Caillte 3

Mairy was just settling down to a cup of tea after her less than satisfying dinner of re-heated stew, when she heard a familiar if unexpected sound just outside the cabin.  She scrambled up from her chair and brushed down her skirts before heading for the door.  Patting her hair into place she opened the door wide, a smile there to welcome her Thom.  She looked up, then out to the right and to the left.  Where the devil was the man?  Then she felt the nudge at her hip.  The familiar nuzzle that had to be her Conn.  She reached down and gave him a scratch behind the ears, still peering about looking for Thom.  Not seeing him, she kneeled down, "Well then, where has he gone and hidden himself?"

"Och, ye aren't goin to tell me know are ye?  Been off on the hunt with my fool man, an now I'll have to tease ye back to me side? Is that the way of it?  Well, now, come on it and we'll see who has who wrapped around a pinky," Mairy smiled as she lead the way into the house.  She went over to the cupboard and pulled down the tin where she kept the hound's biscuits.  Twas a good thing she had taken the time to bake and fill the tin to brimming.  She turned, surprised to find that Coll had followed Conn in.  It wasn't often that the grey came into the house. He preferred to be out of doors, only coming in on truly chill nights to share the fire with his brother.  She sighed, and pulled out an extra biscuit.  "One for each of ye rascals then, I guess," she mumbled as she fed them each a treat.

Walking to the door she waved them out, "Now tis' your turn to give me a treat.  Take me to Thom loves."

The hounds moved through the door and down the short steps to the ground.  They walked as far as Cait's pen and then turned and sat.  Their mangy heads turned a bit sideways, the beards of their chins wagging just a bit.  Mairy noticed that Kevin and Finn were already in their pen, resting as if the trip had been long, too long for them to bother with trying to finagle a treat of their own.

That as very odd.  The pack almost always made a bee-line for her to claim their treat for bringing Thom home safe and sound.  Where the hell was the man?  And where was Cait for that matter?

She whistled for Cait.  Mairy had bonded to the she-hound when she saved her and her pups over a year or so ago.  They spent a good deal of time together.  Cait even stayed in to listen to the books she read to Conn.  It was odd how the hound had changed after the whelping, she was far more motherly to these two pups than she had been to any of the ones that had come before, that was a certainty.  And Mairy found that she liked the gentler Cait a great deal more.  She whistled again, but still the hound did not appear. She looked over at the pens, where Kevin and Finn lay with their heads down on their paws, eyes on her all the same and where Conn and Coll sat, now turned away from her to stare into Cait's pen as if she might be in there somehow.

She walked over to them, moving to stand between them.  The two hounds stood and leaned into her, one to each hip.  She scratched them beneath a shaggy ear.  "Somethin's happened hasn't it.  Some strange thing that cannot be explained, but there it is anyway.  Only you canna be tellin me anything more than silence and absence.  If ye are here and they are not, then I best be getting ready to go look for them, eh?  An I am of the thought that ye best plan on comin' wi' me."

She crossedt to the house in quick strides, her eyes glazing with unshed tears.  Opening the door she turned to the younger hounds, now on their feet and peering up under their bushy brows at her.  "Well, in or out, ye can't have it both ways.  I can give ye a night to rest as I get me stuff together, but on the morrow we will have to be gone.  And ye are gonna need to help me.  Goodness knows I ha' not a clue what I am supposed to do at this point."  The hounds moved with a quiet, soft pad over the ground and up into the house, going at once to lay down before the hearth..  Mairy closed the door.

She ran her hands over the smooth wood, then rested her cheek against it.  "Please give me the strength and the courage to stand through this trial.  Help me to find Thom, let me not give up on my journey," she whispered against the wood.  Rubbing a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand, she made her way to the small cellar and began to gather the small supplies she thought she would need and could carry.  It took her about an hour and a half to pull together what she thought she would need and then to set aside what she knew she would not be able to carry alone for long enough to make taking it along worth while.  Finally, she sat down in her chair next to her now very cold tea.  Conn moved to rest his muzzle in her lap.  She stroked his head and let her head drop against the back of the chair. She felt Coll at her other side, a hard edge pressing into her arm.  Looking down she was surprised to see the hound was nosing her book.  "Well, wonders truly abound, tis not like you at all to seek a story Master Coll.  I wasna thinkin of readin tonight, but perhaps a page or two will help."

She sat back in the chair and opened the book, beginning to read the Tale of Oisin outloud to the two hounds that lay at her feet, their eyes resting upon her.  She made it only a few short passages before the tears fell again and she had to set the book aside. "I'm sorry boyos, not tonight.  It's for bed I am. best get your rest, we'll be off to find Thom in the morning." She tamped the fire and pulled a blanket up over her on the chair, curling up to catch the last bit of heat and praying that sleep would come to her as easily as it would to the hounds at her feet.

On Leaving No Trace

This week has been like the proverbial bear *&$#ing in the woods - only the woods have been my office and house.  Pick a personal space and that damn bear has left it behind.  You would think that as I am kind enough to leave no trace when I visit his home, he could be as kind to me.  But as he is a metaphorical bear - I guess he has limits to his training in etiquette. 

That is the long way of saying I have had a CRAPPY week.  But underneath it all I have actually had a pretty good one too. 

I know, I KNOW, that this is a very odd thing to say.  But really - as totally beary smell worthy as this week has been, it has also had a surprising amount of truly great moments.  I suppose you just have to bag a lot of bear-poop to find out how many people really do have your back.  I have to admit it was a pleasant surprise to see the number of shovels and baggies that came forward to help me this week.  I guess not everyone is afraid of a bit of metaphorical caca getting on their hands if it means helping a friend or a colleague out.

I suppose I never realized that I had that support system around me.  It was pretty wonderful to discover it.  Though I would have to say I would definitely advocate for not getting totally dumped on as a method for inspiring the gift of this wonderful knowledge.

I am, as a result, feeling both trodden on and lifted upward at the same time.  I suppose if I can have a metaphorical bear messing things up, I can also manage two such opposed emotions at the same time.  Better to be wholly cracked then half-cracked.  And for those of you that know me - well I know you know I pretty much don't doing anything in half measures.

So while I apply the liniment to the week's bruises I sit here smiling.  Somehow content that the *&$# has been cleared and that I know, should that damn bear come back, I won't be alone on clean-up duty. 

Have a great weekend - and if you go for a spot of camping - metaphorically or otherwise - remember the guiding principal - Leave No Trace - afterall it is what you would want in your personal space too.

Hello, Hello, Hello - Is there Anybody Out There? Anybody In Here?

Having one of those days.  The kind where it doesn't really matter how many people you talk to or emails you respond to - you just feel incredicably existentially alone.

I can't say that my head feels like a big balloon - but the world sort of seems like one - or a giant fish bowl that - I am on the outside of.  Which is why I can see the lips moving, but I don't have a clue what those fish are saying.  Well it could be that I don't speak "Aqua" or that they aren't really making waves so they aren't really coming through at all.

As for anybody in here?  Hell, I think I am, but that is only because I can see the letters emerge on the screen as I type.  Otherwise - this is all just like some kind of mirage.  This day lacks the basic fetters of feeling human enough to be connected. 

Without the occasional comment from co-workers, I would swear I was not visible at all.  I have definitely not become comfortably numb.

Though I think perhaps I would like to do so.  It would make this existential funk much easier to bear.

I just want to feel like I am attached.  I so would like to know that I am not trying desperately to believe that there is a horizon I can look to and find substance. Unfortunately the highway outside my window seems to be adrift in a sea of similarly anchorless wayfarers.  There they are traveling at top speed, nothing but the orange construction cones to keep them between the lines. 

Can they feel how dysfunctional this day has become?  Or is it only me - disconnected in my own space?  I would suspect the latter.  Yet on the elevator only moments ago I could swear the eyes of my fellow occupant were just as glazed and vacant as my own.

Perhaps it is the lull of the constant rain.  Or perhaps it is the droning of our computers as we sit before them hour after hour - maybe it is the building itself - reaching out with contaminated breath to steal us from ourselves and trap us in its granite slabs. 

What drives any one to feel isolated?  What provided the impetus for the creation and definition of the word existential?  I used to think (and to some extent still do) that it came from giving birth.  That the one time where a human feels totally connected to another is when they are carrying a child inside them - and the one time when they come face to face with the unilaterable truth that they can never and will never be wholly connected to another entity, truly mentailly fused, is at the moment of birth.  When the child takes its first breath, and the mother realizes that they do not know that little person any better than they know anyone else.  They may only love them more because they have held them closer, but they cannot know their thoughts before they are spoken - and even then they may not understand. - Hence the pain and the freedom of existentialism.  The gift of being completely an individual and the condemnation of always being on your own - even when you are with others.

Please do not misconstrue this commentary to decry the concept of love, trust and relationships.  You can have these - but even those who know you best will never know all of you (you probably never will either so suck it up) - and there will almost assuredly be times when you do not communicate well a thought - and hence they believe you have said something that is contradicted by what you actually think or feel.  It happens. 

But today - today - I don't think I could bridge any gap at all, not even one with myself.  And perhaps that is not so bad afterall.  Perhaps I just need a break from the think-tank of being.  Everyone deserves a vacation - even if they take it from themselves.

So - call tomorrow and the answer is likely to be - Yep, come on in and sit a spell -
How's your existential self treating you today? Is there anybody in there?

Keep your hands on the Wheel.........

Taking the day to spend with Mom and the boys.  Trying to figure out where to go where we will all have fun - given the potential impending rain - without back tracking over territory that we have visited time and time again.

Think I have found a little swiss town on the outskirts of town that will work.  It has the opportunity for a nature hike - Which we will all enjoy and must admit the exercise is well overdue.  If the rain falls we have an antique shop - which I think will fit all of us as long as there is a book section, a glass section and a furniture section.  We should all be occupied then.  Also included is a cheese and chocolate specialty shop and a winery - with three of us at drinking age I think the last will definitely work well.  A range of restaurants - though I think they will weigh heavily to German/Swiss fare.  Oh well - that is what the exercise is for.

The roads there wind quite a bit - and as I recall this is the area where we learned that smart cows pasture to the right and less mentally endowed cows to the left.  Can't really explain this - but it is a family myth that has stayed with us over time.  The good news is that if we travel back on the same roads the cows of lesser intelligence do seem to magically become enhanced on the return trip!

Looking forward the excursion.

Just have to peal the cats off of Mom now.  They seem to be magnetically drawn to her lap.  Guess they like having her around and are trying to convince her she belongs in that spot on the sofa (I concur).

So off we go - I just have to remember to keep my hands on the wheel - and my eyes on the road - rather than on my camara - Hope one of the boys will man the lens for me.

Ciao  from cow country..........enjoy your weekend and hug the ones you love!