In 2004 I was a depressed and lonely woman in a strange city half way across the country from the place I considered home.  My solitude was intentional, a product of the denied grief of a lifetime and two all too fresh deaths.  I rented a two bedroom duplex and hid there, rejecting the idea that a good life was worth the effort.  I mentioned off handedly to a coworker that I thought I needed a dog.  She brought me an adoption booklet from her vet’s office and there, about halfway in was a picture of my heart’s dog, Olive.

She was called Duma then, by the ladies that ran the rescue she’d been living at for six months. She’d been found wandering the streets of northeast Georgia alone and hungry.  She seemed easily startled and they soon realized that was because she could not hear.   She was camera shy, so in the picture her face is turned back towards the camera over one sholder.  She’s standing still for the photo, but you can tell she doesn’t like it.  She’s doing it because she knows these nice people want her to, and she usually does what nice people ask.  I knew she was my dog before I even read the caption under her picture.  I thought she was all soul.  It turned out she was also very largely joy.

Olive, named for the sound a deaf friend made when he said “I Love You” quickly became the most important piece of my life.  She was waiting for me every morning when I got out of bed and in the afternoons when I came home.  She was so horribly shy at first that she couldn’t stand to see me leave the room without her, and followed each of my steps.  Though I was still deeply sad and anxious, I got up on weekends to make sure that Olive had a walk.  The desire to let Olive see more of her own kind got me out of that crappy apartment to the dog park, where I began to see more of mine.  Her oddball tummy made me search out good food for her, and realize what I was eating myself.  And then that day when the bottom finally dropped out, Olive sat between my legs in the floor while I held on to her for hours.  She was what I gripped when I decided to go ahead and try the climb.

She became the friend that would walk beside me across half a country, down 100 pounds, away from a life I was designing to be free of anyone I loved enough to weep for, and towards the courage to find the one I live today.  Olive gradually made me remember that the flow of love is worth the pain it brings with it, and that despite my many faults I am a person who loves well.  She found the heart I tried to throw away, and brought it back to me.  That was the only thing she ever bothered to fetch.

More than six years ago she found a woman alone, with a stale and blank face.  This morning my kind husband told me that he loved me and took our two month old daughter from the room.  I held sweet sweet Olive against me and she took her leave.

Time flies

At about 5:30 in the morning on July 1st, I’m sitting in our not so well scrubbed bath tub looking for that mythical state of relaxation and calm that everybody advises those in a pensive cycle of waiting to find.   I am a horrible waiter, and have been since childhood.  Not satisfied with mere punctuality, I’m the woman who has a book in her glove box for the inevitable 30 minute wait I’ll do in the car before any appointment.  Tick tock…. don’t mind me, I’m just waiting.

This would probably qualify as the ultimate wait.  I’m waiting for our first child.  My estimated due date of June 20th came and went without so much as  a contraction 11 days ago. In physiological terms it’s just any second.  2 or 3 centimeters dilated, more than 80% effaced, baby at a -1 station. Evening primrose oil, red raspberry leaf tea, black/blue cohosh tincture, spicy food, and my personal favorite source of protaglandins have all been tried for weeks.  Yesterday, proving my own fragile mental state, I actually consumed 4 oz of castor oil in a chocolate shake and spent the rest of the day groaning on the can.  All to no avail though.  I woke up this morning at about 3am feeling far more fine than I care to.

My daughter, whatever her name will end up being, apparently doesn’t share my early nature.  She’s comfy inside of me, I guess.  She has plenty of room inside my farm girl’s pelvis to just hang out and start long before her teens the tradition of driving her mother just a little crazy.  She must know that by whatever impossible mechanism of nature, I fell in love with her months and months ago, and I’ve been sitting on my hands not having a much wanted drink, round of sushi, or knock down hard run on my swollen and gimpy right leg. I’m desperate to meet her.   How long will this woman wait for me, she must wonder.

I’m just sitting here, and I’ve nothing left to read.  I’ll get out of the tub in a bit, scrub it down (it really is pretty scummy), and then go bounce on my exercise ball for another day looking at 30 years old for the patience my baby has already mastered.

Working title: Georgia Marie Skelton

Near Oakalla Tx

Tattooed bride

First smooch

Photos thanks to Matt.