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Companion Animals
Baggage: A Love Story
I have never understood those personal ads that specify the seeker is looking for a person with “no baggage.” What does that mean, exactly? Who hasn’t accumulated regrets and scars — not to mention a storage unit’s worth of junk — by middle age? Show me someone with no baggage, and I’ll show you someone who forgot to pack.
January 2009
September 2008
No complaining that I wasn’t consulted when they wrote the laws of impermanence. No complaining that actual mileage varies from decade to decade, no matter how many vitamins I take.
September 2008Especially Roosevelt
Haiden’s morning sickness was bad, and she told me to get the boy out of the house, take him anywhere. She stood in the doorway of our downstairs bathroom, just off the kitchen, her frizzy black hair bound into a ponytail that pointed toward the ceiling like a squat exclamation point. “Please,” she said.
April 2008
Push Here For Tears
I’m sitting in a darkened movie theater, watching as Helen Mirren, portraying England’s monarch in The Queen, happens upon the stag the royal family has been hunting. The animal’s so magnificent he brings a lump to my throat. Not a shot has been fired, and already I’m a mess, my tear ducts revving up at the mere suggestion this creature might get hurt.
January 2008
Blessing Of The Animals
Sheba is just the right height for a toddler to pat her on the head with a fist, or walk under the archway of those enormous legs. Eventually the girl will haul herself onto Sheba’s back and squeal, “Giddyap!” and the dog will comply, moving slowly, swaying like a camel.
November 2007
Not One Is Dissatisfied
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, / I stand and look at them long and long. . . . / They do not sweat and whine about their condition, / They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, / They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, / Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
November 2007
Suki
I want to tell you about a cat — a sublime creature entrusted to me in my youth — that I allowed to die. There were extenuating circumstances, but there always are. I forgive myself nothing. She loved me, and I let her down. I committed a terrible crime.
October 2007
May 2007
I inadvertently stepped on my cat Nimbus in the dark this morning. I’ve already apologized, and she doesn’t appear hurt, but I feel as if I’ve started the day by invading another country. Would a jury of my peers convict me for such a careless act?
May 2007
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