This letter comes apropos of nothing, which may be the point.
Every time I write, it seems, it carries a certain sense of (melo?)drama: Jadie’s birthday, Charlie’s adoption, your first swim.
There is nothing dramatic here. Save, of course, for everything.
For here, under the historic Western Heat Dome, where dog days have baked September into the new August, you have somehow sidled into doghood.
How did that happen? When did that happen? And I want specific dates.
Make no mistake: You are not even teens in our years, and that is occasionally obvious. Say, when a Barkbox shows up. Or you see a leash. Or when I microwave popcorn; YOU AIN’T GETTING ANY — DEAL WITH IT.
But you have lowered your bark, slowed your gate, begun to see this as your home, one you’d die to defend if I were in it and in peril. Or at least so I’d like to think.
But what do you think of monotony? I imagine that for most days and nights, life may seem to churn, over and over. Boring, perhaps (and I’m looking at you girl). Maybe without point. Maybe without purpose. Beware that deception! Boredom means you are free of hunger and most likely pain.
More vitally, being is purpose. Never forget the reason you are here in the first place: Nothing short of being the conscious representative for your patch of the cosmos, and all the duties implied therein.
In other words, keep doing what you’re doing. Which appears to be enjoying our one go-round on the Great Carousel.
John Steinbeck’s dog ate the first version of Of Mice and Men
Every teacher has rolled their eyes at the “my dog ate my homework” excuse, but it really happened to one of America’s most revered authors. In 1936, John Steinbeck’s dog Toby, an Irish setter, turned the first draft of Of Mice and Men into a snack. In a letter dated May 27 of that year, the future Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner wrote that he “was pretty mad, but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically.”
Steinbeck estimated that Toby making “confetti” of the manuscript would set him back by about two months, but it may have been worth it: Steinbeck’s short, tragic tale of two migrant workers eking out a humble existence in California during the Depression is among the author’s most moving and accomplished works, which is saying something for the man responsible for both East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck, a lifelong dog-lover, later wrote a travelogue featuring his poodle called Travels with Charley.
I forget sometimes how new you are. We’ve learned each other’s’ rhythms so well that it feels like we’ve been together for years. But we’ve been a trio for only nine months, and this is our first summer.
So I didn’t think much of the invitation, Jadie, to try out your webbed paws (which all Labs have) at a friend’s pool. I had a pool at my previous house, and your ancestors, Teddy and Esme, LOVED it. We spent an entire summer at that flat chlorine altar, and your dad had quite the tan.
But this was the first time either of you had seen a pool deeper than six inches. And you turned THAT into a plastic rawhide. I still don’t know if that was a sign of love or repulsion.
Regardless, you were as curious as Yogi at a picnic basket when we arrived at the crystal blue wonder. You both sniffed the edges, peered your reflections, smelled Dodger’s ass. But you never went in.
As you surveyed, I ducked into the bathroom and stripped to a suit. Then I walked to the edge, asked Jaime if he was filming, and feigned falling into the water. That’s how Teddy learned to swim, and I’d seen footage of new mothers chucking their infants in pools to teach them aquatics.
I promise you: I will never feign mishap again. What could be more terrifying for a youngling than to see their oldling in peril? At least the babies can think, ‘Oh well, guess mom didn’t want me. Was nicer back there, anyway.’
I will never know what you thought, but I will never forget how you responded. Jadie, I’ve watched that video like the Zapruder tape, and you were in within three Mississippis of splashdown.
And baby, I’ll be honest: You ain’t Michael Phelps. You swim as much vertically as horizontally, which has gotta be scary, especially when you can’t see the exit. But once you learned the terrain, you wouldn’t stay out, so maybe we’ll do that again.
And Charlie. Bud, you were heroism incarnate. When I “fell” and Jadie dove, you and Dodger sensed something was amiss. And while Dodger began what his dad would later call “rescue barks,” you began what I call rescue action.
You came to the edge of the pool where we submerged. When Jadie’s panicked paddling sent her to the other side of the pool, you and Dodger ran there. Then you dove headfirst into the deep end. And you don’t even like baths.
What were you thinking, I wonder. That you could save us both? That, ‘If dad and sis are going down, I’m going with them’?
You took a literal leap of faith. I don’t know if I’ve ever jumped without knowing the depth. What is that? Innate courage? Instinctive love?
By the end of lunch, you were running through the place like an off-leash park, playing keepaway with mini float noodles and blatantly violating Mrs. Rovero’s no-poolside-running policy.
And I have to admit: I was a initially a little nervous for you both. I guess that’s to be expected: Somehow, it feels more important this time around.
What I didn’t expect was that you would be nervous for me. And then I realized what you were getting at: It matters every time around.
