blindness at the break of dawn

I had this panic attack, I think that's what they're called.  A real first.  It was about a month ago, one 5:00 AM or so.  My usual time for waking up and worrying about the seas rising. Trying to calculate whether I live in the flood zone or out of it. And by how much either way. Worrying about liquefaction.  Yup, I worry about things like that. Worry about whether I can pay my bills, balance the checkbook to the penny, live long enough to prosper.  I'm really good at worry.  But not panic.

This was a panic attack.  A real one.

It was about blindness.  My eyes have been misbehaving more and more of late. And in the place of my usual global-sized concerns came this quite visceral and personal one.  I contemplated life without sight, and what that might be like, and whether I would be willing to live that life., or let life go. I thought of every single thing in the world that I'd have to give up.

Could I live without color?  I really wasn't sure I'd be willing to try. I thought of every pleasure in my life, and every drop of it for me was visual.  Petty little things. Like hiking on the cliffs, picking fruit in the market, driving.  I included driving—and I hate driving. But it made for a good panic.

Got into a disagreement (too short to call a fight) with my partner's mother over dinner not long ago.  Or maybe it was breakfast.  Something I made, and I apologized.  It didn't look right.

"As long as it tastes good," she said. And I begged to differ.  How could it taste good if it wasn't beautiful?

And we dropped the subject. It would not have been a fruitful question to explore.

So. The panic.

I should note, that even now as I write, my eyes are starting to fail.  I'm not sure if I can finish this post before the screen fades completely before my eyes. Solution: I'll keep it short. Very short.

Went to the eye doctor, and what did he say? Cataracts still 'not visually significant' but getting there. And okay, so panic gone. Something can be done about it, right?

And the panic went away, making me feel silly. And selfish. I had panicked over something so personal, rather than something larger than the self. I felt ashamed.

But in my panic, I visualized life without sight. Right down to the minutest of details. I practiced, even. Waking up and going through the morning rituals with my eyes closed.  A shower's not so bad, unless the bar of soap slips out of your hand. Then it's a bit more treacherous...

A couple days ago, someone I hold dear went suddenly blind. And she may or may not regain her sight. She did not panic. She faltered. It was more than her sight she was losing. Her platelets were rebelling against platelets. An autoimmune disease.I find it all so inexplicable. There is no why.

She's handling it with such grace, except for the eyedrops she must endure every four hours. She's relying on other senses to get her by until her malady passes.  And I insist it must, it must pass. And she must live. And I look at her, and all I want for her is life. And she shows me how it can be done.

They key, of course, is that she's surrounded by so much love. Humans who adore her more than anything else in the world. She is cared for. Protected. And most of all, adored. She has those loving bodies curled up next to her, warm against her skin. The love wards off panic and fear, and maybe some of the confusion. She's calm. And greeting each and every moment.

And I? I'm a bit jealous.

...

I'm not proof reading this. The blur and haze are setting in for the night...

in the throes of lust — aaarrrggghhh

I think it's lust.  Isn't that that uncontrollable desire that can't be sated until you act?  And the act has consequences. And you know it has consequences — and you just can't help yourself because, well — it's lust.  And around and around you go, trying to be rational about the whole thing — but your body's just aching, almost quaking with this desire you can't shake off. I know, that's way too many ache/quake/shakes for one sentence, but that's the trouble, see?  Complete loss of one's senses.

It's the adorable factor.

Michael Pollan wrote The Botany of Desire reminding us of what flowers can do to us.  Don't worry, this post is not about flowers.  I'm just using this as an example.  This post is about much worse than flowers, actually.  But it's not as bad as babies.

I guess there's a continuum of lusts.  Maybe put flowers (or hot cars) at one end of the continuum, and put babies at the other.  And sex, right smack between the two.  This lust is probably on the dial halfway between sex and babies.  And it's fucking killing me right now.

So. Michael Pollan.

Said that flowers are there to seduce us.  Their aroma, their look — they just go way overboard even in photographs to hook us and make us do their bidding. Even in a bulb catalog, those gorgeous combinations of wild colors and design just nail us. And we take out the old piece of plastic, make a phone call, or click our 'shopping cart' and a week later: bulbs to plant in the fall, and flowers that are not so picture perfect in the springtime.  But we do it. And then next year we do it again.

Puppies are more serious than flowers, in the lust department.  And I've been looking at puppy pictures now for two years, thinking it's time again.  Puppy love.  Not random pictures. Not random puppies.  Only Becky Bouchard's Best Shepherd puppies.  Puppies who are relatives of our  gorgeous long-haired German shepherd, Roshi.

Okay, stop.  I know it's vomit factor lust.  The too adorable for words lust. Might as well be babies kind of lust.  I swore up and down that I wouldn't 'do' another puppy until one of two things happened — neither of which have — and therefore I suppose I'm bound to that agreement.  But hell, sex and babies and puppies just don't happen by making rational well-timed decisions, do they?  They just happen.

They happen exactly because we're quaking with desire. Because we're in the throes of lust that cannot be denied.

And then you live with the consequences.  Michael Pollan's beautiful bulbs have it easy.   If that's 'desire' — it's desire lite.  The commitment to our springtime flowers is nothing compared to the commitment to those babies —

Phone call.

She says, "thank you for letting me be the voice of reason..."

Aaarrrggghhhh —

I hate the voice of reason.  Unless it's mine.  Talking someone else down from their irrational desire.  Telling someone else just how much this is going to cost.  Reminding someone else that this is a major long term commitment they're engaging in.  Think. Think about this.  It's not the right time...  blablabla...

But that's the thing with lust. It is not amused by rationality.

All rationality does is piss us off.

"Substitute sex for puppy lust..." she recommends. But no, it just won't work.  Or. Maybe it will work.  Okay, I'll have to try it.  Can you really substitute one lust for another just to come down off this terrible ache?

Drug lust.  That's what it feels like.  Insatiable. Undeniable. Irrational. Intense — and immediate. That's why God gave us evolution, right? We've evolved both rationality and irrationality — and it's the latter that drives us to action.

Think of the long-term consequences, the voice of reason says.  But that takes all the fun out of it.

For the first time in my life I am not making a unilateral decision.  The new girlfriend's "NOT NOW" is rational and reasonable, and right.  And somehow I'm going to try to manage to try to consider being considerate and somehow (maybe) get over this puppy ache.  And that's despite the fact that I've already started negotiating this pup.  I could list all the reasons why she (the pup) is exactly right, and why the timing (which is all wrong) is exactly right.  More blabla.  I do good bla.

Fact is, I'm still completely out of control.

So. This is me on the other side of my rationality.  On the side that actually takes unilateral action.  The side that brought home every stray or designer critter of my life so far. The side that ran off to Europe for three years with my boyfriend. That headed off overland to Afghanistan and ended up at the Nepalese border. The side that got married on the spur of the moment (rationality side says: okay, I needed a visa). The side that made each (glorious) child. The side that got divorced, that bought every house, painted every color. The side that starts blogs, has sex, falls in love.  The side I don't want to control at all.

I'm (somehow) letting the new girlfriend have veto power here.  Knowing how much the rest of the time I actually am in control, and can be the rational being I respect.  Why is it that my lust-side gets to have all the fun — and my rational side has to pay the vet bills for the following 18 years?  Some 'intelligent designer' somehow designed that one all wrong.

This is me, calming down.  Just a little.  Puppy lust is one of the most uncontrollable desires on planet earth.  The heart's still thumping, the extremities still quivering —  Those goddamned photos of the super-cute!  If this weren't happening to me, I'd be close to throwing up.  The vomit factor of gooey cute. I don't know how long I can hold out ... Rational side is saying: next summer.  Wait until those variables are all lined up.  Lust side, says — well, lust side is beyond words...

Antidote?  Dunno.

If it's not sex, I'm just hoping it's not Bud's French vanilla ice cream or designer dark dark chocolate.

speak now or forever hold your leash

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area plans to greatly restrict the areas in which we and our pups can walk freely — unleashed in paradise. If we do not take collection action, this restriction of our freedom and the freedom of our four-legged friends will be diminished by the fall, 2011. Many of you know how much Fort Funston means to me — perhaps you feel the same. Perhaps you've never considered the matter. Perhaps it's time for you to come out to the cliffs and experience the unique freedom that Fort Funston still offers.

Here's a copy of my comments to the GGNRA, focusing on what I think might be concerns they might think worthy of consideration. My thoughts about beauty and freedom I kept out of my remarks.

March 10, 2011 01:39 PM Mountain Time
Park: Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Project: Dog Management Draft Plan/DEIS
Document: GGNRA Draft Dog Management Plan / Environmental Impact Statement Park:

Comments:

Please consider the importance of the following points before considering the drastic measures in your drafted proposal.

1. The Health of our Elders: Fort Funston and other off-leash areas in the Bay Area has become a haven for older people to walk their dogs, socialize with other seniors, and form a community that makes their lives more fulfilling. The vitality of this community will be greatly diminished if your proposal goes into effect. People look out for each other and their pups. There is virtually no discord among the regular dog walkers. Their health and vitality is greatly increased as a result. If anything, off-leash dog walking ought to be encouraged, especially for seniors, as a way to lead more healthy and fulfilling lives.


2. The Health of our Canine Friends: Dogs, especially in the City, absolutely need a place to playfully engage with each other and enhance their socialization skills. Dogs on leash are more aggressive than those off leash. On leash dogs cannot run, catch, play, scamper, visit each other in a healthy canine manner. They become frustrated; they bark; they have no way to expend the vast amount of energy that they generate. As a result of your proposed plan, dogs in the city and likely in suburban areas as well, are much more likely to be less than model citizens. Again, as above, older people (perhaps more than any other people) will be affected adversely by living with pups who no longer are calm, sated, attentive and well behaved. Older people simply cannot walk long enough to give their canine friends their due!


3. The Health of the Environment: Bringing (of all things) more horses onto the trails of Fort Funston, brings with it a population with a horrific sense of entitlement - and no sense of responsibility. The regular dog walkers of Ft Funston clean up after their animals not only on a daily basis but also on a monthly clean-up. Those who bring their horses up to Ft Funston 1) do not stay on the horse trails, 2) frequently do not know how to ride a horse, and have little control of their animals, 3) never clean up after their horses, and 4) leave trails more heavily eroded, more covered with manure, vermin and flies. Turning our trails into 'Horse Trails' makes both the official trails and the adjacent areas unfit, unsafe, and unsanitary for human walkers (with or without dogs). The horse riders have been by far the most inconsiderate and destructive population at Ft Funston. I urge you to reconsider this proposal. I agree that setting standards and procedures for use of public spaces is important. But the drastic expansion of banned areas for off-leash walkers is punitive for the vast majority of citizens who use, love, respect, and protect these wondrous outdoor spaces. The unintended consequences of your proposal to both human and canine members of the community cannot be underestimated.

Comment ID: 466402-38106/1203

Comments on the Fort Funston maps of proposed alternative plans.

Please consider that all but one of the GGNRA alternate plans for Fort Funston discriminate against seniors walking the trails.

MAP 16: This proposal is the second most restrictive of those proposed. It is punitive to seniors in particular, who cannot navigate easily or regularly up anddown the steep cliffs to the designated off-leash area below.

MAP 16A: The Voice Control alternative is by far the most reasonable and responsible of your plans. It makes it clear to all that open spaces are open only to those who have taken care to train their dogs as good neighbors and citizens. This plan is fair, even handed, and a good reminder that humans on the trails should always have their dogs under voice control.

MAP 16E: This plan is a poor second plan choice to 16A. Its advantage is that it allows a contiguous area for walkers. However, because of its reduced area, it is likely to be eroded quickly through over use. My greater concern is that this plan also discriminates against those seniors who cannot navigate the steep, deep sandy trails of the prescribed areas.

Of your plans, if changed must be made, Map 16A is a compromise alternative that is viable and fair to all. It is also the only plan that will work well for seniors. Please take seriously the detrimental effects the more severe restrictions will have on the health and welfare of seniors who have so long diligently and reverentially cared for Fort Funston.

Thank you for your serious reconsideration on these restrictions at Fort Funston.

Comment ID: 466407-38106/1205

we dying dogs

Sometimes we just slow down and stop. And that's it. We're done.

That's what happened today at Funston, heading back from the cliffside trail. This woman's dogs were going just nuts as she tried to protect one between her legs who was just plain done. It was like she was paralyzed there, not paying attention to the growing chaos around her. Six or seven of the younger dogs just didn't give a shit that their elder was ready to go.

The expression came to mind: to be on your last legs. This old dog had only three. And he wasn't going to use any of them. His head was lying there in the sand. The phrase felt so literal, and I wondered really what it would feel like to be ready to just plain stop, and have no volition to ever get up again.

Just before he died, the biofather told me a story. I had asked him if he remembered anything about me from when I was little. He got this glowing, glorious look on his face.

"One story, yes!" he said. He came back to life with this memory. He was no longer an elderly man in a wheelchair with limbs cut off from the diabetes, and scars from his cardiac bypass. He was young and authoritative and in control again.

"You were very little," he began. "You were very sick. Your mother called me and begged me for money to pay for the medicine you needed. And formula or something. She needed food for you."

He had this enormous smile on his face, as he paused. I had always dreamed of him as a knight in shining armor who would one day come rescue me. But I had never heard this story before.

"And I turned her down. I never gave her money," he said proudly. And this hero's light came into his eyes. He sat up a little straighter in his wheelchair, so proud of himself.

"After all," he said dramatically, "you don't feed a dying dog."

And he looked me in the eye and grinned his winning grin, having concluded his victorious tale.

And I sat there staring at him. I mean, what can you say to that?

And I thought about his tale as I stared into the eyes of the dying dog on the cliff today. The one who was done, who was really ready to go. And I wondered about that baby in my mother's arms. Wondered if that child had felt the same or not. Ready to be done. Ready to move on. The light going out of her eyes.

Dunno. But she was a very melancholy child, the grown-ups said.

I do think it possible that some of the light in her eyes winked out that day. And a bit more, I think, winked out upon hearing the old bastard's tale. But the light was replaced, I think, by something maybe tougher. Resilience, maybe. Autonomy, for sure. An I'll-take-care-of-myself, thank you. Somewhere along the way, if it was trust that was extinguished, it was self-preservation that ignited instead. And some kind of fortitude (defined here as being a stubborn, obstinate chayah), I think, replaced it.

Lights on, lights off. I look at that dog lying there. He, in slow motion. The pups speeding around him, jumping, chomping at each others' necks and ears. He doesn't intervene. He doesn't play top dog, the way he did a week ago, a month ago. He's not quite there anymore, hovering between this world and the world to come. They slow down, and they just plain stop.

It's only humans who drag out the process with advance directives and life-prolonging measures.

I watch the dogs at the Fort or in my arms or at their home. And they tell us so clearly when they're on their last legs. So clearly, I'm just not getting up again. They close their eyes. They're often miraculously not in pain. They're just ready to go.

A kaddish for them, for us — we dying dogs.

a stabbing in paradise

It's the 9th of Elul on the Babylonian/Jewish calendar. On this day, nothing much is supposed to happen. All the bad things, all the evil is relegated to the 9th of Av, a full month earlier. Av is the truly bad news month in the Jewish calendar. By the time Elul rolls around, everyone's gearing up for a do-over. Taking stock. It's a month for introspection. The month of Divine mercy and forgiveness. And strangely enough, that's what I've been doing all Elul: the introspection part, not the forgiveness part. But, gee, I do that every month, so I'm not sure it even counts.

So, okay, today's not the worst day of the year. And this isn't the greatest tragedy on earth. But do you ever have one of those days where everything just goes wrong (in comparison to those days in which everything just goes right)? Well, today was just one of those wrong days, which followed one of those just wrong weeks.

After falling through my deck on Sunday, I had the Termite Man come out today, along with my contractor friend, Tony. Between the two of them, I was given more than abundant physical evidence that my exquisite redwood deck is infested with termites and beetles, and run through with dry rot and mold. And oh gee, the back stairs are fashtunk the same way as well. All these years of foggy days and nights (exactly like tonight, actually) in San Francisco will do that even to the best redwood around after a while.

They ripped out my deck today. The site of basking naked belly dancers waiting for their henna to dry each spring before Rakassah— the International Bellydancing Festival. The site of Passover under the tent in biblical drag. The site of years of meditation on the nature of nature. Now dead, decayed and gone.

And the price tag for resurrection is so far out of bounds that there's nothing else to do but, well, think outside the box. Laugh. Consider it an opportunity for a new art project. Just when I thought there was relative completion at Beit Malkhut, no! Call it a grand opportunity for change.

So today I alternated between despondency and self-pity on the one hand, and optimism and cheer on the other. Switching points of view every five minutes or so — until Roshi couldn't stand it any more and forced me out the door. We headed for Paradise. Where we go every day of the year, whether or not it's a day or month for introspection or Divine mercy.

And something was wrong.

It was as if everyone was walking in slow motion. There were three vehicles on the trail, belonging to the Feds. Fort Funston is, after all, a national park. Clumps of mourners with heads bowed in dismay. I could catch fragments of sentences riding on the wind, until the mourners were close enough to fill me in. Rosh and I are, after all, regulars. We are of the body. This is how it unfolded on the wind:

A man

with a pitbull

and a knife.

That already sounded like bad news.

A woman

walking dogs

who's a regular.

That's all I heard for a while. And the Fed vehicles rolled slowly at what felt more and more to be a funereal pace. And the dogs at the Fort felt subdued. There was a calm — that wasn't calm.

The Ranger was taking statements.

The woman with the dogs was crying.

"... and I saw the knife was bloody, and I asked him ..." sobs.

"... did you stab the dog??"

"and he answered, 'sure did!'" ... sobs.

Two thought came to me.

First: My deck is of little to no consequence in the scheme of things.

Second: Stabbing is not the way conflict or aggression is handled in Paradise.

And it is this latter thought that puts things into perspective. What makes Funston paradise is that it is a moving meditation of dogs and horses and birds and fish and humans and hangliders and feds and fog. And depending on the season, fishermen and seals and dolphins and whales and crabs and jelly fish and seaweed. And periodic oil spilled out on the beach. And bits of trash and parts of ships, I must admit are part of the mix. Which means that there is inherent conflict and territorialities within the system. And it's handled like a choreography; a dance between elements in which no one wins and just maybe no one loses. And, for the most part, the rhythm of the dance (while not perfect) is in tune with the rhythm of the tides (or something like that). And life and death are indeed part of the cycle. But not like this.

Every once in a while that rhythm is interrupted by something appalling. Today was one of those.

Today, a man with a pitbull stabbed a dog.

It's not in the papers. Can't find it on Google. But it happened. The dog was rushed to the veterinary hospital. A stabbing in Paradise. And it's not the 9th of Av, but it feels like it. It's just the 9th of Elul. A day for taking stock. For introspection. For Divine Mercy. And forgiveness.

But as I've said before: I just don't believe in forgiveness.

death in paradise

We hike in paradise on a daily basis. Slog though the sand on the cliffs overlooking the shore — and the sand gets deeper every year. Though every other year or so a truck comes by and tries to clear the trail some. The sand returns, carried by the wind. Someday, I'll be slogging through the drifts, Woman-in-the-Dunes style. Just one step after another, getting nowhere at all. On good breezy days the hang-gliders set up at the head of the cliff and soar overhead in colorful array. Some of them tempt the cliff side. Some of them tempt the ocean itself. Paradise.

Today someone died in paradise. His heart just stopped beating, and that was it. But there were at least five Walkers around, each trying CPR, each trying to revive him.

The dogs were running wild. Everything felt completely disrupted. Even the wind felt suddenly at a loss for words. One of the pups stood near us, afraid to go nearer the effort to save a life. It was as if all the rules had changed. All the Walkers had lost their focus, their authority, their hold on the pups. Dogs were running everywhere. Into the wind, into the parking lot — but not this time over the cliff.

When it was clear that he could not be revived, there was shock.

"We don't really know how to give CPR to a dog," J said. "We should know, but we don't."

The Dog Walkers handle eight to twelve dogs each, every single day except on weekends (when the Owners might step out for a walk in paradise). The Walkers roam the hills, widen the trails, pick up the masses of shit (usually), find each other's strays, They know all the regulars by name. They give treats, and rub ears, and pat rumps, and break up the occasional spat. But today they were in shock. They couldn't save a life.

I'm thinking about doggie CPR.

I mean, Rosh's mouth is five times larger than my own. So how does that work? Do I believe in trying, or in 'letting nature take its course'? Which is the more responsible course?

I've thought about dying here in paradise every single day for the past decade or so. There's a spot, a tunnel I go under every day that leads to the edge of the cliff. And as I pass under it, I can picture it collapse with me under it. Nothing personal. Just a lesson in plate tectonics. I always picture Roshi knowing exactly which direction to run to not be there when it happens. But still I walk here. I take that turn. Woman in the Dunes. Every day. With dog.

But here's the thing. This is paradise, after all. This is us, unleashed in paradise. It sure beats any other place or way to go.