Puppy love.

Mavis is my ten month old puppy. I told her last night that we didn't have to get up early today, no alarm would go off to yank me from deep sleep into the dark morning. I made sure there was lots of enthusiasm in my voice so she'd get the message, and I'm pretty sure she did, but when the first light showed, she couldn't help herself and woke me to tell me how glad she was to see me. She loves to put her ever growing head under my chin and whimper while we are working on getting up for the day. She rolls onto her back, splayed out for a belly rub, sticks her cold nose into my ear, bites at my hand. It is such a sweet ritual I don't dare sour it with my wish for a little more slumber or my grumbles about getting up in the darkness. This morning, in spite of our talk last night, I was grateful for the Mavis alarm at six instead of the phone alarm at five. It's the small and the sweet things that make a day, really.

Mavis came into my life about a month after I had to put my beloved Ruby down. She was among a litter of puppies left in a box on some winter cold sidewalk in Reno and was available for adoption. I doubted myself on my way up to meet her (a four hour drive, with a storm on the way); I didn't know if my desire to fill some of the void was reasonable or if it would....would what? Be wrong to feel some comfort while also feeling such profound loss? I couldn't tell what was "right" but I was very aware of my belief that there was a correct way to do this, to grieve and be alone during the biggest winter we've had in 20 years. My compass was missing; I'd lost my ability to "know thy self." I was lost and I knew it, I couldn't tell what was instinct, what was desire, and what was me clawing at whatever I could to stop myself from falling through space. Still, while I drove past the motel where Ruby and I stayed the night before I got the news that she had a tumor invading her spine, our last night, with little Mavis sleeping on the seat next to me, somehow the juxtaposition didn't matter. Life was going on and now mine had Mavis in it.

My refrain during this time was, "there is no comfort," and it was true. Still is to some degree. There is a lot to say about this event, this dog Ruby, this experience of dread and knowing and doing what was right by her and by me, but that will come at another time. For now, I just let it all come through me because the only thing I can think of that might stall the pain for a little bit would be to shoot some heroin and I'm not inclined to do that.

Turns out Mavis has serious issues with her joints and bones. She's on a steady diet of pain medications and can't do a lot of the things puppies like to do or most of the hiking I'd like to do with her. There is the possibility that the final decision to alleviate her pain will come well before the ten years I had with Ruby. The vet tells me her bone plates will be done growing when she is a year and a half old, and then I'll know "which way this is going." That's this coming April, when I'll know if I have a few more months or a couple of years with my little alarm clock.

These are the times when I wonder about people who are deeply religious and/or the ones who have a psychological make up where their thinking is very clearly one way or the other; black or white. They may look strident from the outside, but maybe that is what comfort looks like.

In psychotherapy we pay homage to "the grey area," we tell clients "life is complex, complicated," and have the goal of helping them "sit with uncertainty". But really?

Okay, yeah, really.

Ruby is gone, Mavis is lying next to me, the Sierra sun is shining on my right shoulder and warming me for our morning walk in the meadow. I'll see clients today who are fresh out of jail, who are still shaking from detox from alcohol, who are doing everything they can to manage the reduction of their SSI (is it mental illness or is it poverty that makes people look, act, be crazy?). I'll greet the checker at our market who has been standing in one place for 6 hours, "do you need help out with that?," I'll wave to one of the cops I just saw in the ER, I'll talk to my co-worker about her evening, her long drive home, her attempts to manage her loneliness. I'll be in the grey all day. And when Mavis wakes me tomorrow morning I'll start all over again, in the dark this time, adjusting to the light.