Clearing Webs

To Still Love My Dog

I've cleaned his poop. I've shampooed his pee. I've shaved his hair. I've scraped up his vomit. I sleep with this dog, take trips to the park just for him, kiss his slimy nose. I struggled with my affections during the periods of pooping in the playroom. But love is an action, right? And those feelings soon swoon their way back to the top.

Well, now he's just broken my heart. We're talking tears here. Irrational melodramatic tears, yes, but tears nonetheless. My sweet, trusted friend dug in my garden! *Pause for gasps here.* That's right. Gnawed my best pumpkin vine and completely ate my best bell pepper plant. Completely. I'm talking I was in the garden messing around for almost ten minutes before I found the remnant: a root with about three inches of stalk left. Arlo was still in the middle of mangling the pumpkin vine when I caught him so who knows what that sneaky labradoodle would've done. Picture this: I'm at the stove in all my apron-wearing domestic wonder, stirring the beginnings of some squash pudding (mmm!). I smile to myself as I hear the two older boys peacefully humming out car noises in the backyard and my dear, non-walker in the next room cooing at balls sliding down their circular chute. I peak in at Phin who babbles a little love poem to his beloved spheres and turn to check the other boys. As I near the back door and turn the corner we switch into slow-mo as a look of betrayal and panic takes over my face. "NOOOOO-OOOOOooo!" And I leap slowly, frozen in time, down the back steps, reaching a lone profitless palm outward towards my cherished garden. I land and slow-mo retreats as does my poor poodle half-breed. I'm too late. A cold dark hole where once a bush harboring assuring blooms augustly stood. A crippled vine cut off from it's birth place. Treachery. Treachery!




Oh, curly-haired once-muse, what could have prompted this treason? Was it the lack of a walk this morning? Could it have been continuing the jog last night when you tried to stop at the car? Was it slipping you hot dog last night instead of the cooking chicken? Were you hurt that Dad moved you from our bed last night? You were taking up quite a chunk of real estate up there. Were you driven by jealousy, done watching me primp my beloved greenery? Were you ready to preen this mistress of our love yourself? Or was it simply a primal drive you could resist no longer? I'd like to believe so, dear friend. I'd like to believe your heart was for helping me prune. But why the best? Why the two I had such high hopes for? Not the zucchini or squash we've grown accustomed to; not the green beans almost past harvesting. I cannot help but see the facts as they lay before me: a contorted vine still limply holding the young pumpkin and a root ball with barely a stub protruding.

But no matter. The issue now turns to the price of love. What betrayal goes beyond forgiveness? This is not it, my dear friend. We will tarry on. When the foundation shakes, we will stand. Our love will survive and slowly, with time and concentrated ardor will once again bloom.