You'd think that Roswell, of all places in this enormous desert, would have some funky, alien-themed hotel, but the only vintage, silly-looking place in yelp had a single, horrifying review so we are right now in a Best Western, which has a remarkably large office/entertainment center which I have commandeered for my own nefarious culinary purposes.
Despite the absence of amenities at last night's hotel, our dinner was--I'll just come right out and say it--incredible. Diced Japanese sweet potatoes sautéed with onions, Tucson fire-roasted red peppers, spinach, garlic, cumin, and sea salt.
The enthusiasm of being back in Billy and rambling again is only slightly tempered by the emotional and physical discomfort of being back in Billy and rambling again. Allow me to paraphrase one of Ben's explanations of how life works: Ben describes us, humans--okay, some humans--as internally wondrous beings with a nearly unimaginable capacity for transcendence and emotional evolution, and we are housed inside these dogs (his word). Our dogs are these physical shells with their physical needs--warmth, food, familiarity--and they don't necessarily respond well to the demands of the angels/demons/higher creatures/what-have-yous living inside.
Here's where it gets uncomfortable: when the angel and the dog are misaligned, things go awry, e.g. stress can trigger physical ailments (for me, cubicle = psoriasis. TMI? eesh... sorry) and physical events can trigger emotional or psychological discomfort (my food sensitivities = depression or fuzzy brain).
Before, I was married to the man I described as my anchor. My dog lived in the bliss of routine, and my angel/demon/what-have-you was climbing the walls of the asylum and screaming out every crack in the castle walls. The pendulum now swings the other way. The beautiful crazies have escaped together and it feels like flying. We laugh like maniacs every day. We talk about everything, every possibility, every lesson we've learned, every doubt, and our only limitations are these familiarity-loving dogs who want to wake up every day on the same bed and eat the same food and do the same thing.
A thing we talk about is not giving in to our (uh... my) discomfort and settling for an existence that is anything less than amazing. I learned the most beautiful lesson about pain when I doula'd for Jenava and Mike when she gave birth to Baby Torben. Pain does not always equate to suffering. So long as you can cope and see an end to the moment without fear or panic, you can endure the pain--in Jenava's case with a bad-ass grace that perhaps only mothers know. Purpose seems to have a great deal to do with it, as well. For Jenava, Torben was the reason for each contraction, for each push.
Our reason for pushing these dogs is a new model of engaging with the world in such a way as to be always the masters of our own destinies, in which we and everyone are safe to be ourselves, in which we and others like us (crazy folks, if you will) are celebrated, and in which we are expected to examine ourselves and each other, to engage fully and honestly, to show each other our best selves and set a standard for being kinder, smarter, sweeter, and better than we have to be just to get by, because that's when things get amazing.
So while we ramble, here's what you get, doggies: We feed you daily vitamins and fresh vegetables. We exercise you and water you and wash you. We sleep you for hours and hours. We pet you and love you up and let you play and lay around a lot. And since you still beg, we will shop for a camper and a place to settle down for a while, because part of this journey is about honoring what feels right to our bodies and our hearts, to our intellects and to our spirits.
Oh, yeah. And we want a dog. A real one with a wagging tail and four legs and a big, giant heart. Wild as we may be, we are, after all, a pack.
