A Week In

Today the world is a leaf-world. The wind has had its way with things, and the trees are being stripped by the hour, and the shower of color would be, even if unaccompanied by its whispery chorus, an oratorio of the glory of Him Who spoke it all into existence.

The little tree under which I park at work is almost completely bare. There is one branch that hangs over the driver’s side door, and the most prominent leaf is the one I touch each morning and each evening when exiting and entering my vehicle. Yesterday I stood in the blue light and contemplated the leaf, and I decided that I didn’t want it lost among the others in that suburban parking lot. I reached up and tugged just a bit, and the leaf detached from the branch. I held it against my cheek, then got in and put it on the seat next to me. Once home, I walked up into the woods with Jinx and laid it on Bonnie’s grave. I like the idea of it returning to the earth above her, one small loved creature and one tiny loved piece of creation, melding eventually together. I stood a long time in the descending curtain of dark, thinking of the hours of callow behavior I’d just witnessed at work, and grateful for the two days respite from that place. It’s fitting that the part of work that I brought home with me is the part that the place and the people can never touch. And now it remains with me on these acres until I leave them.

***

A week ago today we brought Bluebelle home. It’s been a tiring, trying week. The little girl’s sleep schedule has been erratic at best. And we learned a new talent of hers. If you’ve ever seen the original 1984 horror movie A Nightmare on Elm Street, try to remember the sound Freddie Krueger’s finger-razors make when he drags them along, say, a steel pipe. I am not exaggerating when I say that Bluebelle’s “I’m awake and want to go outside!” cry sounds exactly like what I just described. She sounds like a Krueger-hound, and there is nothing golden about it. Especially at 0415.

When I came home Thursday night, my dear wife met me with a frazzled look. I knew the new dog dynamic was taking a toll, and we talked about it. It wasn’t so much Bluebelle as the need to keep her separated from Jinx, as he was very aggressive towards her. So we had to manage an ever-shifting series of gates and barriers and pens to try and keep peace. All this logistical juggling was exhausting, and Mrs. Orr was taking the brunt of it.

I found myself becoming impatient and annoyed. I have known people who have small children they treat in this manner — structuring everything around the child, going to great lengths to ensure the child is never upset or inconvenienced — and when I see this, it enrages me. Watching a small tyrant toy with the older, larger ones is always difficult. So I launched into a rant about how we are NOT going to live like this, and we are going to call the shots and make the dogs dance to OUR tune. I told my wife that this weekend, we’re going to take down the gates and barriers, let Jinx and Bluebelle approach each other, and let the spotted chips fall where they may. I announced my intentions to keep my heavy fireplace gloves nearby in case I had to break up a truly brutal fight without getting bit, and we resigned ourselves to some kung-fu fighting before this house might approach the status of a peaceable kingdom.

But when I arrived home last night, I decided that I didn’t want to wait until Saturday, didn’t want another night of all this barricaded nonsense to run our hours. We put Dixee in another room because she lets loose with her shrill, brain-breaking yipping if she hears Jinx barking at anyone or anything, and we didn’t need any more gasoline on the fire that was about to be struck. Once she was secured, I nodded at Mrs. Orr to open Bluebelle’s pen and get this party started.

She stepped out and Jinx jumped down from his perch on the couch and ran up to her. Bluebelle walked completely out of the pen and stood, tail wagging slightly. JInx nosed her bottom, and she nosed his, and they looked like a canine yin-yang symbol as they spun with dancers’ slowness in a greeting and investigation. She looked him up and down, and he inspected her backwards and forewards. Mrs. Orr said, “Good boy, Jinx,” and he wagged his tail, and he and Bluebelle followed my wife into the kitchen while I stood there and gaped and thought of a week’s worth of wasted anxiety.

I know there will probably be dust-ups in the future, because there always are between living creatures. But right now, we are astonished and so pleased at how well they are getting along. Jinx seems a tad jealous by Bluebelle’s constant attention to my wife, but I have paid him a lot of extra attention, and his jealously has been marked not by hostility but by a sort of resigned weariness. It’s an adjustment. And I keep telling him this.

Jinx slept on the love seat in the back bedroom last night, and Bluebelle slept on her bed –not inside her pen — in front of the fire in the wood stove. And the only thing that woke us this morning was Dixee, not the spotted siblings. Dixee’s bladder is not of generous size, and so we forgave her for the early wake-up call. It is, after all, a Saturday.

As I type these words, the house is as quiet as it is in the middle of the night. The trio of hounds sleeps in mellow softness. The ticking of the clock above me, just above the crucifix, is the only sound besides the keystrokes on this plastic board. Serenity and gratitude have joined together. Ah, a day like this after such a week. We are serene and grateful.

And now I will take Jinx for a walk, as promised, among the overwhelming skitter of color dropping from the trees in the cold air, the air that smells like Christ’s breath.

~S.K. Orr