Happy Belated Birthday

~ Live & Learn

zeke-vizsla-sleeping-dog-pet-adorable

I’m on the couch reading, or quasi-reading and surfing – flicking through May Sartons’ journals in The House By the Sea and Knausgaard’s essay in The New York Times Magazine on The Terrible Beauty of Brain Surgery.

Yet, I’m wrapped by the beat of something bigger. Sun beams pour through the windows, warming, and then disappear with cloud cover.  The bird feeder hangs on a cast iron hook and swings ever-so-gently to and fro in the northerly breeze which gusts to rattle the windows.  And Knausgaard from his essay,  “I didn’t understand the words, but the sound of them filled the air with mournfulness and humility. Man is small, life is large, is what he heard in the ring of that voice.”

Then there’s Zeke, napping, after his six-mile morning walk, drawing Sarton’s short breaths, in a ‘rhythm, a kind of fugue poetry.’

The couch, books by world class writers, a sleeping dog leaning in and a morning free of all commitments – Oh, the bliss of Saturday mornings…

He turned eight last week. He’s reached mid-life. Naps are longer. Mood swings wider. He’s less tolerant of exuberant puppies. He’s a whole lot more fearful. And he’s graying on his nose, around his eyes and on his belly.  He’s ten pounds overweight, and has added lumps where lumps didn’t exist previously. Who’s the genius who found that dogs take on the profile of their owners?

He shifts to get comfortable, and emits a long sigh. And returns to his breathing tempo.

Sarton drifts back in again, this time in her journal she compares the grief of the loss of a pet to a person: ‘Partly it is absolutely inward and private, the relation between oneself and an animal, and also there is total dependency.’

I linger on her thought.  Who’s dependent on whom?

Happy belated birthday Zeke.

Here’s to 8 more….

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41 thoughts on “Happy Belated Birthday”

  10. My son lived with us for 6 months before entering the Marine Corps. He has a Catahoulah Leopard Dog named Callie. When he entered into OCS and chose to leave his dog with his significant other, I don’t know who I missed more — him or the dog — but losing both at the same time was almost more than I could bear. Damn these dogs and how they wriggle their way into our hearts…

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  12. Laughing! Great post. Who’s the genius who found that dogs take on the profile of their owners? Im not really sure I am like my dog…..He is little and annoying! But that could just be denial ha! Happy Birthday Zeke, you are very adorable. 🙂

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  15. You are gifted. Maybe better to say that all the years of reading and all the time you have spent trying to translate your experiences, has so refined your writing, that we are all able go places with you. We smell things and see things and guffaw.
    It’s not just a gift- it’s going there, day after day, to maintain the fire. Then, kind of suddenly (and yet, not at all) after carrying sticks and adjusting the flue time after time, you find that all you need is a small spark to create a raging fire — and people come to you to get warm.
    Thanks for sharing your Saturday morning!
    Happy Birthday, Zeke, lumpy, thick, lovable ol’ boy.

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  16. “The couch, books by world class writers, a sleeping dog leaning in and a morning free of all commitments – Oh, the bliss of Saturday mornings…” That DOES sound completely and totally blissful. My dog, Bella, is also 8. I feel like we are getting old together now…and I notice the changes in both of us. Such a loving photo, such a loving piece of writing. Happy Birthday Zeke. 🙂

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