I used to live in a house in Santa Clara with a big yard and two kids and, as a result, always had a dog or, in some cases, dogs. We lived in this house for 20 years and had the same neighbors behind us the entire time. They also had a dog. And whether it was a brace of beagles or our goofy yellow lab, one thing never changed. Every morning the dog would wander out to the back fence and proceed to sniff his way back and forth for a while, in that aimless way that dogs have when they're getting a fresh whiff of their world. Then suddenly he would stiffen and go on high alert, tail and ears upright and all his senses fixed on the fence.
Eventually something would trigger him and he would charge at the fence, barking fiercely, the hair along his back up and by all indications ready to savagely tear some intruder limb from limb. (Of course, being the goofy yellow lab that he was, this was never seriously considered but he seemed to enjoy the illusion). What was it that threw him into such a frenzy every single day? Well of course - it was noticing that there was a dog on the other side of the fence. Now it was always the same dog, mind you, the same dog that had been on the other side of the same fence, smelling essentially the same, barking back in exactly the same way as always. After each of them was satisfied that he had protected his turf sufficiently, they would stop barking and calm down, sort of saying, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, bee-otch", and wandering off to smell the rest of the yard before dropping onto a soft, shady spot to go to sleep.
I used to watch this little drama and marvel at the fact that the dogs were really re-discovering their world every morning, in a way that was in keeping with traditional seekers of wisdom and serenity from the Budda to Ram Das and Timothy Leary. They left yesterday behind and lived completely in the moment.
Now fast forward to a couple of years ago. I had gotten divorced after 20 years of marriage and was in the habit of coming home from a stressful job every day, opening a bottle of wine, and collapsing into a chair in front of the TV, moving only occasionally the rest of the evening for some unhealthy food or to light a cigar. Looking back it sounds so god damned grim...and I guess it was in the way that anything can get shittier and shittier over time, almost unnoticed if it happens slowly enough, until finally - if you're lucky - life gives you a crisp slap in the face and shocks you out of the trance. You wake up, look around groggy and confused, and realize you've been missing something.
For me that slap in the face was a stroke - a relatively minor one as these things go but I sure didn't know that at the time and it scared the hell out of me. So by the time I rolled out of the hospital in a wheelchair after two weeks of treatment and rehab, I had decided that I was through sleepwalking through life. I was going to approach what I hoped was the second half of my life like my Labrador - discovering and living it as much as possible every day. That's what this blog is about.
That sounds trite and too much like a Lifetime Channel Movie of the Week - that's not what's going on here. I'm not maudlin or weepy and I am not dedicating my life to altruism, saving the whales, finding Jesus or any other typically noble undertaking. Those things are worth while, I suppose, and someone has to do it, but that's not me. No, I am going to just sit down here every day and riff on whatever I feel like, whether it is music, politics, how other drivers piss me off, how my job sometimes drives me nuts or the amazing places my partner, Gillie, and I visit. I am probably not going to teach you anything or tell anyone anything they don't already know. But I might make you laugh, for just a minute, and maybe inspire you to go out and bark at your own back fence.
Eventually something would trigger him and he would charge at the fence, barking fiercely, the hair along his back up and by all indications ready to savagely tear some intruder limb from limb. (Of course, being the goofy yellow lab that he was, this was never seriously considered but he seemed to enjoy the illusion). What was it that threw him into such a frenzy every single day? Well of course - it was noticing that there was a dog on the other side of the fence. Now it was always the same dog, mind you, the same dog that had been on the other side of the same fence, smelling essentially the same, barking back in exactly the same way as always. After each of them was satisfied that he had protected his turf sufficiently, they would stop barking and calm down, sort of saying, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, bee-otch", and wandering off to smell the rest of the yard before dropping onto a soft, shady spot to go to sleep.
I used to watch this little drama and marvel at the fact that the dogs were really re-discovering their world every morning, in a way that was in keeping with traditional seekers of wisdom and serenity from the Budda to Ram Das and Timothy Leary. They left yesterday behind and lived completely in the moment.
Now fast forward to a couple of years ago. I had gotten divorced after 20 years of marriage and was in the habit of coming home from a stressful job every day, opening a bottle of wine, and collapsing into a chair in front of the TV, moving only occasionally the rest of the evening for some unhealthy food or to light a cigar. Looking back it sounds so god damned grim...and I guess it was in the way that anything can get shittier and shittier over time, almost unnoticed if it happens slowly enough, until finally - if you're lucky - life gives you a crisp slap in the face and shocks you out of the trance. You wake up, look around groggy and confused, and realize you've been missing something.
For me that slap in the face was a stroke - a relatively minor one as these things go but I sure didn't know that at the time and it scared the hell out of me. So by the time I rolled out of the hospital in a wheelchair after two weeks of treatment and rehab, I had decided that I was through sleepwalking through life. I was going to approach what I hoped was the second half of my life like my Labrador - discovering and living it as much as possible every day. That's what this blog is about.
That sounds trite and too much like a Lifetime Channel Movie of the Week - that's not what's going on here. I'm not maudlin or weepy and I am not dedicating my life to altruism, saving the whales, finding Jesus or any other typically noble undertaking. Those things are worth while, I suppose, and someone has to do it, but that's not me. No, I am going to just sit down here every day and riff on whatever I feel like, whether it is music, politics, how other drivers piss me off, how my job sometimes drives me nuts or the amazing places my partner, Gillie, and I visit. I am probably not going to teach you anything or tell anyone anything they don't already know. But I might make you laugh, for just a minute, and maybe inspire you to go out and bark at your own back fence.
