You are never, ever, truly alone.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

Back in Virginia Beach, Daisy had a habit of sitting on the her end table and looking out the window.  She’d watch the birds, the squirrels and the neighbors come and go, but mostly she’d sit at her perch and wait for me.

Daisy knows that when I tell her something, I mean it. So when I tell her that I’m leaving, but I’ll be back, she knows I’m true to my word.

She knows she can trust me.

Sure, she’s just a dog, but it’s important to me that my dogs, as well as my friends, know where they stand with me. If I say I’m going to do something, I will do it. If I find I can’t do it, I will tell you.

Why? Because the bottom line is this ~ I’ve learned I have to live in a way that allows me to look in the mirror at myself and like who I see.

Each step I take through life lands me squarely where I place my feet. If my legs are shaky and my footing is weak, then I can’t stand rooted within myself and I surely won’t give much grounding to you.

Better that I tell you I’m slipping than to leave you sitting in the window, waiting. Old dog or old friend, it’s all the same.

So when I hold out my hand to you, or make a promise to you, and I tell you that you can trust me, you can.

The question is, can you trust yourself?

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

Last night my family sat down to watch The Homecoming. Everyone was in town for Christmas Dinner a night early, and it was kind of cool to be watching the original Walton’s movie with my sisters and mom, since we actually lived right there in Walton Country back when the tv show was so popular. A lot of you know that SuziCate and I went to elementary school together up in Nelson County, but you may not be aware that our school was right across the street from the original Walton home written about by Earl Hamner.

SuziCate can tell you some great stories about the people behind the characters in the series, so I’ll leave that up to her. In my family we have our own reasons for wanting to watch the movie, namely, Maggie’s favorite scene when Mama Walton exclaims over her “Chris-mas Cac-tus.” I have to admit I get a little teary-eyed when Daddy Walton gives John Boy an Indian writing tablet because though John Boy wasn’t doing exactly what was expected of him, especially as the eldest son during the Depression, he was following his heart and they were supporting that.

Between watching the movie and all the talking and laughing we were doing, I got to thinking about homecomings. Over the past 18 months I’ve enjoyed a serendipitous string of reunions, reconnections and homecomings with people and places meaningful to my life. Some connections proved precious still, maybe even more so than before; others are what they maybe always have been ~ simply bittersweet place cards in time, with no obvious purpose and yet no definitive end.

Next I started thinking about Homecoming ~ as in, the high school dances ~ and it surprises me that I really don’t remember not only the dances but who I went with to the dances. I remember my sophomore year only because I went with the boy who always got away. Though he’d asked me to the dance three weeks earlier, by the time it came around, he’d already come . . . . and gone. He spent the evening singing Heartache Tonight and I spent it wishing we were as much in love as another couple there appeared to be. Quite frankly, it was not what I expected and I was majorly disappointed.

My junior year, I wasn’t even invited to the dance. Back then, girls didn’t much go alone or in groups and I’d broken up with my boyfriend at the end of the summer (yep, for the boy who always got away). We’d also moved 10 miles from town and outside the local calling area. Like Bad Luck Schleprock, I was wowzy-wowzy wo-wo-wo-ing my way through my days and my friends eventually became annoyed and distant. I was a pretty pathetic teenager.

Normally I’d spend my time sulking in my room, listening to the radio and crying myself to sleep and on the night of the dance I’m sure I was doing just that because of course, my life was over: no friends, no date, no dance. Loser! And this is the way I’d have remembered the night, if I had remembered it at all, if I hadn’t stumbled on my 1980 diary a few years back.

My mom and stepdad weren’t overly involved in my life ~ not counting the time my date and I went to the drive-in movie and looked over to see them waving at us two cars away. I could normally keep my drama to myself (or so I thought), but on this night my parents decided that I wasn’t going to be allowed to drown in my misery on their watch. They somehow planned an impromptu evening on the town and whisked my self-centered little butt up to Charlottesville’s UVA Corner.

While my classmates drank down on party road, stood around the high school cafeteria, or necked in the parking lot, I sat in the historic downtown Paramount Theatre and watched Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories, had drinks ~ at 16! ~ in the hot spot bar, The Mousetrap, and was treated to dinner at The Virginian, an iconic UVA Corner dining locale and, I was fascinated to learn at the time, a gay bar back when Hosa was in college. The evening ended, hours later, over Grillswiths at the legendary and long-gone University Diner.

Forgetting that night and recalling only my teenage dramatic angst says something about me that I’m not pleased to acknowledge but feel the obligation to admit. Too often I had expectations of the way I wanted things to go in my life and when they didn’t flow according to my wishes, I’d basically shut down and brood over what wasn’t going to be. I think a lot of girls, and women, do that by nature, and I personally believe that the depression I’d felt most of my life was essentially the result of choosing to stay in my box and then, when it proved to be empty, shut the lid and lie down in the dark.

Going out to Charlottesville took a little bit of creative initiative on my parent’s part, not to mention a whole lot of patience to deal with an ungrateful adolescent. I don’t recall much of our conversations or if we really even had any but I remember how I felt, being in the city at night, equal parts anonymous spectator and virgin participant, alone in my sadness but also so absolutely not. Though it took me years to appreciate exactly what they did, they should know they unknowingly poked a tiny hole in my box. That hole let through not only a little ray of sunshine but a view of what’s out there and who you can venture to be if you set your expectations aside and let yourself enjoy your life ~ simply, creatively, actively.

At the end of the movie, Daddy Walton, feared dead in a bus accident, walks miles through the snowy mountains to arrive home late on Christmas Eve. The family gathers around while he doles out the gifts he brags he wrangled from Santa. While my parents haven’t exactly stolen from the Fat Man for me, I’ve had my share of surprises. After a much needed but emotional visit to my childhood home this past October, I walked into my parent’s kitchen to find Hosa slaving over not only his special homemade spaghetti sauce recipe, but a separate vegetarian version just for me. And my mom, usually happier to let others do the public speaking, made a fantastic toast after Thanksgiving this year and publicly awarded me with The Pocketbook to take along on my upcoming travels. So sorry Mama Walton, but I’d say that pretty much tops even your beautiful Christmas Cactus.

The Virginian at the UVA Corner

Hey, what’s a Grillswith? A divine dessert of grilled Donuts, vanilla ice cream & chocolate sauce.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

I just came close to having a meltdown, but I cleaned the bathroom instead.

It’s 1:31pm on the second full day of the November Nor’Easter. The dogs and I just got back from a walk up the street to check the water levels, and the neighborhood is still basically cut off from the rest of the world. Unless you have a truck as large as a Ford F350 or some sort of floating transportation, you aren’t going anywhere. And I have neither.

Right now we’re all three cozied up on the couch, me smushed up on the left side with my laptop, LolliPop cuddled in the middle and Daisy sprawled out snoring on the right. Daisy has the majority of space and I’d like to slide her over a bit, but you really just don’t mess with Daisy when she sleeps. She’s an adorable, loving and gentle beagle, but there’s a part of her that will forever remain an obese 85-pound toss-off to animal control, and she gets a little wound up when she’s pulled at or startled. She won’t hurt me, but it’s just not fair to her. So I’m crammed in the corner and my left elbow pokes into the pillow while I type, and I utilize the benefits of yoga every time I reach over to the table to grab my coffee, but all in all we’re good.

Not so about 3 hours ago. Unable to go to work and stuck at home without power, I took a short nap to compensate for being up at 5am. I woke an hour or so later to the sound of rain and wind and the unmistakable dark cloud over my head that had nothing to do with the weather. I haven’t felt that bitch, depression, since I decided back in 2006 that she was a habit that needed kicking. Sad, lonely, hopeless, overwhelmed at the little things, and completely without basis, she really is a bitch. If you’ve ever lived with her, you know you think so too. I don’t know what made her think she could bebop on in here today and spend some time with me, but I guess the past few days without sun, a disorganized house, a list as long as my arm of things that need doing before I move, and the isolation permeating the air off Shore Drive today all spelled WELCOME on the emotional doormat.

There was a time I would have curled myself in a ball under my covers and spent the afternoon with her, maybe even offered her a few glasses of wine or an entire box of mac and cheese, let her put her feet up, make herself at home. But I made up my mind that this sort of feeling ~ not the everyday blues or frustrations or irritations rooted in a still confident sense of self ~ but this “oh I suck, none of this will ever work out, my dogs are neglected, I will never get everything done, my photos suck, my writing sucks” sort of feeling is no longer allowed to be my reality, and I meant it. So I cleaned the bathroom, which I hate. Because it such a cragmire of dog hair and me hair and makeup and grime and it seems, well, hopeless, and useless and futile. I cleaned it because I can no longer nap unless I’m really tired, and I cleaned it because I figured if I could kick some powder room ass of hopeless and useless and futile I’ll have a bright, shiny, sparkling bathroom and a bright, shiny sparkling attitude to go along with it.

I’ve enjoyed living alone and I would rather be by myself than to be living with a guy that isn’t emotionally available or on his game, but there are times, really, when a hug would do what Facebook and cell phones texts and emails just can’t. (To be honest, I’m not sure where that came from, but because it came out stream-of-consciousness style, I’ll let it stand. A little bitta pity at this party, maybe? Hey, there’s still plenty of time and plenty of opportunity). Truth is, I have close friends and a family who is always, always available when I need them, but since right now I’m a little burned out on technology and I’m feeling crabby as hell, cleaning that bathroom is going to have to do. I’m polishing the mirror when I stop and realize that I’m looking, really hard, deep down into my own eyes, and I feel something within them travel down through the inside of my body to the base of my feet, latch on, and come flying back up, pulling me erect and upright in the process. Ground yourself, it says. Ground yourself.

By nature, I am at my best in dry, arid places. Right here, right now, I’m surrounded by water, and I feel like I’m drowning. But I’m not. I’m not. And I’m not hopeless, or sad, or even lonely.

Last night the edges of our neighborhood began to flood. Several of us gathered over at the house across the street and spent the the next few hours hanging out by candlelight, and for a good portion of the evening we stood around the piano and sang old Elton John songs. At one point I looked out the window at the street below and all I could see was total darkness. Murky black emptiness. Nothingness. But I knew, even if I couldn’t see it, that there was something beyond that abyss. And where I was, there was warmth, and music, and laughter and smiles and candlelight.

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me.

For sure.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

I’m known as a nice person in the neighborhood, but there are body parts strewn all over my house.

Chester Cheetah has been dismembered. One arm is under the sofa, another is in my bed. His leg is buried somewhere out in the yard. I picked his eyeballs from the living room carpet two nights ago. But Chester Cheetah isn’t ready for the trash heap just yet. Because he’s Daisy’s baby, and she loves him to pieces.

Lolli found Chester this past May on our trip to Nag’s Head with the other OBX Skanks. He was resting peacefully in Pam’s house,  upstairs under a bed, just waiting for two crazy beagles to come along, sniff him out, and bring him home.

Lolli found him but Daisy claimed him, and he’s been her constant companion ever since. When I come home at the end of the day, Daisy greets me at the door, runs to the bedroom, grabs Chester and bounds back, first to the sofa and then to the back door. Chester goes with her outside. Chester goes with her potty. Chester sleeps next to her at night. In short, he is her baby. He is also her toy, her prey, and her her conquest, all things that Lolli will never pretend to be.

It doesn’t matter to her that his arms and one leg are gone, or that what used to be his eyes are now two gaping holes of white spongy blankness. Like the old Wendy’s commercial used to say, parts is parts, and Daisy loves Chester’s parts just as much as she loves his whole. Space is limited on our drive to LA, but Chester Cheetah, or what’s left of him, will be going along for the ride.

After all, this is love.

Lolli with a new Chester in the OBX. Daisy and Chester last night.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.

The first time I met Pearl she was standing at the edge of my parent’s yard in the bitter February cold wearing nothing but a pink towel and a smile.

She’d shown up from nowhere about 2 weeks prior and stuck around despite my dad’s refusal to feed her for the first three days, hoping, no doubt, she’d go back to wherever it was she belonged. Pearl had other ideas, and eventually he relented, fed the dog a piece of leftover chicken, and as he always likes to tell, cleaned out the refrigerator while she stood there, half-starved, waiting for more. My niece, 8 years old and thrilled to have a pet, promptly named the dog Pearl, claimed her as her own, and covered her with a towel to keep her warm while she slept in my parent’s shed.

Two years later Pearl was digging holes in the backyard and my sister was threatening the pound. I’d just left a fairly messed up relationship, already had two cats, and was kinda-sorta subletting a converted garage apartment from a friend who kinda-sorta hadn’t yet informed the landlord I was there. I wasn’t exactly looking for a dog, but I’ve never been very good at passing up strays, — either the animal or people variety, — but Pearl wasn’t much of a dog in the normal sense of the word.

She’d been so mistreated and abused that she’d literally had the personality beaten out of her. She was rigid and stiff and complacent, and you could lift her, bend her, shape her, pose her into any position and she would stay that way, afraid to move. Long before I realized I would be taking this tattered beagle home, I had teasingly nicknamed her Doorstop Pearl and Lawn Ornament Pearl because she was just so … still. But I always sought her out when I visited my sister, and normally I’d find her smashed to the back of her doghouse, staying out of harm’s way, just happy to have a place to sleep in relative safety and quiet. Everyone else thought she was a joke, but I liked her.

I liked her, in part, because I could identify with her. I’d just walked out the door and down the road from meanness, too, and I could relate to being too scared to move, and sleeping with your back pressed against a wall and I could relate to wanting to be quiet and left alone. I could relate to her gentleness and I could relate to the scar on her right cheek, because I had one too.

Pearl, true to her Southern name, was a mixture of grace and grit. Her left ear was ripped and separated, the bottom few inches torn in two, but she had the sweetest face, and quiet, calm eyes. Fearful of the nightly summertime fireworks, she’d climb behind me on the couch and shiver and shake while I held her, calming her down, yet many nights I’d wake during a thunderstorm to find her standing on my chest, front legs planted firmly and head held high like a coyote on a cliff, guarding me from unseen evil. With a fierce determination and a faraway look in her eyes, using her paws to scrape at my hair and my head, she’d gather me safely from danger into a nice, neat, if not slightly scratched and annoyed, bundle.

She earned the nickname Lightning because she walked painfully slow under most circumstances, and normally I’d have to carry her back from our walks, but she’d frolic in the dunes when we went down to the beach. I often forget that one of my first photographs was of Pearl running through the sand. Pearl didn’t know how to play, but toward the end of her life, she’d get frisky for a moment or two and bounce around with abandon. I think it surprised even her. She could sleep all day, but traveled with me all the way across country to California, and we’d play chase in the hotel hallways at night. One of her favorite things to do was walk the short walk to the corner, strolling along in true Pearl style. She’d do her business, sniff the telephone pole, then turn and look at me with her “spunky monkey” face and take off running back to the house. I’d have to quickly unhook her leash or she’d wiggle like a fish on the end of a pole. Off she’d go, galloping back to the house, weaving across the road, looking back to make sure I was in close pursuit. Sometimes she’d wait, then spring forward again. And then, she’d walk back in our house, slowly up the stairs, and into bed where she’d promptly fall asleep.

For six years, Pearl wasn’t much of a dog, but she made me laugh, and she was was my best friend, my fairy godmother and my guardian angel all rolled into one. Then, with little warning, her kidneys failed and she became sick and began to fade away and over a sunny, three day period last spring, I waited and watched while she got worse, got better, got worse, improved, and came home.

Pearl spoke a language that had nothing to do with words. The night before she died, she woke around 4am to go outside. I sat on the patio, under a sky full of stars, the air scented with magnolia and honeysuckle, while she slept in my arms. Listening to her breathe, smelling her neck, feeling her warmth, trying to take her in, remember it all. I sat there holding my dog, and I made a few promises, quietly, about the way I would live my life, without fear, without regret, with a little playfulness, a little bit of spunk, and a lot of love. With no more thunderstorms to fight, she woke, pushed her front feet against my chest, leaned her head back to look at me, and for the next several minutes just stared into my eyes, the faraway look replaced with something intense and genuine and strong. Then she laid her head back down and once again went to sleep.

Today, I  see the first magnolia blossom of the year, and I remember Pearl. The honeysuckle has bloomed again. And yes, I get it. Sometimes, life just sucks. People leave. Dogs die. Things change. Life goes on. And that’s just the way it is. But that day, after our vet left the room and all that remained was to say goodbye, what I heard escape from my lips sounded an awful lot more like please come back.

©2010 the orange chair. All Rights Reserved.