Other things help. Cherry blossoms. The warming spring air. Birdsong early in the morning. The pure joy of having a dog again.
I was born a dog person; I wasn't raised one. My parents were farm kids who didn't believe animals belonged in the house, and they remained unmoved even when I left tearstained letters for them to find explaining why I should have a dog and insisting that they wouldn't have to take care of it at all.
Eventually, I was allowed to have fish, a parakeet, and two turtles. I loved them all. I took what I could get.
I remember stopping at a pet store in Great Falls with my mother and grandmother one afternoon when I was young; it was a shop located in a larger shopping center. They usually had puppies you could scoop up and snuggle. (This, of course, was long before I knew anything about puppy mills or that you should never buy a dog from a pet store.) I sat down next to a bin of puppies -- I think they were shelties -- and cuddling them. They licked my hands and my tears dropped onto their fur. I just ached to bring home one of those dogs.
As a consolation prize of sorts, after we drove my grandma back to the farm two hours away, my mother took me to a neighboring farm to look at a pair of kittens, and we would bring one back. It wouldn't be a kitten to live at our house, of course. It would live at the farm, outdoors, maybe occasionally in the garage. But it would be "mine" -- as mine as a kitten could be a hundred miles away.
As it turned out, the neighbor had two kittens. How to choose?
"Take them both," said the neighbor. "Bring back the one you don't want to keep."
I firmly believe that no one, not even my mother or grandmother, can return a kitten. So for the next couple of years, I devoted every moment at the farm to them, and then, when one of them had kittens of her own, I spent hours one June morning coaxing them out from hiding in one of the outbuildings. We spayed and neutered those babies, something that generally wasn't done with farm cats, and I loved them until they, too, vanished -- as all farm cats do at some point.
When I was in eighth grade, my Christmas gift was a kitten of my own to keep at my parents' house -- or the promise of one. I didn't find my perfect kitten until that spring. She was free with a purchase of a bag of cat food at some pet shop in town. ("Free," my father still scoffs years later.) Molly was a long-haired beauty and a spirited little gal. She mostly lived in the garage, despite my attempts to sneak her into the house. Outside, she rarely ventured beyond our yard. I loved her fiercely, and she entertained us all. (Once, she stalked a deer through our backyard, and we watched, fascinated, as she wiggled in the grass and then pounced, swiping at its hind leg. The deer bounded a few feet away and looked at her with an expression that can only be translated as "What the fuck?")
I loved everything about my cat. But even then, when I imagined my life as an adult, I saw myself with a dog.
"I'll get you a dog when you get your own place," my dad told me. He made good on that. When I graduated from Concordia and secured my apartment in my new home state, I secured a dog as well. I picked up my pug the day after I moved into my new apartment. She was my first baby, the deepest comfort during those lonely first weeks in a new city. She brought me nothing but joy for fourteen years. She ushered me into adulthood and shared it all.
She was the best gift anyone had ever given me, and her loss left me bereft. I didn't know how to be someone without a dog. I didn't want to be someone without a dog.
But we had young children, and Matt was still commuting to Seattle every day. Our life was comfortably, sweetly busy. We had routines and activities. I wanted a dog again, very much, but I also wanted our next dog to be a family dog. My son was just about to start kindergarten, and no one was interested in helping pick up dog poop. I didn't think a new dog would get the attention she deserved. And so it was, for a good long while.
My son, as it turns out, takes after me. He has always deeply loved animals, and I suspected that he would be the one to nudge us towards bringing a dog into our family again. I was right. He was more subtle than I was, but early in the fall I asked him if he'd like to get a dog. Like, for real. And the earnestness in his eyes when he nodded his yes cut straight to my heart. I would not keep my son from having a dog.
So we started planning. I wanted to take our time, to learn about the process of adopting a dog from a rescue instead of a breeder, to think about what would best fit our family. I follow a pug rescue on social media and have for a long time because I will forever love pugs with my whole heart, and as I told Matt, "I know pugs. We have dealt with every single possible pug issue!" I ticked them off on my fingers: the breathing trouble, the ear infections, the sensitive skin, the yeast infections, all the UTIs, the luxating patella, the terrible teeth, the eye problems...
Matt suggested that I was not making a great case for adopting another pug. I grudgingly agreed. Blondie was a perfect dog for a new teacher in a new city living alone in a new apartment. However, she played dead at the sight of her leash, and we knew we needed a dog with some energy. I walk miles every day; Matt goes on daily runs. We wanted a hiking buddy. We wanted a dog who would chase balls in the backyard. We learned how to navigate Petfinder, and we decided that we wanted a young female dog but not a puppy. Medium size, but not small. Mixed breed, preferably short coat. Housetrained. Good with kids and preferably other dogs. We didn't care if she wanted to chase cats since we plan to never have one.
We didn't want to commit to adopting a dog before our annual trip to Leavenworth; I didn't want to bring home a dog and then immediately board her. But I sent an inquiry about a dog that caught our eye while we were eating bratwursts and pretzels at Munchen Haus, and we received a reply right away. She was available for a meet and greet, and if that went well, a trial adoption. Her current foster family also happened to be professional dog trainers, so they were doing an excellent job of reinforcing basic manners and commands.
The director of the rescue organization told me that she was a "high energy dog who needs a fair amount of exercise" and that she would need "consistency."
"We can absolutely give her that," I replied.
The rest, as they say, is history. It was love at first sight.
"She's kind of a lot," I said in a text to Shonda after our meet and greet, "but so am I."
"That is the most accurate thing you've ever said," she replied.
*
I knew my boy needed a dog. And while I just always assumed that at some point I would have a dog again, I didn't realize how very much I actually needed a dog again, too.
*
This year has nearly broken me. This is not hyperbole, and I still don't know how to write about it in this space. Much of it isn't really for public consumption anyway. What I can say is that in twenty years of teaching, I have never imagined leaving the classroom the way I have this year. Not in a tearful end-of-a-bad-day, heat-of-the-moment kind of way, but in a sustained "What would an off-ramp from this career even look like?" kind of way. Because it hasn't been about a bad day or a bad class; it's been about a broken system and an utter lack of support, a lack of capacity. And some of that lack of support is personal, or it feels that way.
I still struggle to find the words to explain this to folks who aren't living it. And for the first time in my career, I've read ugly comments from folks who have always claimed to support teachers, some of whom are close to me. Those have hurt. They won't break me; this is bigger than that. But in a year that is by far the loneliest and most traumatic year I have ever experienced, they still hurt.
I won't leave teaching because I see a comment by a friend or family member on social media, though, and I won't leave because of their silence, either. I won't leave teaching because I have a year of tough classes (or I'd definitely have quit ten years ago, after I spent a year with the two meanest classes I've ever taught -- and don't think I didn't consider it). I won't leave my school to work at a different one. Last week reminded me that I am exactly where I belong and deeply lucky, too. I have support there that I couldn't imagine anywhere else. If I leave my school, it won't be for a different one -- it will be for a different path. I'm not there yet. But the fact that it's a thing I can even say is something.
How can I explain this? How can I tell you how much I love this life? How can I convey my absolute belief that there is no finer way to spend a human life than this one? I love being a high school English teacher with every breath I take. I will never, ever regret it. And when I leave it, I don't want it to be after years of bitterness. I've seen too many folks retire that way, and that won't be me. I want to teach until I recognize that it is my time to leave, and I want it to be with grace and love. Whatever that means. Whatever that looks like.
*
You might wonder how any of this is connected. I don't know if I can explain that, either. All I know is that my heart has been badly broken this year by things I cannot fully write about in this space, and I have felt more desperately lonely in that heartbreak than I have possibly ever experienced in my life. (Maybe my teenaged and young adult self would disagree; I have thought of her often lately.) And I also know that bringing a dog into our home again has been the best thing to happen to our family in a very long time. She doesn't actually fix anything; she's a dog. Her job isn't to fix things. She just loves. I wake up before dawn without even the slightest temptation to hit the snooze button (I usually wake up before my alarm anyway because I am wired that way) because I know that the first thing that will happen in my day is that I will be greeted by this rush of doggy love and energy. My dog throws herself into my arms and licks my face and we go outside together. It's spring and the birds are singing, even in the pre-dawn darkness. I love that moment. I love it.
Tonight, as I write this, I'm watching my son and my dog romp in the backyard. He throws her toys and she runs and runs and she is just pure joy. This is what it means to exist in the moment, and the moment is joy.
My son and I walk her in the afternoons after school. Yesterday morning, after eating Matt's banana walnut waffles, we walked her more than five miles through the streets of our neighborhood, with the cherry blossoms and views of Puget Sound. Watching my son walk his dog on a Saturday morning is pure joy. This is love. This is what it means to just exist on this earth on a Saturday morning, listening to the birds, teaching our dog not to chase bunnies and squirrels, and to just...be.
I honestly don't know what the future holds. I am terrified and heartbroken and furious a lot of the time these days, because the world is a terrifying and heartbreaking place, and people I love or who I believed loved me and my children are complicit or silent in the face of that terror and heartbreak. I don't know how to navigate that. I don't know how to navigate my loneliness as a teacher right now, and I sure as shit don't know how to navigate my loneliness as a parent, when I can't share exhausting yet somehow cute stories of toddler tantrums and get the "I've been there, Mama, hang in there!" responses.
So anyway, for now, I can wake up in the early morning dawn and take my dog outside and breathe in this sweet spring morning air. I can walk miles around our neighborhood with my son and our dog. I can throw a ball for her and laugh as she races around the yard, as she leaps and jumps and runs and just exists as a body in joyful motion. And in the evenings, she curls up like a croissant on her bed in the family room and rests, and when Isaac and I kneel next to her she lays her head on our thighs and we pet her head and scratch her ears and this simple thing brings me peace I haven't experienced in a very long time.
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