Archive | August, 2014

The Push

24 Aug

The Push

 

I walked the Airport road, three miles at least, passing hillsides and rambling meadows, scents of honeysuckle and clematis filled the air, and I was as far away from an airport as you could be. It’s a good road to walk, without a light or a stop sign, and if you’re on horseback, you can come up on a racing horse very fast, and then suddenly, you would stop to meet a main road. But by the time you reached it, you would have already had your thrill. The main road is not that big or busy, it’s just another way to get into town. But back roads going north to south are different, they’re less busy, and with the day’s casting overhead and a misty morning, it was a good time to walk on.

I came upon a railroad crossing and looked down the rails. Grey gravel, tightly bound and unmoving, flanked the rails. Stepping into the gravel, I tried my footing. I could walk on it and follow the length of the rail. Walking on the gravel for a time would be good, I thought. I could easily turn back and would not get lost, as I often do. I tried walking on the gravel. Because I was not in shoes, but only sneakers, I walked slowly. It was a bad idea. I could not walk for long and turned back to reach the road.

Standing in the middle of the crossing with my dog beside me, I looked to her, and she was looking down the rails, too. Sitting between two large cornfields facing east to west, until the rails touched the horizon, and the gravel looked flat, and I could no longer see where it ended, where both rail and gravel looked as one, it was there, at that vast expanse of rail, silver and straight, and the gray muted gravel, stark and supporting, that I thought of Paul.

Paul walked the gravel every day, checking railroad cars. “Paul, just how long is a railroad car?” I asked him one day. When he told me the cars he inspected were over a mile long and that he walked the parked cars, each one of them, every night in the Albany freight yard, and that was his job; he was a railroad car checker, an inspector, I was surprised. He always blamed the railroad and that darn gravel for pushing him into an early retirement.

I thought of Paul as I walked up the last hill and down the next. I called for my dog to hurry; the rain had picked up. I wore a white cotton shirt and I knew it would not hold up for long. I reached the car; my dog was wet as she jumped into the hatch. I toweled her off. I got into the driver’s seat, adjusted the mirror, and opened the window to get some air into the car. I wiped the rain from my face and the fog from my glasses. I had come clean and nothing else on my mind.

 

©Terry Rachel, 2014

 

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Candy When

10 Aug

Candy When

 

When my first dog, Candy, a Schnauzer, Grand Dame of three litters of pure-bred, silver pups, passed away after sixteen years, she was cremated and interned in a majestic bronze urn emblazoned with her full name and dates, Candy Girl, born September 1964 – died, November 1980.

She lived a long time. Candy was given to me as a present for my ninth birthday; I was thrilled. I named her after the Four Seasons’ hit song, after the same name. Candy Girl was a simple pop song, without harm, just about a love, charming just enough, my parents agreed to the name.

But Candy didn’t stay my dog; she became my mother’s dog instead. When my mother passed, she took Candy’s remains to the family plot.

***

Like I do every weekend, I try to spend the most time with my dog. Because of my daily hours, where I’m out of the house 10 to 12 hours each day, it’s a long time for my dog, Gem, to go without company, so on weekends, I dedicate a few hours on Saturday and Sunday for special walks, long walks, hikes to state parks, and trails that I know she will like. It makes up for the time, I think, for when she endures the lost time from me during the week. And for myself, too, as I miss my friend, Gem, when I can’t see her. I would love to take her to work, but that’s another story for another day.  

Yesterday, as I was walking Gem, I thought about Candy, and it only dawned on me at that precise moment, while stepping over a small stream of water in Point Mountain Park, as I watched my adventurous, happy dog, take laps from the cool and refreshing water, that when Gem dies, what will I do with her ashes?

I don’t think I want her boxed away, taken down into the earth; no. I don’t think I want that at all. She’s been too free, her makeup is that of courage, loyalty; she’s a good hunter, she’s strong and agile, and smart. She knows who likes her and who doesn’t like her, and so she’ll shy away, and go about her business. She doesn’t push, she knows better.

So what do I do, as I know my dog is exceptional in behavior, she must have an exceptional going out, how do I keep it in line?

 

In 2008, I lost two of my cats, 7 months apart. I had those cats for seventeen years. I trained my cats, as much as cats could be trained. They didn’t go on counters, and they didn’t stain anywhere except their litter box. I changed the litter often, as I knew the behavior of cats, and I knew my own cats well. They were friendly cats, outgoing, not shy, not spiteful, they enjoyed seeing others, and readily greeted new faces. And of all things not akin to the feline, they allowed me to take a brush to them.

One time, I brought Angelo out for a walk on a leash. He didn’t like it, and we didn’t do it again. But over the course of those 17 years, both Romeo and Angelo hung out with me, and came with me on many a move. Romeo didn’t do well in the car. He always threw up, but Angelo, was hardy. Both were brave, both good mousers. They didn’t cough the hairballs too much, thanks to the brushing.

 

So when they passed away, I cried for several days. And then one day I stopped crying. It just happened. It was like the flow of emotion just settled. Where all that emotion went, I don’t know. Two months had passed, and it was lonely without my cats, those chatty little bastards, how I missed them. But I found composure, accepting the Circle, as they say, The Circle of Life.

 

Coming out of a hot shower, I lay on my back naked in the hallway of my home, staring up at the ceiling, I thought about my cats. It was late winter, a quiet day, a Sunday in March. I sat up and stared at the bookcase that flanked both bedrooms, here were the boxes that held the remains of Angelo and Romeo. They were on the second shelf, next to their pictures. They was a stuffed play mouse between the two pictures. They liked being outdoors, lying in the hot sun. How long do I keep them on display on this bookcase?

My mind shifted to the day, and I dressed quickly. I gently brought down their remains from the shelf, placing them in a shoebox, and then taped the shoebox all around. I opened the car door, and placed the shoebox on the back seat floor. I drove to Durant Nature Park in Raleigh, North Carolina.

There’s a section to the nature park where a house once stood, but no one knows it. No one ever walks that trail because it’s closed off for what the park calls, ‘sensitive feeding area.’ So no one goes through the trail. But I do because I am horrible at obeying rules. So, I walked that part of the secluded trail, and when I reached the stone chimney (that’s all that remained), I opened up the shoebox, and then opened their boxes. I was staring at a palm-full of each cat’s remains, asking myself, How do I do this? Do I sprinkle here and there, under a tree over there, where? I decided just the way my cats had lived a frisky and eager life, to let their ashes spring to life, and then, without a thought, threw their ashes like a bouncing ball. Once, twice, three times, and then watched them settle. They were free.

***

It’s a Sunday, it’s bright summer, and I am headed for the Delaware Water Gap. I will hike again today with Gem. And I will remember each and every blessed day I have with my dog, while my dog is with me. But she isn’t coming with me to the family plot, no. Just as in life, she was raised and trained to be a fighter, a courageous dog, a smart dog, never beaten, never caged, she will always be free, never encased on a shelf or a bookstand.

 Copyright Terry Rachel, August 2014

 

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That’s No Group

3 Aug

Today was a Meet Up group for hikers, hikers with their dogs. This isn’t the first time for me. I’m a long-standing hiker. I’ve hiked for years, I love trails. I love being in the dirt. And I like mud. A lot of people go around mud, I don’t really avoid it. I’ve gone to a few group outings with them before, taking Gem, my six-year old Border Collie mix, but I’m not really all that sure you could call them a group.

I did go up to the top of Point Mountain, I did make, it’s just that the group was way ahead of me. Kids, nah, not really, they really weren’t. Just people, men and women in their 30s, some were in their 40s, one guy was older than me, he was about, I don’t know, I’m thinking sixty-two? He coughed a lot, I know that and it annoyed me. He had very thin ankles, not normal for a guy.

One girl, she was watching my tattoos, I knew it, I saw it, her name was Ellen. I don’t like that name too much. It’s like a very bland name. I have never gone out with an Ellen. It’s a very Jewey name. How about Naomi, huh? That’s a very Jewey name. Anyway, Ellen darts her eyes, diverted to my arms. She wants to ask about my tattoos, I could just hear it in her brain going, “This woman is old, what the fuck is she doing with these tattoos, and look at her with her cut-off shirt, showing her stomach, omygawd.”

I wanted to like tell her I could read her mind at that point. But it’s not a big deal. She was all right. I was better looking at her age. Forty-two? Forget it. She didn’t do nothing, nothing for me, but her brain was sizzling, dying to ask, “Are you seriously going to walk up this mountain?“

Yes, you snobby little bitch, I am.

The guys in this group, all of them in this group, are like the losers from high school, the left-behinds, the rejects, the ones no girl in her right mind would go out with. And now they’re all here, with tight underwear and too tight-wearing pants so you can see, kinda’ if you look, glance, don’t make it obvious, but you could see the outline of their penis in their pants! It’s not good; it was never a cool look.

I disregard of all these and I head up the mountain. Look it had rained the night before, so the bugs were out, it was muddy, and the rocks were slick. I hate these conditions for hiking, they’re my least favorite conditions, but I go.

The other four girls practically ran passed me, the guys were ahead too. It was a straight shot up the mountain, almost at a 90 degree plane; it wasn’t easy, and the big drops and spaces between the rocks to traverse the trail was difficult since the rocks, like I mentioned, were slick. I was dressed well, with good boots, so I thought. But the boots sucked, and I was slipping everywhere. Thank God for my walking stick that helped.  I was last in this hike, and the only guy in front of me was the guy with the skinny ankles.

About an hour into the hike, I lost the group, every one of them had pushed themselves so far ahead of me, I couldn’t even hear them anymore, and for the last hour I was alone with Gem.

Knowing that I came with a group, and now no one was around, was a little unsettling. But see, I knew this park, I had been there several times, and so I wasn’t lost. I knew when I got down, I’d come to meadow, a big cornfield, and then from there, the river. At the lower part of the trail, the Musconetcong runs 46 miles and right where I’d meet it was where the trout fishermen fish. So I wasn’t lost and I felt fine with that. This group didn’t turn back to see how I was, and I thought that was really shitty.

When I reached the river, I reached the group and reunited with the group. I pat my dog. She was tired and wet. Her fur had picked up summer prickers and they had settled on her hind legs and withers. She looked at me as if to say, “I’ve had enough.” She doesn’t swim, and doesn’t really like the water except to get her pads wet. The other dog owners have your typical labs and beagles who like the water; they were there. There were the treat givers, giving treats, dogs begging. But not Gem. Gem doesn’t beg, although I knew she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten her breakfast. I needed to get her home.

I walked ahead, I knew where I was going, I pulled out some speed on the flat land part of the trail, and pushed ahead of the group. I heard them yelling for their dogs to come. Most of the time the dogs are on leads and don’t know when to come when called. I pushed on knowing the road would soon unveil itself. I had less than 200 feet to go.

I reached my car, letting Gem in the hatchback where her fleece bed awaited, and having cleaned her towels in advance of the walk, toweled her off good and dry, picking the prickers out from her fur where I could. I got in the car, too, adjusting the mirror, I made sure Gem was settled before taking off.

I heard the voices of the group in the parking lot of Point Mountain making plans for the lunch at Jake and Riley’s. I passed them, I didn’t wave goodbye or say thanks. And I didn’t goodbye to anyone, but instead headed back home, home with Gem, where we both could find a sense of belonging.

Copyright Terry Rachel, August 2014

 Point Mountain

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