Brooklyn Hi

First week of January 2019

This is where the end begins. Our goodbyes started as we gave away our first piece of furniture. Friends in Los Angeles are expecting a baby and needing more organization. Knowing it would not fit in our Brooklyn apartment, we gave away the butcher block island. It was a real find at the time, the perfect size to add to almost any kitchen.

Giving a butcher block island to a celebrity chef feels good, like your things are moving up in the world. Like maybe I’ll see my butcher block under one of Sweet Potato Soul’s creations someday. One can always dream… It served me well in my novice efforts in the bachelor’s studio in Santa Monica where I met Kristin, but it has since been relegated to holding spare towels and Rufus’ dog toys in the nook next to the laundry in our first apartment together. Anything putting it back in the kitchen will be a step up from that.

It even feels like the apartment is saying goodbye to us. The heat only turns on intermittently, and for teasingly short spells. We can flick the switch as much as we like, but it has a mind of its own. And, yes, in January you do need heat in Los Angeles. Against reputation, Calif-f-f-fornia is a cold state – brrrr! The illusion is that it is always warm, so houses have poor insulation and little heating up and down the state. But, the truth is winter very much exists, even in coastal California, far from where the snow falls. It is coming for you everyday. It is called night-time – when darkness falls get ready to wish you were not wearing shorts or that light shirt that felt oh-so-good earlier. You are about to f-f-f-freeze. So, the apartment is letting us know that it is no longer going to keep us cozy. Maybe its feelings are hurt that we are moving on. The bathroom doorknob has also stopped latching closed and the door drifts open at the most inopportune moments. During a cold stop at the commode, that just feels spiteful.

So, after living here for the better part of 20 years I am leaving California. Strangely, I am returning to the same neighborhoods that twice nudged me West decades ago: Williamsburg-Greenpoint. I did my first professional gig in NY, a show at Cunningham studios, in 1998 and stayed somewhere off Wythe in an apartment that seems impossible now; it had two floors and four bedrooms – the three on the second floor were only used by people like me who needed a cheap (meaning free) place to stay – while the ground floor – a very outdated kitchen and cramped dining/living room with a bedroom just off of it – had barred, dirty windows and received all the heat, making it decrepit and cozy all at once. I made good friends with a rat in that apartment – we were roommates anyway… I wonder if he remembers me? I can’t remember the bathroom in that apartment at all – I think I’ve blocked it out.

The neighborhoods of Williamsburg-Greenpoint that I am returning to are much changed, as anyone in New York City can tell you. And I am much changed, as fewer people can tell you. I know all of them. But, they may be hard to get in touch with, and beyond them there may not be much ‘word on street’ about me. If you could talk to them, they’d say that the word on the street is that Mark is moving on up. I’ve been told I married above my station. I can say that I know I am a lucky guy, and not because I am moving into a nicer apartment than I ever could have imagined in Brooklyn. But, because of who I am moving with, who I am married to, and who I get to share this cross country adventure with: Kristin. She alone can make me feel like the luckiest person on earth. Brooklyn, here we come.

First week of February 2019

When you’re moving, you go through a lot of shit. Literally and figuratively.  Your house is disassembling; spaces where a couch or a desk or a bed once rested now opening into a wound where your life used to be.  You might wander into a room and wonder what used to be there…  something you were just looking for, but you can’t remember what that is…  So you try to remember by going through the list of shit you have to do, and then get hit by the shit you should have done, and don’t have time to do.   What were you thinking about again?

Anyway, while you’re going through all this shit, you have to simultaneously decide what is going with you and what you are leaving behind for good.   Forgotten sweatshirts, socks that should have been thrown out a while ago, that weird painting – a family heirloom – your wife hates, old t-shirts, old ways of thinking, identities that have been hanging unused in the closet for… how long has it been?  

I have this sweatshirt from when I was a coach for the Surf Academy.  For a year, I got up before 5am to warm up and eat enough to sustain me for three hours of surfing – the first two coaching the team, the last hour (or more if the waves were good) for myself and any coaches that could stay in the water.  I liked that time, being in the water that much, being there to give all the advice I could and then cheer the kids on as they challenged themselves and their skills grew.  It was the first team of kids I’d coached in a sport, and having the word COACH on my sleeve made me feel strangely proud.  

I am not a coach anymore, and I no longer get up and surf at 5am everyday.  When I did, I was not self-impressed by my skills as a surfer or motivator; the pride I felt in reading the letters C-O-A-C-H was not related to my ego.  Instead, I felt ennobled by the time I spent with each kid and the other coaches, building our trust for each other and in ourselves to be safe, to take care of each other, and have fun in the constantly changing ocean.  That is just one of the experiences I am grateful for, just one of the lives I lived, just one of the gifts my time in California has given me.

So, do I keep that sweatshirt?  Or, the Bandaloop t-shirts with myself and my dance partner that day in silhouette, billowing off a Dallas skyscraper, rendered as a graphic against an empty sky? Do I keep the extra copy of the master’s thesis in archetypal psychology that likely no-one will ever read?  The countless marked-up screenplays?   The many nautical t-shirts I was SUPER into while adapting a certain book about a particularly white whale?  The awesomely dorky t-shirts from my time as puppeteer at the La Brea Tar Pits and Natural History Museums?  The sandals from a street market in Johannesburg I picked up on my first international tour with Bandaloop?  The ‘SAVE THE ROCKS’ t-shirt from Hyderabad that I have from one of our tours to India?  

Every object carries a memory of a time when things changed for me, when my world got a little bigger, my understanding a little deeper, when friendships became more meaningful and when shared memories were made.  They’re just objects, but they remind me of those times, and those ‘me’s’ during those times, and they won’t remind me of those times again if I throw them out.  But, you can’t remember everything.  Memories peal away into time like echos without a wall to bounce back from…  No wall and the echo, the memory, fades away into the distance.

I came to California and started my life as a dancer, a puppeteer, a writer, and whatever else I am….  it all took shape here.  And now I am leaving.  It’s like taking off a big sweatshirt in which the sun shines, smog and smoke sometimes blow, but then rain falls hard and clears the air, the sun sets into the sea and the night smells like jasmine, Mission Burritos, and tomorrow’s Blue Star Donuts; where waves break, mountains climb high into the Sierra air, and the desert scratches at the sky with Joshua Trees; where LA sprawls, San Francisco preens, and Oakland looks off like a disinterested hipster; where people chase their dreams and sometimes catch them.  All that and more in one big sweatshirt that says CALIFORNIA across the chest.

Other people will wear the sweatshirt and play the California game.  They’ll team up, have wins and losses, make their way until they forget they’re wearing the CALIFORNIA shirt and keep it on forever, or pass it on, just as I have.  I am letting go of a lot of shit – many shirts have been cast away, and the memories they held will now have to fend for themselves. I look back into the gaping wound of a house where my wife, my dog and myself used to make our life every day and think, ‘I am going to miss you California – I hope to remember every important thing you have given me!’  My thoughts echo off the blank walls, looking for a home.  As I go, I take some comfort knowing the space will be healed by the next people that will live and dream there.    

First week of March 2019

To love a dog is a delicate thing. A dog can fool you into thinking it is rough and tumble, just this side of wild, a durable creature.  But, they are so vulnerable.  When Kristin first mentioned that we should get a dog, she wanted a Pomsky.  That’s a cross between a Pomeranian and a Husky.  She reckoned it would represent us well: the Colorado boy by the snow dog; the New York City girl by the puffy toy dog.  We searched, and looked at rescues, but never found a Pomsky or our perfect match in a dog.

Then I saw a picture on the dog dating equivalent of Tinder, AllPaws.  I’d swiped right on a dog that just caught my eye.  He was black and white, tan and gray, and seemed to have a real soul behind his eyes.  When we met Rufus, we were told he was an Australian Shepherd and Border Terrier mix.  I grew up with Aussies in Colorado, and Kristin’s family had a Jack Russell terrier in New York.  More than a Pomsky, Rufus, it seemed, was the true blend of our origins.

I knelt down to say hello for the first time and he put his paw on my knee and looked me in the eye for a long moment.  Then he looked up at Kristin and wagged his tail like he knew her.  His foster said she’d never seen him do this before; he was usually more shy, and men in particular made him skittish. This little pear shaped dog that was kept in a pen all day, and with a history of abuse to boot, seemed to have chosen us.  And we, in turn, chose him.

He came home to us on March 4, 2017.  And we were in love from the start.  His quirks, his funny walk, his moody countenance, his incredible patience and mellow demeanor, his mohawk, his little old man face and tasseled ears.  He truly was the perfect dog for us.  He rousted us from bed every morning at dawn and wouldn’t settle for less than an hour of roaming the neighborhood.  He brought us out of our shells in that way, giving us a new routine that made us cross paths with new people.  For some reason, when you had no reason to talk to people before, people wanted to say hello and chat about your dog, the neighborhood, and life.

Rufus’ favorite spot was The Modern Dog, a shop that has since closed in our old neighborhood. Though he liked everyone there, Taya Miracle was his favorite person to find at the counter, behind the register, always ready with a treat.  She recognized something in him too, and soon singled him out as one of her favorites, as well.  When I brought him in, just after giving him a short hair cut for summer, she looked at his back and gasped.  He has angel wings, she told me.  I looked and indeed saw what looked more like a giant butterfly shape in the fur on and around his shoulder blades.  That’s special, she said, not all dogs have that, and the ones that do are here for a reason.

We knew from the start that Rufus would bring Kristin and me closer.  Some people scoff at the notion, but he was like a starter kid.  We collaborated on his care and training.  We adjusted to better practices when we saw his health or behavior slipping.  We laughed with him, we hiked with him, we cuddled with him, and we missed him when he needed space in the other room.  For the most part, we respected his time cuddled in the corner of the couch in the living room as his own.  But, he was always game for a hike.

I proposed to Kristin on a hike with Rufus in the Santa Monica Mountains.  It was a magical day, but Rufus came back with so many ticks.  We removed each one, laughing at the irony that this would be how we’d spend part of the romantic day I had planned.  We knew we needed to get him tested for any tick born diseases, and when we did they found he was positive for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a disease that has about a one in a million occurrence rate in California, and was something he caught in his first rough years before we rescued him.  It took a strong bout of antibiotics, and we had to give him water subcutaneously because the dosage put him off eating or drinking.  But the diagnosis explained his funny walk, and when we cleared the infection, his hips became less and less stiff.  We hiked him more and his pear body morphed into a svelte tank that happily trotted the streets of Venice.

Rufus had several walks in his repertoire, gaits that we named. Trotter McGee was his happiest way of wandering the neighborhood. But, he also could be more low-key; when his barrel chest swayed lazily and his paws plopped on the sidewalk, we called him Waddles McDogsworth. After a while on the trail, his tongue could hang out, his breath sped up, and his eyes looked at you longingly for water, and then we knew him as Thirsty McGillicutty. Similar to this was his triggered state, when someone’s appearance or behavior reminded him of his tormentor from before he was rescued. In those moments Rufus could become Ruthless, and we spent many hours trying to calm and heal this troubled part of him. Most of all, Rufus loved to run – at full speed, he was breathtaking.

When we decided to move to Brooklyn, resilient as he was, we knew it might still be tough for him.  We spent time there with him beforehand to be sure he would like the neighborhood, and he did.  He loved Tom Stofka’s garden and the other dogs in McCarren Park, which is right out the door.  As long as we could get him to the new apartment, we thought he would be content.  For us, he was the one friend we made in California that we would not have to leave behind. More than that, he made us a family.

We softened the blow of leaving California with a couple of weeks in Fallbrook, where my parents have retired to a home with a few acres and a grapefruit grove.  He loved to chase rabbits and dig for mice in the field.  As did coyotes; a large lone male had been patrolling the property regularly in broad daylight.  I got paranoid, watched Rufus close, and yelled all the louder for him when he disappeared on one of his chases.  He gave me some scares, but he always came back.

Kristin and I had one of our biggest fights when I yelled for him with anger and fear in my voice, having heard a car and knowing he had started ranging down to the road.  She didn’t know he had grown so bold and didn’t understand my mad parent voice coming out so strongly.  It was a bit of a moment, where the stress of leaving infected us and we got angrier than we should have at each other, and I was the guiltier of us both.

We carried that stress as we journeyed East, but found some solace when we stopped for a sojourn in the land where we exchanged vows around Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It snowed, we skied, snowboarded, hiked, and Rufus reveled.  He has always taken to snow with an abandon that betrays origins beyond the Los Angeles basin.  He leapt and sprinted and cavorted in the powder and fluff, and he never seemed happier.  We all left New Mexico a little sad, wondering when we would return.  

Our first stop after New Mexico was a cold night in Amarillo.  Something in the humidity made the chill run deep.  I said something about it in the elevator ride with a Texas native.  He said, that’s just Amarillo reminding you it’s Amarillo.  I understood that the hard character of the place we chose for a one night stop-over also runs deep, and the people take a certain pride in that.

An ice storm hit us in Oklahoma City. But a day in the car is a day in the car. Knowing he would need exercise before we set off, I suited up and took him for a run. Balancing with each step, we passed suburban yards with tornado shelters and hunting hounds tearing at the fence to get at us. After crossing a bridge sheathed in ice, we found a park where we could run a few laps. When we left, we delicately crossed the bridge again and then I picked up the pace. My foot slipped stepping on a curb and I went down on my knees and hands hard. Rufus regarded at me, worried. I answered his look by popping to my feet as best I could. He still looked at me and then shook his body from head to tail, like a dog just does just out of a bath to shed water, then continued to gaze up at me. I did the same, laughing a bit as I took his lead, and tried to shake the pain and surprise of the fall out of my body. And, we kept running.

When we finally reached South Carolina, we were tired.  Rufus had been great in the car – he even added the cows out the window to his fascination with other four-legged creatures – but the boredom of it, even with his hour walks in the morning, was beginning to wear on him and us.  We could feel him wondering when we would stop, when we would be home.  He had been edgy ever since watching his home in Venice dismantle around him.  We wished we could somehow have communicated where the journey was taking us – I think knowing would have settled him.

I took him out for the walk before our last big day of driving.  After the long ride to DC, it would be a relatively short drive to finish our journey in New York.  This was going to be our longest day yet and I wanted Rufus to have some exercise.  He’s good off leash, it was a quiet Sunday morning, and the yard is full of bushes and trees at my cousins where we were staying.  Sure enough he stirred something up in a shrub and was darting around inside the hedgerow with glee.  He came out fired up.  Then he saw a squirrel on the other side of the yard, locking in on it right as I heard the first car I had that morning, and it was coming fast.  I screamed ‘no.’  I screamed it so many times I cannot remember.  I didn’t clap or say ‘leave it’, commands that sometimes get his attention – I was already scared and seeing the terrible geometry unfold too quickly.

The squirrel ran across the street instead of to a nearby tree, Rufus followed with total abandon, and as the car hit him I collapsed and immediately stood up again, sprinting to my stunned little dog as he fought to find his feet, and the offending vehicle sped away.  I screamed ‘I’m sorry’ more times than I screamed ‘no,’ as I carried him back across the street and my cousins drove us to the animal hospital.  I wish I could tell you this ended differently.  We were supposed to arrive in Brooklyn as a family.  The Veterinarian was pessimistic at first, then cautiously optimistic.  Rufus’ vitals crashed five hours later.  He died on March 3rd, 2019, just a day shy of our two year anniversary with him, and far too young at around 3 1/2 years.

The Vet said there was nothing else we could have done, he was just a dog being a dog.  She was right, and I could have kept him on a leash that morning.  I could have prioritized his safety on the trip over his happiness that day.  I could have been more aware that I was substituting his happiness for my own as we made this tough move away from everything I have known for the past two decades.  In Bandaloop, we would be doubly safe in new situations, new environments, especially if there were any slight changes in protocol – change can conceal or easily mask dangers you were aware of in more familiar environments.  He was a dog being a dog, and I could have been a better friend and keeper to him that day.  And, I am human; it is in my humanity that I hope to find forgiveness and move beyond this day with some grace and greater wisdom.

I won’t act like I loved him any less to make this easier.  I love Kristin more than ever, as she has been real with her feelings, but never blamed me for this terrible accident.  She was his favorite person, and their bond was a special zenith of love.  And now, she has turned to me, not letting me blame myself, and to her I will be forever grateful.

We buried him together on my Aunt and Uncle’s land, in a spot my Uncle helped us choose, in a big yard full of trees that he would have loved with people that he liked very much.  We buried him below a Ginkgo tree – for memory – next to a Redwood – for California.  We buried him deep in the thick red clay, laid him to rest in his bed, and my Aunt planted daffodils on his burial mound as a soft rain finished out the storm that had started right when he died.  The sky cleared a bit as we finished, catching the last bit of the setting sun in the treeline to the west.

I have been listening for him since, looking for him at every turn.  The jingle of his collar, his sigh as he stretches out of bed.  I didn’t want to sleep too deeply that night, in case I would forget that he’d left us and then woken up looking for him.  In my light sleep, I dreamt that he was looking at me from his bed, confused and broken.  I told him he couldn’t stay with us anymore, that he had to move on.  Then we were in a field of marigolds and poppies, bright orange and yellow, walking to a horizon brighter still, filled by a sun that stretched across half the sky and filled the landscape with a gentle roar.  I could see us from above then, running through the field toward the light, him leading the way.  No offense to anyone, but I don’t believe in any one god described in the books that so many hold as holy.  But, I do believe I saw Rufus move on to a better place, to find what I hope is an even better home.  Maybe it was just a dream to make me feel better, and maybe that’s all I have right now.

…

The morning we left South Carolina and Rufus’ resting place behind:

I showered after Kristin had finished in the bathroom and went to wipe a small clearing in the large foggy mirror so I could see my tear worn eyes. I hadn’t realized the mirror was hanging from – rather than mounted on – the wall, and it wobbled. There was a loud crash as a bottle of make-up fell from the counter to the floor and broke… But what had made it fall? I searched the counter and found there a broken ceramic angel. It had been balanced on the mirror’s frame. It was a small, somewhat primitive looking statue of a woman robed in white with wire wings, more like a butterfly’s, sprouting from her back. And in her arms she held a dog, the break right at the dog’s tail and across her torso. It was like a scene from a Hallmark movie and it was real all at the same time. Like the moment Rufus was hit, I fell to the ground. Kristin heard the crash, and my falling and crying, ‘I broke our angel,’ over and over again. She came in and put her hands on me, telling me over and over it was an accident.

I eventually recovered enough to apologize to my Aunt. She told me not to worry; there was an angel similar to that one in every room of the house and many had suffered similar fates and been glued back together by my Uncle. It was just hard for it to have been this particular angel, holding the dog as it was, on this particular morning, she noted. She thought for a moment with an understanding smile, then spoke. ‘I’ll let you work out the symbolism for yourself.’

First week of April 2019

I’ve been living life with my tail tucked between my legs for the past weeks.  No secret why.  I miss our dog.  Standard moving woes – missing friends and the home we had in Venice, waiting through mounting construction delays to be able to move in and set up shop in Brooklyn – would all feel smaller, less impactful, if we had Rufus around.   Losing him is tough to live with…  

It seems almost intuitive to push the sadness away, but the trick, I think, is to stay with it.  I am still so sad not to hear Rufus breathing when I sleep at night, not to have him there every morning when I wake up, and not to see his and Kristin’s joy every time they greet one another.  I miss taking walks with him throughout the day.  Once you’ve walked a dog like Rufus, it is tough to take yourself for a walk; it is too painful to walk alone.  Kristin and I try to take walks together – we took one everyday in the first weeks after his death – and I have taken back to running again.  Running was a pursuit through all of my teens, but it drew to a halt when I started training as a dancer.  Though it makes for tighter hamstrings, it is both meditative and somewhat punishing, and that feels good right now.  The pain is there with each step, and it seems like it could end if I just stopped running.  But it would still be there, hiding just a few strides away, waiting for the next time my heart beat with urgency in a moment of difficulty and strain.  The only way to get through the pain, and find the other side, is to stay with it and keep running, keep breathing, as if you’re heading towards something with each painful step, even if you don’t know what that something is…  hopefully not a heart attack.

I am getting older and approaching a big birthday.  44…  44.  Seems significant.  It would be nice if the anniversary signaled some change.  After the turning of another year – though it is hard to imagine feeling at home right now – I am hoping when we finally move in to Brooklyn in early May, that we will start to settle and continue to heal.

In the meantime, we are going on the Colorado River.  Time to simply go with the flow on a river that literally carves through the sands of time, reaching some of the deepest, oldest layers of exposed rock on earth: the Vishnu, Brahma and Rama Schists.  They are from 1.7 billion years ago, when life was just beginning its journey to today; back then, there were no dogs, or people to miss them.  By some strange luck, we were invited down the lower half of the Grand Canyon – where those ancient rocks peek out at the Inner Gorge – with people I’ve met through my screen-writing mentors, film-makers and artists, all.  We’ve been once before – with my mentors down the same stretch of river – and the trip changed me and Kristin, made us more of who we are together today.

It truly is a strange piece of luck to be invited again: we would not have gone had we had Rufus, but this may be the best way to have space to heal and to be able to come back to Brooklyn with fresh eyes less clouded by grief. We would have chosen the former unequivocally, but as we are here, without him, we are glad to be getting away. I think we’re both hoping this time the trip will help us to remember who we were before we found Rufus, brought him into our life together and then lost him, and to realize the joy we can still share now having known and loved him, even after saying goodbye too soon.

Right now what we have most in common is our sadness for what once was and what we’d imagined the present would be. Even though it is not what we’d hoped, I think the trick is to stay with it.  I am not sure what’s ahead, but I think there is something as yet unseen, maybe just downstream, that we can look forward to… we just have to let the flow of time do its work on us and keep putting one foot in front of the other, feeling all the pain that comes with the journey, to get there.

First week of May 2019

I didn’t realize how numb I was to everything until Crystal, a rapid in the lower Grand Canyon that snakes and snarls, a full mile of white water.  I was looking able enough to the guides that they didn’t object to me and another good friend taking duckies – inflatable kayaks – through this particularly treacherous stretch.  We followed the paddle boat, with its captain and six paddlers into Crystal, but the first three waves swallow you and you lose sight of anything downstream, then the third wave spits you out, right when you should make a critical and hard right turn to avoid a huge hole.  At that moment I looked down the fall to see a completely empty paddle boat and swimmers everywhere.  My hesitation at the sight was just the time that huge hole needed to suck me in.  I fought to stay upright – and was later told by an upriver party watching our struggle that it was a good fight he thought I might win – but flipped anyway.  In water that strong, there’s really nothing to do but go with the motion, in this case a repetitive, jolting spin cycle, with no hint as to which way was up…

I had a bit of time down there, traveling a good distance of the rapid under water, with no promises of coming to the surface.  Though it’s nothing to dwell on, Crystal has definitely claimed lives before mine, and is one of the canyon’s most respected and feared stretches of water.  I wasn’t thinking about this during my time underwater.  I wasn’t really thinking.  Thinking would have applied a logic to the situation that could only result in a massive fear that I might never see the surface again.  Instead I experienced a detached awareness with a ticking clock of oxygen to fuel it…

I would like to say I came up with a new appreciation for life, but after losing Rufus, my appreciation for life and my regret for its loss were both piqued.  When I came up, I came up fighting.  Thinking clearly and reacting to my surroundings, I swam a better line in the rapid than I had started in my boat.  Avoiding a headwall that can pin you between rapid and rock, I actually recovered my craft before the white water was over and got myself back in, though with only my hands to paddle.  As I came in to the beach where we were regrouping, two parties above ran into trouble, flipping an oar boat and entrapping a dory.  Crystal was hungry that day.

One of the paddlers in our party had a similar swim to mine – the hole, the hold down and being swept toward the deadly head wall – and came out of the rapid rightly terrified and exhausted.  This guy was a life-long surfer and more experienced in big water than me, and he was horrified while I was…  cold?  I didn’t feel much but that.  I wasn’t in shock. I wasn’t particularly grateful or particularly frightened.  I was numb.  Though my appreciation of life was stoked by the loss of Rufus, my feeling for life was dampened by that same loss.  To feel, you have to feel it all, the good and the bad, and losing Rufus still just feels so bad.

From one perspective, life is all about digesting our experiences and using that nourishment to live each day better, or at least more wisely, than the last.  But, I am still stumped on how to digest loss, how to digest absence.

In this confounded time, we have arrived and moved into our renovated apartment in Brooklyn.  I know I am fortunate to be landing in this great neighborhood into a nest of unearned luxury, but one part of me is still not here.  Instead, I am at a loss, upstream in time from Crystal and the whole canyon trip, stuck in a morning in South Carolina.  The worst morning in my memory.  I think I need some therapy.  Do you think there are therapists in New York?  You bet.  

Let the healing begin, I say.  Let the celebration of Rufus’ life and my love for him carry me into the next chapter, I say.  Let the adventure in NYC unfold, I say.  I have to say it, because it is tough to feel it.  The happiest days of my life so far were spent with Kristin and Rufus in Venice.  Our happiness as a family gave me the optimism to make this move.  Now, I need to honor that optimism and try to make a real go of it here.  That means being a better partner to Kristin, one not so wrought by grief.  That means, eventually, opening our home to another dog that needs rescue.  It is such great home and neighborhood for a dog, and though it pains me to see what Rufus is missing, it is still a home we can offer to a canine friend.

After a time, and a bit more healing, I know I will resurface to my all of my feelings.  I hope to be brave enough to love another dog as fully as I loved Rufus.  A rapid can take your life, hold it in peril, and then give it back.  A dog you love wholly and completely can be lost in a single moment on a morning when it seemed nothing could go wrong.  How do I feel about that?  I guess I’ll let you know.

 A letter to a friend from June 2019

Sweet friend,
Thank you for your wonderful message.  Your condolences are a comfort and you need not worry about re-opening a wound…

 In truth, it has been a suffering spring full of the bitterest realizations of loss.  Rufus…  was the source of so much joy and growth for me and Kristin; his absence is felt daily since that sad March morning in South Carolina, where he was lost.  I haven’t been doing so well amidst all of this; the challenges of relocating from my 20 year home of California dwarfed and compounded by the loss.  Still, time has passed and our healing has slowly taken root; we are hopeful summer will bring a change of mood with the season…

The day after I received your message on the Solstice, I had a strange feeling of happiness mixed in with the pain that has been so constant.  The love that seemed to pool and sour when it could no longer flow to Rufus somehow broke through and found a runnel of hope.  It really was strange – I had an excitement in me, a feeling, that I would see him, again, in a place and time beyond calendars and maps.  Maybe it was the desperate salve of an uniformed and blind faith, but it felt real.  There will still be tears – I woke up just last night crying from a dream of him – but I am starting to find an uncomplicated gratitude for the time I had with him, and to let go of the confusion and resentment for the end of it.

Brooklyn, and the rest of NYC beyond, is a whole world of its own, waiting to be explored.  Our apartment is quite nice and has been made more so by Kristin’s design work.  She has a knack for hygge – the space is as inviting as it is beautiful.  With McCarren Park right outside, it is a rare and comfortable first foothold to have in this storied city.

I hope things are good for you in Santa Cruz.  I have warm memories of our last stay there, and so I imagine you and the girls in happiness.

As you left me with a poem, I will do the same.  This gave me a sense of the fulfilled meaning that may exist beyond the dissatisfying reasons for Rufus’ death:

Love Dogs

One night a man was crying Allah! Allah! His lips grew sweet with praising,
until a cynic said, “So!
I’ve heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?”

The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls, in a thick, green foliage.

“Why did you stop praising?” “Because I’ve never heard anything back.”

“This longing you express is the return message.”

The grief you cry out from draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness that wants help
is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog for its master. That whining is the connection.

There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.

Give your life
to be one of them.

– Rumi

So much love to you.  Thank you for reaching out – it was timely and helpful to hear from you.  Your hugs are felt.  Know, you are always welcome at the edge of McCarren Park in Brooklyn.

As ever,
Mark

 Mid July 2019

Last night, my mind raced with vision-dreams of attempting to reprogram time, with a sense Rufus is still alive, just removed from us by a thin layer and in a near dimension.  Probably, I’m infected by too many Marvel movies.  Like trying to solve a Rubix cube, I kept turning and shifting my time perception, plugging ephemeral coordinates into a confused timeline, hoping that I could issue a new result and bring him back.  I never did.  The dream then shifted to a visible location, an abandoned parking garage situated at the edge of a Redwood chasm.  From the crumbling cement, I locked eyes with a coyote in the open who then bolted into the steep ravine.  I realized Kristin and her friend Katey – who wore a pack and the demeanor of Dora the Explorer (again too many movie previews, I suppose…) –  were with me.  In pursuit of the coyote, Katey bound into the lush void and dropped down to the unseen forest floor that a wall of massive tree trunks grew up from, pillars of brown bark and green moss that promised there was a bottom to the canyon.  I approached the edge and gazed down at the vertiginous depths, but then heard the whine of pups and realized I was standing on a hollow.  I knelt and looked directly below me and found a den that the coyote had escaped into to protect her young.  I slowly backed away, not wanting to disturb her and her litter, and told Kristin what I saw.  I then called out to the trees and air, telling Katey the coyote was safe, and to stop her chase.  We next heard Katey good-naturedly grunt with effort as she scaled the valley wall, hand-over-handing up a fixed rope with a dog with no fur that looked like it was made of clay, limp and with eyes closed, over her shoulder.  She seemed proud of what she’d found.  As she lay the dog down, and Kristin and I watched, its skin sprouted with flower petals and it came to life, like a living pink Chia Pet, wagging its tail, its tongue a single, larger flower petal lolling out of its happy mouth.  It had to be pet gently, but nestled into our affection with its delicate pink body.  Kristin started to cry and as she looked at me, I realized I was crying as well, a sob awakening me, the flower petals scattering, as my body brought me out of the dream…

Time and the therapy have made my sadness less debilitating.  EMDR – I recommend it to anyone working through trauma – and ‘rage writing’ – an excellent exercise my therapist recommended – have broken me down with exhaustion and given me headaches that hurt profoundly but strangely feel like they are putting me back together.  Though I don’t feel so familiar to myself as to be fooled that I have returned to the person I was when we were a happy family, before we left Venice, I am carrying the love from that time with less sadness and more hope for what lies ahead.  In the near term, I think that means a trip with Kristin, to get out of the city’s heat, to a swimming hole and some shady woods.