THE year, 2011

It is the eve of the most anticipated New Year of any New Year I’ve ever anticipated! The year will be 2011. This is my lucky year, made of my lucky numbers, and on my birthday I will possibly faint from overwhelming luckiness! 02.11.2011. I’m so excited.

I’m setting no specific expectations, only knowing that this will be a fantastic year full of dreams come true. Ahh. Happiness has swallowed me whole. I am in the belly of bliss.

Here’s one example of the power of the numbers 2 and 11 in my life. When Nick took me to Monterey, CA for a trip and a tournament, he took me to a spot near the Ghost Tree and we found a rock with room for two and watched the sun set. Everyone disappeared and it was just the two of us as the sky held waning daylight and approaching darkness. We could see both skies, we could see the moon and the sun. We were watching rotation. We visually saw what we consider time passing before us. I had no idea he was going to propose until the very end. It was our unspoken agreement to never speak of marriage.

Earlier, we found our hotel and when Nick came out with our room key, he said “Ok, it’s room 211.” I shrieked with giddiness. “You are kidding! Something really great is going to happen this week Nick.” I had just before tossed him a penny on heads I found, and when I do that, that means his dad is saying hello. That’s in my head. When I see one, I feel like his dad is gesturing, and I toss it his way. When I see one on tails, I flip it over. I change luck. Someone else can find good luck and smile because I flipped the coin. Small but Big. Looking back I remember his reaction to my proclamation was sort of muffled, he looked white washed.

It was his birthday. 09.29. I, of course, was prepared to do something special for the occasion, so I only realized he was intending to propose at the very end when I could feel his energy. It was intense.

I dropped a tear because of the scene in front of me. I was in a front row seat, in a private (being with Nick is like being alone… which is beautiful to me) viewing of Earth’s magic. Rocky cliffs, a forest behind me, The Pacific Ocean in front of me, waves crashing with white foam, night and day, sun and moon, and a sparkling star or two… this was IT. I dropped my one single tear, and then felt an enormous amount of energy coming from the man on my left. It was as if I could hear his thoughts and I knew it was forever, just as the forever I watched in front of me was known to be. And then, this wonderful man, who felt that no matter where we were, cliff or not, I deserved a proposal on bending knee, got in front of me and did just that. He somehow found room and sturdy footing and gave me the moment. Never mind the plummet into the crashing of land and sea just behind and below him.

I said to him later in the evening, “But this is YOUR BIRTHDAY!”

And he said back to me, in a way that was casual with honesty and unprepared, “You can have it. You can have my every day.”

I have a fairy tale.

And, 2 and 11 are always there, telling me to savor what lies ahead.

Do you know that feeling from childhood when you are so excited you feel as though you cannot physically contain the emotion a second longer? The urge to run in place or just scream through a smile occurs? That is the level of extreme elation I have now. I am finally entering 2011.

I had a lot of running thoughts last night as I rested in bed staring at my Himalayan rock candle. The glow from the other side of the rock looked like a sun on the horizon. The layers of crystals formed a landscape and the burning fire seemed like a miniature sun star.

I have included words like ‘moment’ and ‘time, ‘future’ and ‘past’’ in my written reflections lately and I think about this year’s end, and that prompted my meandering waltz through my mind’s wooded thoughts. I kept following trails until finally I fell asleep.

I was wondering, if we are continuously becoming, allowing ‘time’ to carry us into more moments the following has to be true: What you do is not who you are, what you do is who you were. We are a flicker rolling over sand, right? We cannot stand still in time, we cannot reach the future, we cannot keep up with the present, and the past is no such thing if we only look from our constantly moving view. ‘Time’ is not the variable, it is a constant thing- a nothing really, and we are the variable, rolling across a thing called eternity. ‘Time’ doesn’t move, we do. And ‘space’: If it doesn’t go in one direction, but all- not forward or backward, and ‘time’ doesn’t actually exist- just serves as a measurement for life- and we are a part of this, then this idea of eternity makes sense. A moment is here and then gone, and then here, and then gone, and so on. We are never in one moment and not the next as well. We are not in one time because it does not exist as a field or in one direction. It is, they are, a continuum, lasting forever. Stillness does not exist anywhere, but in the mind, and even then, at no point does a thought not exist in the mind- even if it is of being still. And all thoughts go somewhere. Right?

Then I fell asleep. But it was comforting, the thought of ALL and not forward or backward or now. And ‘now’ is such a funny word. It is the most evolving of all words.

I’m watching the snow melt out the window and viewing both the UGA bowl game and Nick watching it. I get a nice view of his wavy hair from here. I am a bird perched high above my nest. I am comfortable in this nest and eager to fly in the New Year. At this point in 2010 I was in Atlanta, about to move to Edenton. Seems like it should be a longer period of ‘time’. ‘Time’ is so confusing. It is remembered differently and experienced differently and I find myself happier not thinking of it whatsoever. It’s just life and if my intention is to get better in every aspect then the idea of time will always serve me well.

But, in respect to time…

I thank the year 2010. You were full of good things and fun explorations.

I welcome, ecstatically, the year 2011.

Harvest No Wild Horse

My first cd ever was Neil Young. Harvest. He’s playing downstairs, his harmonica’s howl drifting up to meet my ears in my lofted office nook. He has just given the stage to Ray LaMontagne, who is singing me one of my absolute, all-time, can’t-get-enough-of-it songs, All The Wild Horses. Between the two songs, I see my past and my future.

Neil Young- my first musical technological adventure. 1980s babies have gone from exposure to the antique record and record player, to the ordinary tape and cassette player or walkman, to the reasonable advancement of the cd and cd player or discman, to the new age triumph of the ipod and the era of the ieverything (and all the forgotten gadgets in between). We now do not have to touch a thing. With the exception of the enter key, we have no visible proof of purchase! Adaptable are we, 1980s babies! Watch out world, we are soon to be the future and I have a feeling we are the heroes everyone is looking for in the world.

Neil Young takes me to my past days as a young girl sitting in the backseat of my parents’ car as we drove from Moultrie, Georgia to Brookhaven, Mississippi. M.i.crooked letter.crooked letter.i.crooked letter.crooked letter.i.hump back.hump back.i. That is another story, the fantastic and super-cool spelling of the state of the magnolia. A story for another snowy day, but not this one. I sat in the back listening to Neil and at that time traveling to another state was still a pretty big adventure. Little did I know that the word journey would be enough to send my 30 year old self into pure delight. I leap in my head as I repeat the words journey or travel or adventure. I want to go everywhere and see everything. I feel more childlike now than I did then. I was pushing my brain then to understand this man singing and his voice of melancholy. Now, I understand it a little more because I have had a few of the experiences required of a person to relate to a voice like that. Now, I listen, try and relate a bit, and move on, quickly, to my own chosen thought, and that is more in line with Ray LaMontagne.

All The Wild Horses. I hope it is a song of my life in full. I hope when I hear this song. It is a song of the future in my vision. I see a completely free, open space, like that of a field shimmering with golden sunlight and I am soaring through the air, arms outstretched, hair blowing in the breeze I create with my motion; sheer, jagged layers of white fabric rustling from my body and arms like a flag flying freely from an idea of absolute independence from any constraint. Liberation, truly, from any reign of man or society; not able to be caught or contained; like a wild horse, powerful, free, beautifully created to be such. To catch this horse, or even house the idea of catching it, is criminal in the court of natural law. It is beyond any other’s ability to dominate, because it is truth, it is pure- it is wild. I am, in my mind’s eye, on the back of this free creature, riding wildly into unknown territory, bathed in the light of a golden Godly sun, spirit soaring. A true triumph of the soul within my body. It has surpassed, finally, any boundary of body, any expectation of society, and any rule or ordinance of unneeded and unwelcome ideas of another. This space isn’t just future, it isn’t present, or past. This space in my head is soul. I wish to look back at my life with this vision and forward to the beyond with this vision. If I can maintain this vision, if I can hear this song and feel the swelling of tears coming from the spring of all that is my life behind and my life before me, I will be proud and happy and I will love not only this horse I ride, that keeps me, but I will love myself for mounting it.

Harvest- To gather. To take or kill for food, sport, or population control. To extract from a culture or a living or recently deceased body, especially for transplantation.

Wild Horse- Symbolizes an Unbroken Spirit.

All we are?

“I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moment’s gone. All my dreams pass before my eyes, a curiosity. Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind.”

~Kansas

In 2008 I woke up in the middle of the night; I heard this song playing and the words played perfectly verse after verse. The instruments played a tune I won’t easily forget. I got up, walked downstairs, all the while trying to remember the words that woke me. I needed to look up the song and hear it, to check if it was accurate with what I played in my head. I never can remember lyrics. That’s funny to me considering how much I appreciate them. But, this night, they floated through my head without mistake.

I found the song and played it to myself in the dark. It was chilling to me because I didn’t consciously repeat the song, the words almost had a life of their own and they woke me. And are we, after all, only dust in the wind?

Physically, maybe. But, in the important sense of the question, I venture to say no. ‘We.’ ‘All we are.’ Those words communicate more than a body. When I think of the word ‘I’, pertaining to myself… my self… I don’t think of the body. At any moment we are turning to dust. Quite literally, our skin cells flake, whether we see them or not, and they are carried off as dust. The body is nothing but what our spirit breathes into it. Without the breath, we are not. And breath comes from what exactly? Where does that come from? Who gave direction for that? No one. When we were born, our mother did not say, “breathe” and we obeyed. We did it because our spirit yearned to belong in our body and perform our life.

One who does not believe in God may argue that we are merely particles and cells and matter- substance of physical dimension only- the provable. When there is a person who denies God around me and they speak of their theory, I hear their argument, understand the angle from which they argue and direct their argument, and I listen. But all the while, I feel a pull in my deepest depth that ‘says’ this isn’t so. I know more than that exists because my body tells me and I listen more to the words rising from the part in me no one has given a label or medical definition than I do another mouth. This part of me is my guidance and when my existence is contributed to excellent and intellectual coincidence, I absorb the words and that guidance spits them out again. I wonder how some do not trust this part of their being (I do not attempt to convince another about their spiritual beliefs, as it is personal and being so, none of my business. I simply wonder.). It isn’t physically pinpointed, but it is there and to believe so takes bravery. One cannot make it simple for others and show them on a map of the body, or dissect an old body and show it to the witnessing eye. It cannot be done, because it is not there any longer in the dead, old body. It is the breath. The breath is with the life only, not the body.

So, our body, it may be dust, as dust goes. But, our spirit, our true life, is the wind that blows. One is matter vanishing and spreading to contribute to new creation. The other is all the while invisible but is the essence of creation. It moves and stirs and spins and it is what keeps the world turning and the universe expanding, never ceasing.

They both are. Evolution and God. But, one, only, gives evolution life.

Dust evolves into new beings. The wind is God. The wind is ‘we’.

*Side note:

My husband said, “You are asking for trouble, posting something religious.”

I said, “It’s not religious, it’s spiritual.”

I do not consider those two things synonymous. One can have religion and no spirituality and vice versa. This distinction is important to me.

One is man-made; one is not.

He responded, “I know. I’m just saying, people like to respond to things about their religion.”

And to this I can only say one thing. “It’s my blog about my views.”

These are thoughts in my head.

Snow Globe

It is the most beautiful snow day I have ever seen.

I sit now, looking over Selma’s head at the view she is mesmerized by, one of pure white coating every branch of the tree outside my window, one of swirling snowflakes that makes my world just like the inside of a snow globe. The field of grass is so flawlessly veiled with inches of snow that it is blinding. It is absolutely wonderful.

We’ve had our fun outside, running through the snow and chasing our spastic dogs, and peeling the compacted snow from their legs when they could no longer walk. China’s legs couldn’t bend she had so much clumped snow on her; she was walking with stiff straight legs and trying to bounce only as a default. Nick gave her a warm bath as soon as we came in and now all of my lovely family is cozy and snuggled and enjoying this peaceful gift of Christmas. Selma, peering out of the window from her window seat cushion, head propped on the pillow, nose to the glass, being entertained by the pudgy, fluffed-out bird with the red tummy that is staring at her chirping from the tree branch. China is atop her throw pillow on the sofa, covered with a fuzzy blanket and mashed up next to Nick, who is talking to himself and to the television as he watches a documentary on coffee on the history channel. He keeps laughing and mumbling about what sounds like amusing ironies. I am at my desk. I am absorbing the occasion and documenting it so that I may be able to remember easily this beautiful Christmas holiday of 2010.

It was a Christmas of dinner spent with friends and fine cuisine. We had so many indulgences in one six or seven hour period. I kept traveling around my dinner plate in clockwise fashion, enjoying bite after bite, never deciding which was my favorite of the foods. I noticed everyone trying to decide the same thing. I believe it is a habit of people in general and one left over from childhood. “Which one is your favorite?” a question asked countless times throughout childhood. It’s a fun thing to decide. “Out of all these things that I love, which do I love the absolute most?” That is a healthy tradition to start in the mind’s waves. It is much more fun to think of than, “Which is the worst?” “What might be wrong with what is in front of you?” This habit of deciding favorites is what keeps us happy.

If everyone in the world had this question running through their mind as they walked through their day, the world would be just that. A Christmas dinner plate. A winter snow globe from a cozy window seat. The world would be a choice between good, better, and best.

I am noting the words that come to us instead, dragging our mind’s attention from these childlike whimsical wonderments. I watched a movie on Christmas Eve, and in it a leader, fanatical, yelled at his subordinates “I want the world to constantly know how close we are to complete and utter chaos! I want everyone to be reminded that we are on the verge of complete disaster and destruction!” It went something like that. I heard this and immediately thought of our everyday news trails. Our every single day’s information feed is purely and utterly the same exact tactic or strategy or source… or whatever. All we hear every day is along the same lines as this ‘fictional’ scenario.

“Crisis. Crisis. Crisis.”

“Near catastrophe avoided within 17 minutes!”

(… this struck me at the time as being eerily like some Bruce Willis film. 17 minutes, really? I am not taking that at face value. Give me more of a story please. Is that story told to cause relief? Are we told no specifics to protect us? Are we in the hands of super heroes that catch bad guys in the nick of time? Odd. It is the classic plot line of any good selling comic book drama.)

“Economical collapse. Riots. Warfare. Terror. Terror. Terror.”

“Inflation. Depression. Decline.”

“Recession. Unprecedented everything. Threat of this. Threat of that.”

“Protection from your neighbor. Report your neighbor.”

“Evil. Axis of Evil. Weapons. Bombs. Nuclear and chemical warfare.”

“Mass destruction.”

Lurking dangers everywhere!!!!! How did humanity even get this far? Evil around every gosh darn corner.

Neighbors being terrorists? Home-grown terrorists?

Uggggggggh.

I am looking at them and I am thinking a question.

Is the ‘evil’ perpetuating the news? Or, is the news perpetuating the ‘evil’?

Is the news reporting the truth? Or, is the truth now a result of the ‘news’?

Here is another question.

Is there an absolute need for this fear to take over everything and everyone?

Or does it just serve as a shackle to mankind and the human spirit that is really all about this moment we celebrate now? We just want happiness. We want love. We want snow globes. And ‘they’ are feeding us fear and hate and an ugly world.

I know that it isn’t ALL lovely out there in the world, but I also know the world isn’t what they paint it to be. False news is a prison. The mainstream media is a prison guard. They serve a warden.

Knowing is powerful, seeing is a choice, believing is a perspective. If truth is based on belief and belief is based on thoughts and thoughts are based on your choice of reason, then it becomes ultra important who you listen to and how much credit you give them and their transference of thought.

Call them out.

For instance, be like Diane Sawyer and ask the Director of Intelligence what he thinks about London, when you are having a conversation about our nation’s security and the threat of terror attacks. When he stares at you with a blank expression and says he has no idea what your question means, you know these guys are lying about that which is their stated intentions. Officials in London just arrested 12 suspected terrorists and our Director of Intelligence, James Clapper, is clueless about this situation, asking “What about London?” directly after it happens? His office releases a statement- “The question was ambiguous.”

Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha.

For real?

It’s your JOB to know what harms and threats are eminent and you have no clue what a question like that means?

Is your job really “protecting us from terror” or is it about creating it… locking Americans down, harassing us, violating our rights, and knowing what our own citizens talk about in the grocery store and at the dinner table?

BUSTED!!

These words they spray us down with from every source of ‘authority’ is almost humorous. And I am choosing to see through it and not believe it and think instead of the antonym of their words. Every time they say danger, I will think safety; every time they say war, I will think peace; every time they say crisis, I will think of a thriving society. And then, I get the freedom I seek. They have no control over my point of view, as long as I don’t give it to them.

It is miraculous. God gives us each a snow globe. We can include what we wish in our world and we can put the unwanted nonsense and madness on the other side of the glass.

A couple of weeks ago, I came to a conscious decision to look at the world slightly differently. I asked that, since I want to address things I find meaningful and that hurt, those things I can make an immediate difference in are the things that come across my path. I want the opportunity to help without having to rely on others for assistance or having to convince another why it is important to do so. I wanted this because I want to not just see the problems and think of how it would be nice to help and then freak out because it is so difficult to do so, but I want to have an opportunity to help when there is a situation that can use my help. I want the feeling of having made something better from caring and doing and affecting that something.

Immediately, I had a chance.

A mommy cat needed help and she literally crossed my path, not an hour later.

When you ask, be ready for an answer. When you want, be ready for the opportunity. If your head is stuck in the rut of negative words and thoughts then, you can’t move when it’s time for action. You are stuck in the thick muck of can’t and lack, crisis and danger; frozen with fright and depletion of the resources that swell in every single body.

I was able to help this pregnant kitty by feeding her. She was cautiously walking to a trash can, stopping and looking around her to insure her safety, and she reached up as far as she could... but, she couldn't reach the top of the trashcan, where a discarded morsel might fall to the ground. She was outstretched, belly full of kittens, and couldn’t reach a thing. I watched her, poor thing. What defense does she have against all those male cats? So, I got back out of the car and got a few cans of food for her and fed her out of traffic's way. And, I have asked Nick to help me keep her fed through this extremely cold season. That felt really great. One sweet action at a time. If it crosses my path, I'm going to try... I just ask above to let the situations I can help with be the ones to cross my path; otherwise I will be a soul tortured with sadness. This kitty was an answer. I could buy her food and solve her problem. And, she could eat it and make me happy, which she did.

The snow is still whipping through the air forming funnels, only the flakes are larger and when I went outside with Selma and China again, it was much colder already. I was shivering, teeth chattering, and Selma had mercy on me and stopped puppy pouncing and ran inside so I could warm up. This coldness makes her frisky. China was in my corner, ready for warmth- warmth, which is our everyday luxury. I feel blessed. I feel that I have a beautiful world today. I feel that I see a doorway to having a beautiful world everyday and my doorway allows me to walk over a threshold called choice.

There is no bigger gift. It is one to open every morning, not just on Christmas. I sit in a snow globe. I choose what I see. I choose what I believe. I choose.

Divide and Conquer

I just got home. It was a busy day in busy December.

I wrote last night and didn't post. And, I wrote in the car today as Nick drove me to Greenville to pick up my car at the auto shop. (It's purring happily now. It's a really good car. Audi A4... I recommend to anyone considering it.)

I thought about a lot of things today and discussed some of them with Nick, and later at dinner with our friends, we had many really interesting conversations.

The things I noticed myself saying a lot today, I may have to delve into on another occasion, but will post my jotted thoughts from earlier in the day. Please forgive mistakes; I am really sleepy.

It started here, with this thought...

There is no minority and there is no majority. To be considered either assumes even two of three are alike, which is an absurd falsehood. No two individuals or circumstances are the same and to be lumped into either category should be considered a personal offense.

Then, I went on...

When watching a group of individuals unite against another group of individuals based on qualities broad in nature and diverse in their own right, one can draw a conclusion that these ideas causing the divide are not coming from inside the self, but outside the self, by political forces standing to gain control or benefit from the conflict. And there is an entity that does stand to gain from groups dividing and conquering each other. As the world keeps changing and the people keep blending, it will become more apparent that the need to categorize one's self into this group or that is a stretch of the imagination and feels forced. It will be interesting to watch the transition from what has been racial separation become one more of culture encompassing status and privilege and even information. Where this division once laid upon religion and skin color and wealth, an idea to be free of such ignited, and a nation verged on independence of such, only to be wrangled by the clever manipulation of political correctness and entitlement and those throwing the ropes of confinement.

Then I added a bit more...

For the government or controlling institutions- it works better this way. They want it.

The attempt of individual liberty sparked a nation founded on and in pursuit of freedom and betterment of each human's rights- and although failures and blatant wrongdoings have ensued- we now stand on the grounds of individual compliance versus liberty, unity of the paranoid versus the secure, acceptance of fright versus bravery, and reliance on dictation versus common sense. We, in an attempt to encompass all cultures without offense to one, have devoured diversity and digested it into a cultural void.

And that is what my head is like... blah, blah, blah... all the time! Does it even make sense? Or, am I delirious and distracted?

Maybe I'll hit on some of the other subjects that consume my thoughts later.

Until then, night-night.

Selma Lu Mela

All my dog wants to eat is apples.

She nibbles them from my hands with her four front teeth. She flips her ears back, which stretches her eyes to really thin slits and it is all she can do to sit still as my hand gets closer and closer to her mouth. She thinks they are special and so delicious and I get my pleasures out of her eating apples this way too. Her eyes cross in the cutest of ways as she stares at the apple in my fingers the whole while. She has been in love with the apple since she was about 4 weeks old. I said, “Nick, what is apple in Italian?” He said, “mela”. And this is how Selma became Selma Lu Mela.

Selma Lu Apple? No.

Selma Lu Mela? Much better.

The Lu came naturally. It happens when I talk to them. They get a middle name beginning with an L just because it ends up coming out of my mouth and… I don’t stop it from doing so. Shakti was “Shakti Locks”. China is “China Lingua” (sometimes China Ling in my head). And even our friend’s basset hound is, to me, “Sophie Loaf”. Yeh, I don’t know, it’s an oddity. But, they seem to like it okay.

The Selma came from me staring at her face and thinking, “What do you look like? What’s your name? Hmmm? What do you want to be called?” And “Selma” kept answering. Not Selma the pup, just Selma the word. It was there every time I asked. It matched her face. Her eyes rimmed in black to give them a distinct slanted and exotic look. But her constantly worried face, her furrowed brow, turned the mysteriousness of her lined eyes into tenderness and sensitivity that matches her personality. Selma. To Selma Lu. To Selma Lu Mela. Perfetto!

I think back to this naming of her because today I cooked her the same meal she survived on in Anguilla. She was very sick last night. She ate soft dog food, which she normally does not eat, and that mixed with other factors (that I’ll never exactly identify to avoid in the future- it is a puzzle) caused us all a very long, sleepless night. I won’t get into the details; I will not describe a thing, as you would no doubt gag. But, I spent a lot of time hand washing garments and bedspreads and Persian rugs. And the washing machine helped with all the other linens and non-precious materials. It was unbelievable, really, in the respect that she somehow “touched” every wool, barely worn, J.Crew coat, or cream colored Nanette Lepore jacket, or dry clean only wool sweater, metallic blend dress… the list goes on. The rugs that have to be dry cleaned, the bedspreads that are folded in such a way to be kept neat and out of the way… those were all things that acted as magnets to last nights tragic sequence of events. I looked up at one point and said, “It’s 4 A.M.?” Nick, half crazy, said, “Yes.” That’s about all he said. Selma was full-body shaking (something she climbs in my lap and does over big deals and not-so-big deals) and looked so pitiful that not once did I even raise my voice to her. I looked at her and looked at all these things I loved and there was no comparison. They can be substituted. Selma Lu Mela cannot.

This dog is so cautious that if her ball rolls near an air vent or by something of mine or by… the list goes on… she just lays down and stares at it until I become curious about where she is, search for her and find her patiently waiting for her toy to be placed in her “safe zone”. She walks the perimeter of the corridors only, close to the walls- she is scared of the floors. She jogs with me at night in the middle of the street only because she is scared of shadows. (Someone was standing in a shadow once, she couldn’t see them, and then they spoke. This is trauma for Selma!) She is like D. Zoolander every time she wants to come down stairs. She stops, lays down, darts, zigzags, then runs in a tight circle to the right about three to four times before she will walk the “plank” to the stairs. She is not fond of the wooden walkway from the stairs to our bedroom. This routine, I love! I laugh every single time she does this. Oh, and the number one most terrifying obstacle in Selma’s life is… The Trash Bag. The kitchen sized trash bag is cause for major concern for sweet Selma. I change a bag, she runs from the kitchen, hides under the table, then I say, “All clear, Selma. You can come back.” And she rounds the corner to carry on eating or whatever task she was in the middle of doing.

The Trash Bag, an Anguilla legend, a sure sign of puppies meeting their demise, their fate, their last moments. It is a tale passed from mommy to puppy at the moment of birth. “Stay away from The Trash Bag!” This is basic survival for dogs in Anguilla, where some people on the island take litters of puppies, put them in a trash bag or sack, tie it in a knot, and then they walk to a cliff and pitch the bag full of puppies over into the ocean. They don’t even give them the chance to survive. They drown them. So, you see, Selma’s fear of a trash bag I am convinced is more than a sign that she is paranoid. She is smart. And who knows what she escaped when she was only three weeks old and scampering blindly on a scorching hot coral reef island in the middle of the summer? I do not know. She is a survivor; that I do know. She didn't have much time to learn how to be a doggy from her mom. She’s been winging it, learning things from me and Nick, and then, China and Shakti (Shakti was a master teacher. She left Selma with a present- a little dot of a scar on her top lip from when Selma, unwelcome, put her nose in Shakti’s face when Shakti was curled in her basket getting her snooze on. Shakti didn’t mess around. She was smarter than us all.)

The story of Selma, the reduced version, goes like this:

Anguilla, BWI- Jeremiah Gumbs Highway

July, 2007

Nick is driving to his office and decides to take an unusual route, the longer route. He, probably while listening to Jack Johnson, is cruising island speed, and notices a little chipmunk cross the road. “There aren’t chipmunks in Anguilla.”, he says to himself. He pulls over, he walks in the direction of the chipmunk and, being curious, calls out to it. “Come here! tt, tt, tt.” (You know that noise, right? I have no clue how to write it.) Then, like a scampering, desperate, tiny rodent; it comes through the grass that is much taller than it, swaying and tripping, it cries “arr, arr, arr”.

And whom does the ‘chipmunk’ find on the other end of the journey to the unknown voice? Why, only one of the biggest dog lovers in the world. (It is a family trait. Cassini loves Canine. His brother, his father, his uncle: all animal lovers. His half-sister nursed a goat back to health in Nevis once. They are the real deal in pet rescue.)

And, what does Nick find at the end of his journey of curiosity? Why, only one of the most needy, sweetest puppies in the world. A match. Serendipity.

He picked her up to look at her. She had fuzzy blue eyes, basically a brand new pup, and started suckling on his finger. She was literally starving to death.

He walked to the nearest home. He knocked on the door and spoke to the woman who opened it, asking where the puppy came from and said I’m not here to give her back; I’m here to tell you, “I am taking her.” This woman, who could care less about any animal, said the house next door took the puppy from her mommy and litter and then threw her out in the yard to be a guard dog. They tried to burn her tail off; I’m assuming they thought this would make her look mean.

Nick then took her to the vet to get basic, proper care and fed her and got her a small cardboard box lined with towels to call home for the day. By the time he picked me up at Blowing Point Ferry Station, having before flown to St. Martin from Atlanta and then crossed the water to Anguilla, the puppy was asleep on her side, arms and legs sticking straight out, belly so full it looked like it was about to pop. This is the moment I first held her and during the drive to our house, I named her.

She did well. Then, she had a second relapse almost two weeks later. She was in really bad shape, nearly dead, and I was so in love with her already. I called my mom, she instructed me that rice in a little bit of chicken broth or water and plain boiled chicken might work. So, I tried it and it did work. The vet on the island was of no help, they kept her for one night, paid her no attention and she was worse than when we brought her in. The vet hadn’t even seen her, the lady at the desk said. Typical.

Things weren’t looking good and the response from many people was “some creatures are sick and maybe they aren’t supposed to survive.” That may be true. But, I didn’t want to hear it.

I will never forget the night. I stayed up all night, lying on my back with Selma on my chest. I could feel her heart beat and she was really hot. If I fell asleep I was afraid I would wake up and she might be dead, so I stayed up running words through my head asking God for her to survive and trying to give energy from my chest to her chest. If love heals, this is what did the trick because I tried to make my love a physical energy that would swallow up her illness. I would get up and try to give her water or food every two hours and when she sipped I would be even more hopeful. This is one moment that I believe captures Selma’s spirit. I walked to the kitchen in the dark, holding Selma close to me in my hand. She was burning up and weak and floppy. I opened the refrigerator and the light shined on her and she, just beginning to see, turned to me and gave me one heartfelt, sweet lick on the tip of my nose. She was seriously dying and she kissed my nose; she was giving me love. She is a giver. She is a tenderhearted, sensitive, silly, quirky, very smart, giver of a spirit.

The next morning was a turning point and she only got healthier from then on. I took her everywhere with me, even into the ice cream shop. There were no signs against it, so I was not breaking any rule, and the look on the face of the ice cream scooper was worth it. She was so curious, like “why would she want to hold that dog?” She looked at the dog in a different way than she ever had before, I could tell. Selma was still so little I could hold her in one hand, so it wasn’t a big deal in my opinion. She was like any accessory. I mean, people wear dead animals all over their neck and body… this is acceptable, but that is not? Which is grosser?

When it was time for Selma to come to the USA, a hurricane was approaching, so we were in a hurry. She sat in her cat carry case, rode to the ferry station, over the ocean, to another port, through an airport, to an airplane, through customs here in the States where she received a lovely welcome and “goochy goo goo” from the customs agent, and then was picked up and spent her first night at the house of our friends with four other huge dogs. 2 boxers, a shepherd mix, and a basset hound. Oh, and 1 yorkie. She was shocked, but happy. She escaped the island and was in dog lover land at last! The whole while, she hadn’t made a peep.

That is the short version of The Story of Selma Lu Mela. She still has a scar in the shape of an arrowhead above her tail on her back. But, she has come to love her scar. I rub jojoba oil or Vitamin E oil on it and that feels really good to her. Other than those key things she is weary of, like The Trash Bag, her days of survival on an island is a distant memory. She instead spent the rest of her puppy days discovering nature in the Chattahoochee National Forrest and napping to Andrea Bocelli, maybe wrestling China, until China realized Selma was growing and promptly put an end to that. Selma Lu deserves her luck.

And, I get the lovely moments of having Selma Lu Mela, and her fifty pounds of pure muscle, crawl on my chest and shiver when she feels ill. I get to comfort her. She remembers that turning point too, I think.

Love is many things. And caring less about Persian rugs and dressy coats so that I can give my care to the one who loves me back… that is real love.

Love is for many souls. And my Selma Lu Mela is definitely the proud owner of one pure, untarnished soul.

In the Christmas spirit of the season, I give thanks for that.