GREAT ENDEAVORS
Throughout December I kept imagining the scene in Lady and the Tramp...the one with the pink-striped box and the white bow with Lady nestled inside. This is the part when I remember picking up Poet one Christmas at the airport, his giant paws reaching out from a steel crate...not even remotely as lovely as ribbons and paper, but still a gift in every possible way.
There have been six in my lifetime—Savannah, Morgan, Gabriel, Griffin, Poet, Graham. That number might have been closer to ten if my mama had allowed me to follow my lifelong passion which began in my early teens.
I understand her hesitation. In fact, I’m experiencing it, although for different reasons, in the ones closest to my recent journey.
“Haven’t you heard they don’t live very long?” strangers would remark as one of my Great Danes and I would stroll past—
as if I didn’t know,
as if they knew better,
as if to steal my joy.
You need to know that the joy-stealing never came. Not in the short walk to the end of the garden and back on Gabriel’s last day. Not even in my arms wrapped around Poet’s neck as he closed his tired eyes.
Loving something or someone all the way in, through every season, brings such dimension to our lives.
This is the irony that I am leaning into—
That the lifespan of a Great Dane is kindred to me.
Maybe even in ways unexplored, kindred to you too.
Would we love less or better if we knew time was short?
Would we choose not to enter into the relationship if the end was in sight?
I sometimes feel the hesitation in those who know my story. Loving me may be too painful, being around me too intense.
But I have learned that we have within us the ability to pour the essence of a lifetime into minutes, hours, days.
Time, it seems, does not limit our great endeavors. That can only happen in the mind—
when we ration our feelings,
when we hesitate to jump in all the way.
Perhaps, as some will tell me, the notion of another fury beast to adore is ill-timed.
Or maybe it is a giant gentle reminder that we are capable of loving with the intensity of a thousand lifetimes in the span of 365 days.
I long for the ache in my shoulder, for the power of the pull—
forward, onward, eager, curious, relentless
in the pursuit of this astonishing adventure.
To be tethered to something we can care for more than ourselves.
This is the greatest of our great endeavors. The evidence of a extraordinary life.
NOTES:
In the fuss over 365 days, we make the mistake of limiting ourselves to time and space.
It is, after all, not the quantity of what we’ve been given but the quality of how each day is lived, how we take and how we give.
When we understand this principle it’s nearly impossible to contain ourselves.
It’s an “everything matters now,” exchange into the world.
I'm not saying that goal-setting isn't a life-changing process. But the real power is in the way we live day-to-day, in the seemingly insignificant moments that form the sum of extraordinary years.
One of my most poignant pieces was written just after my third boy, Gabriel, had passed. I love how it speaks to being connected to the details of each moment, how every sense is activated and engaged [I've included it with a picture of Gabriel below].
Ironically, the journal entry is called, Twilight. Maybe a perfect title as we bang our pots and pans and look up into the stars at midnight and contemplate our "what next."
My wish is that you focus on what's right in front of you.
Much Love and Happy New Moments,
jk
TWILIGHT
At twilight we chose the path that runs along the canyon wall, it’s starting point so close to the edge that my heart begins to race a little. My legs, not as strong as I’d like at this stage in the game and my shoes, still worth that second glance but old and worn, so much like the grand old man on all fours leading the way.
Even in my tentative spirit your passion for the quest is contagious. And so we press forward along the canyon face, our feet nestled in the thick fall grass so lovely that I forget for a moment to notice the sea and its sunset in the distance.
Your nose is relentlessly buried in the tall blades, enormous muzzle disappearing from view. I imagine the stories those great nostrils are speed-reading along the crest as you stop and scurry and stop again. My shoulder is aching from the pull of your intention until at last we are across the ridge and standing in a broad opening that feels at once expansive and intimate.
Our conversation has ceased in the knowing that we are standing on sacred space. The hush and the long, thick green of fall is all around and under foot and paw yet a sensing of something remarkable reveals that much of this meadow we have come upon is flattened like mats thrown open for meditation. I imagine the soft underbellies of the magical and majestic creatures that make this space their evening bed, rugged and torn hooves digging in, pressing down and then relenting to the irresistible need for rest.
On other excursions we’ve taken note of these beauties from afar but this time you and I have come upon their quiet place, a protected alcove on the hillside where they look out and upon their ever-diminishing territory, not with sadness and regret, but with what I imagine to be a sort of understanding that what remains is precious and rare. With fawn coat and immense ears you look as if one of them.
We belong here. And we don’t. So we remain and then depart as quietly as we came. The grand old man, exhausted as much from the smelling as the walking now breathes heavy on your cozy bed beside me and I, not able to sleep, imagine the stories told to a Dane amongst the grasses at twilight.