories that brew into hurricane proportions. The storm might settle for days in the center of your mind. Or it might blow through in a mighty, breathless gust. However it comes, stays, and goes, the tempest leaves you rattled. It may reveal what you need to see. A mangled wreck of realization.
This was Penelope.
Penelope was a weaver, daughter of man and nymph, wife of Odysseus. For 20 years during the Trojan War she put off suitors, unraveling her day’s weaving each night for she could not remarry until the shroud was finished. She was clever, faithful, loyal in her love, qualities admirable for one who survived an attempted drowning by a father so angry she was not a boy he cast her into the sea. The infant was rescued by ducks. Believing her survival to be a sign from the gods, her father’s heart softened and he returned her home, naming her Penelope - which was to become, 3,000 years later, the species name for the Eurasian Wigeon.
If you’re aware of my penchant for ducks, you’ll see the beautiful kismet, for this was a fact I did not know in naming my second dog
I’d wanted a second dog for years, so when the cats passed and the house became eerily quiet, our little family too diminutive for comfort, I began looking for a puppy. The local humane society had a handful of dogs from a hoarding case; one was pregnant - a timid JackChi who birthed three pups, two boys and a girl. We named her Penelope Taylor.
She may not have been cast into the sea for not being a boy, but her chaotic beginning is etched into her nervous system. Her first weeks of life were defined by cacophony, a barrage of scents. Mom was removed early. Infested with worms the puppies were not allowed outside - they did not breathe fresh air until six weeks - by then the rude New England winter had descended, rendering the world a sharp-winded and icey mud pit. The pups scampered through their own mess and learned to pee on blankets, the only soft surface in their kennel which triggered a natural instinct. Upon emerging from the den, the feeling of grass and soft ground stimulates pups to relieve themselves - it’s nature’s way of potty training. For weeks after bringing her home she peed on beds. Penelope was the last to leave. The three days she spent on her own she refused to eat. It took weeks for her to settle, and during this time I thought more than once I had made a mistake, that I might not be up to the challenge. The puppy blues, said one trainer. Happens to everyone.
Now, my life is unimaginable without her little body next to mine, her triangle ears folded forward, her head cocked in perpetual curiosity. She’s smart, strong-willed, spicy at times, and also sweet, snuggly, and happy to be alive. I could not love this dog more.
I wish we could all overcome our adversities with the same vigor and grace as our canine families.
I was a baby both wanted and not. The way I remember the story is that my father was somewhat tricked into parenthood, and the day of my birth was harrowing. While my mother labored he shot a dying dog in the head. The goldfish went belly up that day. He was feeling rotten, but when I was carried into the lobby to meet my father, my swaddled face had eyes only for him, and like the father of Penelope, his heart softened.
I never expected raising a puppy to be easy, but I was unprepared for the challenges of becoming a two-dog household, for the way every routine and habit would be cracked and mended. Our family dynamics, the organization of time and tasks, experienced seismic shifts. It was a less than ideal setting for the descent of a swirling cloud of depression, exacerbated by lack of sleep and constant hyper-vigilance as we did our best to rewire the brain of a little dog who only knew chaos. Our older dog did both well and acted out. Self care became impossible to prioritize. Just taking a shower or washing the dishes felt herculean. The craze of the new year jacked up the pace and expected outputs. And seeping through all of this overwhelming stimulation was the act of falling in love. I felt like my heart was being stripped, fiber by fiber. For me, love and loss are two sides of the same coin. Loving Penelope meant losing her, even if not for decades. Still deeply bruised after the cats, this overwhelming swell of feeling was a sucker punch. This, all of this, was my perfect storm.
I find myself questioning everything these days. Am I in the right job, the right place, the right community? What does right even mean? What is my purpose? Have my adventures come to an end, meaning home, or am I feeling the call of the sly north wind like Vianne in Chocolat? Is there work to be done elsewhere? I find myself dreaming of the desert, of being kidnapped by movie stars. I am craving rust-colored horizons, Texas-sized skies streaked in orchid hues.
During an event at a wellness resort, I pocketed a flower from a table arrangement. A burgundy cymbidium orchid, symbolizing virtue, strength, friendship, and respect. A good friend sat next to me, teasing me not to steal the flowers though he was a willing accomplice, placing a stem in his jacket pocket to help me ferry them from table to Subaru. The cymbidium is the boat orchid, named for its bottom petal whose curl resembles a hull - perhaps like that of the ship that brought Odysseus home to Penelope. I wish for a boat, a vessel to ferry me away, large enough to stow those I love and wish to vanish with me. If you could go anywhere, right now, to where would you adventure?
Before I had dogs, I never thought I could love them as much as I loved my cats, and now I have been proven wrong twice. Dogs go out into the world with you. They are companions of shared experience. In my darkest moments, my lightest too, my girls crawl into my lap. They press their soft bodies against my heart, my throat, my belly, all those places where vitality lives and dies. They lick away tears and are happy to take on this task again and again. We laugh. We cry. We live. In a way, I am Penelope’s shroud, woven and unraveled day after day, an act of ceaseless devotion - we are all connected by an invisible string, an eternal line of energy that always was and always will be, without beginning or end.
I try to remember this when I am in the toss of the storm. Right now, I have more questions than answers, but I am still at the prow, face to wind. And with me, my family. My anchor.
Hold on, friends. Life is a wild ride.
Elizabeth, your thoughtful and beautiful writing continues to move me. Thank you.