A Love Larger Than Loss

My soft-eyed sweetheart.

My beloved dog, Abbey, passed away on October 21st, 2016. This did not catch me unawares: I'd been preparing myself for her death since not long after I adopted her twelve years ago.

A little brindle dog in a big green world.

Here is the context for that decision: I'd had the utterly terrifying experience in July of 2004 of waking up suicidal one morning. It was like waking up to discover that I had been taken hostage in my sleep and that there was now a gun pointed at my head. I had no desire to die and begged and pleaded with the part of my brain that wanted to kill me. None of my impassioned arguments moved it whatsoever and as the day wore on, I grew more exhausted and less sure of my ability to resist. There was one thing that saved me: while I hadn't been able to convince my brain to live for myself or my family, I found that I could live for my boyfriend, who was nearer at hand. I knew it would devastate him if he were to find me if I attempted suicide and that thought gave me the strength to hold on until at last I fell asleep and the immediate crisis was averted.

After that horrifying experience, I no longer trusted myself. I was scared that the same thing could happen again and I knew, now, that I might not be able to live for myself or for my family. I clung to the idea that I had proof that I'd be able to live for my boyfriend, despite the fact that he was now lived half the country away because my parents had brought me home to care for me. But then the relationship ended. In addition to the grief that came with parting with someone I loved was the terror that I was now without a surefire reason for living that I could wield against my suicidal mind. I needed to find something new.

Abbey, December 2004, two
months after her adoption.

I chose Abbey. We adopted her three months after my scary brush with suicide and from day one Abbey had seen my vulnerability and stuck to me like glue. She made it her mission in life to watch out for me and never let me out of her sight if she could help it. I realized that I could not possibly betray this dedication and devotion to my well-being and knew, also, if there came a time when I was living on my own with just her for company and things got really bad, making arrangements for her care in the event of my death would enable me to ask for help for myself.

This was a huge relief. Except for one thing: dogs die. And I did understand that the only thing worse than me outliving her was for her to outlive me. Thanks to effective medication and therapy, by the time Abbey had been with us for a year, the threat of suicide was receding. In fact, her devotion was inspiring me to be braver and more confident than my anxiety had ever permitted in order to relieve her of some of the burden of looking after me. All of this meant that my love for Abbey was very intense, though, and I was worried about how vulnerable it could make me. The answer, I believed, was to start preparing myself for her inevitable loss. "Abbey will die and you will be devastated, but you will also survive it."

And so, for the next eleven years, I never once let myself lose sight of her mortality. In time, my bipolar II depression was so successfully managed that I no longer had any fear that I would be overcome by suicidal urges. However, I depended on Abbey in new ways because I'd been beset by chronic migraines and had to stop working and give up on a lot of dreams. She kept me company as I retreated into my little reduced-trigger cocoon and brightened my days and helped, I thought, in keeping me from growing bitter about my situation. Even with these changed circumstances, I still kept telling myself, "One day Abbey will die and this is okay and as it should be. You will be devastated, which is okay and as it should be, but you will also recover in time and that is okay and how is should be as well." I figured all of this was more an intellectual exercise than an emotional one, since it's one thing to tell your heart something and another for your heart to believe it, but I thought repeating the idea, even if I didn't fully embrace it on an emotional level, would make the reality less of a shock when the time came.

And then the time came.

There were twenty awful hours between the time I realized that she wasn't going to survive her illness (reported in detail in this post) and when I gave my mother the okay to finalize the appointment with the at-home euthanasia vet to take place in just three hours.

I'm so thankful Abbey got to pass away on my
bed where she always felt so deeply content.

My heart had been wailing, "No, it can't be time," but as soon as the appointment was made, the wailing stopped. Deep acceptance, acceptance that went all the way to the bone, that went down to the very depths of my being, took hold. It was time. There was no point in wishing it to be otherwise, in wasting energy on fighting against what I knew to be true. My dog was dying. I couldn't unmake that reality. What remained was how I handled her final hours and her passing.

I had, over the years, given some thought to what I wanted for Abbey when the end came. At-home euthanasia was important, for though she liked the vet himself, she was anxious at his office and I didn't want her final moments to be anxious ones. I wanted individual cremation for sure. I'd thought for years that perhaps the best place for her to be at the end would be in her beloved cozy oval bed with the raised sides downstairs, but after she took a wonderful nap on my bed with me when we'd brought her home from the animal hospital with all of our hopes of her recovery--hopes that would be dashed in mere hours by her rapid decline, necessitating in hospitalizing her again--I realized that my bed was the right place. I wanted to be sure that she did not see my pain, as it would worry her if I seemed distressed and I did not want her to be worried. The only thing I wanted for myself was to sing her my favorite lullaby as she parted with this life.

When we picked Abbey up from hospital, she was so happy and in such good humor that it became so easy to be happy and in good humor, too. She was clearly not suffering in the way she'd been the day before, but because I knew that her death was inevitable, and that the choice might very well be between ushering her out surrounded by her family and her passing away alone that night back at the animal hospital, her good cheer was something to celebrate. I was so happy that she seemed be loving all the petting she was receiving, just like she'd had when she wasn't feeling sick. It was easy to set the tone to be one of joyful reminiscence as we gathered around Abbey on my bed for that last hour because there was so much to be joyful about. It was a true celebration of life, first as she soaked up the physical affection and then as she napped snuggled up against me. She was so happy. How could I not be happy, when she was so happy? I freely gave her my joy and my ease in her final hour and it cost me nothing to do so because I was in a place of joy and tenderness and deepest affection.

Her death was a beautiful thing. I never thought it could be so beautiful. She was in my arms, so sleepy and content. The initial sedative did nothing more than deepen that sleep. I sang to her as her eyes closed and all consciousness slipped away. She may have been deaf, but I have no doubt that she heard my song. When the second sedative did its work and her heart grew still under my hand, it was simply a deeper sort of stillness. It was so peaceful. I had never imagined such peace, both her peace and my own.

To my astonishment, the peace lasted. I felt awed. I felt rather stunned, too. But I didn't feel grief. No tears came. No tears were needed. What I felt was not grief, but gratitude.

The days passed and still I did not suffer. At first I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop because how could I possibly be okay with the death of Abbey, who I had loved more deeply and purely than any other being, who had helped me through the darkest period of my life, who had been my constant companion and such an enormous source of joy for twelve out of my thirty-five years on the planet? I'd spent years planning for being bereft--why was I not bereft? As it became clear that the other shoe was not going to drop, that this state of wonder was in fact the whole of my reaction to her passing, I began to grow curious about my response. How could it be that one of the most important relationships of my life had come to an end and I was experiencing virtually no sense of loss?

It turns out, all those years of mentally preparing myself for the inevitability of Abbey's death had penetrated my emotional understanding, so I did not have to suffer through more than a few hours of the agony of denial. The role acceptance has played in reducing my distress in this situation cannot be understated.

Acceptance is not easy, especially not in our culture, where we are encouraged to always be wanting more, trying harder, shooting higher, looking for better. However, there are some things, like death, that no wanting or trying can alter. If you've had little practice or training on how to deal with things that cannot be changed, confronting them is very painful. Thankfully, I have received both theoretical and practical training in mastering the art of acceptance.

One of the critical factors that allowed me to bring my mental health under control was Dialectical Behavior Therapy. DBT, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy, is skills-based: rather than simply talking about your issues, you learned methods for changing your thinking to better tolerate distress, manage your emotions, communicate more effectively, and quiet your mind. Acceptance is a fundamental component for DBT--to effectively manage your emotions, you must cease denying or judging or fighting the facts of a situation and work from what simply is. You learn, in DBT, how to separate facts and emotions (you'd be surprised by how often what you think of as the facts are, in actuality, opinions), and while it takes a lot of practice, you can learn how to pare away all the excess and look at the naked truth. To do that, to say, "This is what it is," and to not fight to add back any of the emotions and judgments and opinions, is acceptance. Acceptance, however, does not equal complacency. The dialectical part of DBT is the belief that it is possible for two contradictory ideas or strategies or feelings to exist together in the mind, the primary one being that if you accept something, you can also change it. If you cannot change a situation, DBT teaches you how to change how you feel about it. My preparation for Abbey's death involved acceptance--Abbey will die--and three oft-contradictory beliefs surrounding that central fact: that this is as is should be (all things must die), this is heartbreaking (I love her and will miss her so much), and that I can be okay (in time my grief will lessen). Without DBT, I would have dwelled much more on how painful and unfair it is that I would have to lose her and likely resisted the very idea of getting over my grief because it would seem disloyal to be happy without her.

I responded very well to DBT, so well that in time I'd become so successful at employing the skills that I ran out of issues to bring to my therapist for her assistance--it's been years, in fact, since I've seen her. The methods have become so ingrained that I draw on them without any thought or effort, which is a fantastic example of the principles of cognitive therapy in action: I have, through rigorous training and practice, changed how I think, and by changing how I think, I have actually changed how my brain functions. It's cool stuff, but part of why I'm so good at it is because I've had plenty of opportunities to practice. Between lithium (plus a few other medications) and DBT, my mental health has been rock-solid for years. Prior to 2006 or so, such success would have been unthinkable. So hurray for all that! But what was also unthinkable prior to 2009 was that I would end up fully disabled by chronic migraines. In October of that year, I was in the best physical and mental health of my entire life. I was overflowing with creativity. Despite being free of depression for quite some time, I'd had to put longterm planning on hold because it took three unexpectedly long years of awful withdrawal to get off a mood stabilizer that not only didn't work but was threatening to cause permanent neurological problems. That debacle was behind me at last and I finally could make plans for the future. The possibilities looked amazing. I was so excited. And then, boom, just like that, from one minute to the next, I had to give everything up because my brain could no longer tolerate virtually any kind of exertion or stimuli, be it sensory, cognitive, emotional, or physical. My migraines responded very poorly to treatment, so I was left to face a lifetime of "managing" them. Because almost everything triggered migraines, I had to make a little cocoon for myself with as little stimuli as possible and leave it only when absolutely necessary. And it meant I had to give up. And give up. And give up some more. It sounds bad, to have to abandon not only projects and dreams and aspirations, but smaller things like listening to music, interacting with friends in person, and leaving the house after dark, too. But I can assure you, fighting against the reality of my limitations is far more painful, both physically and emotionally, than letting go, giving up, accepting. There are hard limits on what my brain and body will tolerate. That is the fact I must work with. And so I do. Physically giving things up is not terribly hard, since there are massive and obvious negative repercussions when I overstep. Much of the work of acceptance comes from acknowledging emotionally that things are beyond my reach. Some of it is easy. Some of it took months. Some of it took years. Some of it must be accepted anew on a regular basis. Some things I am still working on. I focus most of my energy on enjoying what I can do, but every day, I have to face the prospect that what my mind and body was able to tolerate the day before will be intolerable today. And so I accept. And accept. And accept.

The loss of one dog, however beloved, looms rather less large when compared to the fact that I've accepted the loss of whoever I might have been and whatever I might have done had my own brain not betrayed me.

Another part of my acceptance stems from the fact that I believe in death. It sounds funny, but we are a culture that is very much anti-death, terrified of it, repulsed by it, seeking always for ways to try to defeat it. I do not agree with this way of thinking. I believe that death is not the antithesis of life, but part of life, and not just part of life, but crucial to life. I think it's important that we die. Thus, I have always believed that not only Abbey would die, but that she should die. As will I, and should I. This is not to say we shouldn't grieve, just that we could spare ourselves so much suffering if we didn't fight our inevitable destiny. Since I believe in death, I can also believe in dying well. One aspect of dying well means favoring quality of life over quantity. For example, I believe it is much more dignifying and humane to make the comfort of a dying patient the most important priority instead subjecting them to unnecessary medications and procedures that will not halt death's inexorable approach. A life made possible only by machines after the brain has slipped forever into silence is not, in my mind, truly a life. Better to live, unambiguously, and die, unambiguously, and to die well. That means something different for each of us, but I had no doubt that a good death for Abbey was one where she felt no anxiety, where she was physically comfortable, where she was surrounded by love, and where I was present. I could not give Abbey more life, but I could give her a good death, so I gave my dear Abbey the best possible death, a wonderful death, beyond everything I ever could have hoped for, and I am still awestruck as I type this, weeks later, by the how beautiful a good death can be.

(For those who are wondering how my acceptance of death and dying factors into my history of suicidal ideation, it doesn't. I still fear suicide because suicide is a form of murder, made more terrifying by the fact that the murderer dwells within myself. It is the act, or at least the willingness to do so, and the mind behind it, that scares me, much more than the death that might follow.)

Being mentally and emotionally prepared for the fact of Abbey's death proved invaluable, but the timing of how it worked out was very much in my favor. I'd always thought I would have wanted more warning, not a lot, but perhaps several weeks of advance notice that her time was near, but in retrospect, the swiftness of Abbey's illness meant she spent much less time suffering and I spent much less time worrying. There might have also been much less certainty about picking the time if I had been trying to gauge "quality of life" instead of "massive systematic failure." It was also not too short. It would have been ghastly if she'd died that first night when we rushed her to the emergency hospital, her body wracked with pain. It would have been awful if she'd died the second night, after she'd been so doped up on pain meds when I'd visited her that evening that I wasn't sure she even knew who I was. And it would have been gut-wrenching if I'd waited too long and she died alone, without me, at the hospital, because I'd hesitated. Any scenario where she might have died alone, without me, is appalling to even contemplate. Six days of thinking she was a little under the weather, five days of her clearly being very sick, and one day of knowing she was dying before I was able to give her the absolutely best passing possible seems like an ideal timetable when considering the alternatives. When you add to that that she was fourteen years old, had been my companion for twelve long years, and that she was in very good health right up until the last illness, I find it hard to protest that I should have gotten more.

Nose nibbles.

I learned a lot about love and loss from Oh Melvin.

To be honest, over the years I have had much more trepidation about the shape my grieving would take than the fact of her dying. I've lost some relatives and friends to death and have said goodbye to previous pets and dog-sitting clients, but never have I had to part with a soul that I loved so deeply and so intimately (and, in a sense, so maternally) as I loved Abbey. How does one bear such a loss? Fortunately, I had blueprints. I follow quite a few individual dogs and dog rescues and dog blogs on the internet. Over the years, dogs I've fallen in love with online have passed away and online I've followed the grief of the people they've left behind. I've watched people be devastated and I've watched people then become okay again and also, perhaps most crucially, watched people continue to love and remember and honor the dogs that have passed on. It was one blog in particular, Oh Melvin, that I thought of and drew upon as Abbey's death approached and then passed. Oh Melvin chronicles the lives of the dogs owned by a woman, T., with a very stylish home, a great sense of humor, and tremendous emotional honesty. Through her blog I fell in love with first Melvin and then Jake, followed the progression of first Melvin and then Jake's terminal cancers, and witnessed T. grieve for first Melvin and then Jake. Just as she loves, T. grieves with her whole heart and wrote about all of it, including being overwhelmed by tears long after each dog passed. And yet, in the midst of her sorrow, she held onto the belief that she must and would continue to choose joy. Melvin had chosen joy every day of his life and to cease to choose joy would be to dishonor his memory. So I watched T. grieve and choose joy (a very DBT outlook!) at the same time and it gave me faith that this would be possible for me, too. And if it was possible that the initial violence of T.'s grief tapered off over time, so, too, I believed, would my grief over Abbey. Not fearing my sorrow so much made it easier to face, and, I think, easier to bypass almost entirely.

In addition to choosing joy, T. embraces the philosophy that, "Love lives on." It has astonished me to the degree that this is true. My love for Abbey has not ceased with her death, which is no surprise, but neither has my sense of her love for me. I'd expected to feel empty, but instead I'm as full with Abbey's warm love as I ever was. Everything that Abbey taught me lives on. Everything that Abbey gave me lives on. I carry so much of Abbey inside me that my sense is not so much that Abbey is gone--she simply isn't here. Every inch of my house is thick with memories of Abbey and rather than this being painful, it means that anywhere my eye lands, Abbey can be conjured. Every memory of her brings me joy. Instead of feeling bereft, I have this ongoing sense of being enveloped by her and buoyed by her. I continue to love my dear brindle dog and that love is warm and fresh and freeing.

Abbey loved her crate.

I do not believe there is an afterlife and I do not believe that Abbey lives on in any other way than in my heart, but I've developed some rituals that have helped me feel like I remain in contact with her. Sometimes I check in with her by touching her crate or her pile of rope bones next to her bed in my study. Sometimes I give the urn containing her ashes a pat or a little squeeze. Sometimes I'll give her ID tag with her name on it a kiss. The most important thing, though, is my nightly chat with her. On the final night when we had to take her back to the hospital because she was too sick to be at home, I was frightened that she was going to die in the night without me there. I had things I needed to tell her before she passed, so I knelt down in front of the door of her crate, my forehead resting on my folded hands, and talked to her, aloud. It helped calm my soul somewhat, so I've continued to do it every night, and is not perhaps as odd as it sounds, since I talked to her all the time when she was alive. I tell her about how my grieving process is going, I mention the memories of her that came up during the day, I recall the ways she helped me over the years, I tell her what I miss about her and how much I'd like to pet her, and generally talk about how things are going. One of the things I've recently been discussing with her is the fact that her crate is rather stinky. Right at the end, she was leaking just a bit of fluid from her anal glands and it doesn't take much to create a strong and lasting odor. It's rather unfair, I feel, to keep her crate stinky, because Abbey was the least odiferous dog that ever lived, but the bedding in her crate is one of the few things I have left that she has touched directly and I am not ready to let that go just yet. But I've also begun to mention that I am no longer needing to talk to her as much as I did at first and may soon not need to talk to her at all. This is a good thing, too, I promise, and it in no way diminishes her standing in my heart.

This is the photo I picture when imaging Abbey as whole, well, and happy.

My nightly chat with Abbey has taken on another important function. After she died, I had several terrible, traumatic nightmares about her where she was horrifically hurt. It was unacceptable. I did not want my love for her to be used against me in ways to express my sadness, fear, stress, or anger about her loss or any other event. I decided I needed to come up with a method of intervention and have taken to repeating every night before bed that Abbey can only appear in my dreams if she is WHOLE, WELL & HAPPY. If she is not WHOLE, WELL & HAPPY, I am to know that I am dreaming and that I can wake up or stop the dream. Thus, if I ever see Abbey, I need to first check that she is WHOLE, WELL & HAPPY. I am extremely pleased to report that this has been a success. I have managed four times to use the WW&H guide to successfully identify that I was having a bad dream and, on three occasions, to stop the dream. On three another occasions, Abbey was WW&H and I was very pleased to see her and she to see me. It was too unfair to have Abbey being misused by my subconscious for metaphorical purposes when she had been whole, well, and happy all her life and had been a constant source of positivity. Establishing that Abbey will be whole, well, and happy in my dreams to come is a valuable pre-sleep ritual.

I've been hugging Humphrey, a stuffed
dog I've had since I was six months
old, when I'm really missing Abbey. 

Something that has also helped me cope with Abbey's passing is the outpouring of support I've received. While few met Abbey in person, she was well-known to many people online, both through her social media account and my own, where I posted many photos and documented her life and its overlap with mine over the course of eight and a half years. I took some 6,000 photographs of Abbey during our time together and because Abbey had such a sweet, expressive face, I think people grew to feel like they knew her. Even if they weren't interested in Abbey for her own sake, anyone who knows me knew what my dog meant to me and how large she loomed in my life. Those people mourned the loss of Abbey for my sake, but many also grieved for Abbey herself. I received so many condolences online, many of them beautifully written, all of them heartfelt. Others sent cards and gifts. People who never once met Abbey in the flesh shed tears when she died. It has been so helpful to be part of a community in mourning! Grief can be very lonely, especially when no one else knows that you've suffered a loss. Because I feel like so many are grieving with me or, at the very least, for me, I've felt free to share my ongoing thoughts and emotions about her loss, as well as to continue to share pictures and celebrate all that was wonderful about my dear dog!

(It's interesting how important a role photography played in my relationship with Abbey--one of the more wrenching aspects of her death for me is the fact that there will be no more photos. My love for Abbey may be infinite, but my ability to photograph her has turned out to be finite, and while I literally have thousands of wonderful photographs to remember her by, it is a point of some pain that I will never be able to add more to that collection.)

This is the it, the final photograph I took of her before her death.

There have been some sad moments--picking up Abbey's ashes was an emotional experience, reliving her death while writing about it has been draining, and I cried the other day for the first time since her death because I needed my dog and my dog wasn't here--but I'm thankful to have been spared the agony of regrets. I kinda wish I had gotten her teeth cleaned sooner so her breath could have been fresh for more than just the last four weeks of her life after years of old age halitosis, but I'd delayed getting that done out of concerns over anesthetizing her, so it wasn't as if I'd made a bad or selfish decision. I wish my health could have allowed me to socialize her more with both dogs and people, but that's just not how life worked out. I am glad that I told my dog-sitting clients this past year that I could only do short gigs because it had begun to stress Abbey to have me sleeping away from home for extended periods. Partly as a result of that request, I didn't do any overnight dog-sitting during the final three months of Abbey's life, so I have no regrets on that score. Abbey and I were always there for each other in the fullest whenever we were together and we were together almost all the time. She cared so deeply for me and demonstrated that daily and I did the same for her. Abbey was so loved and knew it.

Dog of my heart.

Over the course of this month, my overwhelming sense has not been one of grief, but of gratitude. I am so thankful that Abbey came into my life. I am so thankful that we had twelve years together. I am so thankful that she worked so hard to protect me and care for me when we first adopted her. I am so thankful that she gave me hope that I could triumph over suicide. I am so thankful that she gave me the inspiration to be stronger and braver. I am so thankful for how expressive she was. I am so thankful that her fur was so wonderfully soft and thick and not greasy or smelly. I am so thankful that she loved to be petted. I am thankful that she was brindle. I am very thankful for her tail, which was the best tail ever. I am so thankful that concerns about her possible breed mix led me to the wonderful world of pit bull activism. I am so thankful that she taught me so much about dogs, especially shy and anxious ones. I am thankful that she decided to take up swimming in midlife. I am thankful that she decided, in her old age, that visitors were actually okay and that it was exciting when company came over! I am very thankful that she was such a playful dog. I am thankful that she wasn't much of a barker, but when she did bark, it was a very deep bark, the bark of a dog half again her size. I am thankful for the many ways that she kept in touch with me throughout the day. I am so thankful for her joyful yodel. I am so thankful for the way she lined up with me, always ready to go where I was going. I am thankful that she never got arthritis. I am thankful that her sickness was short. I am thankful that we had enough time--not too little and not too much. I am thankful that I chose to have her passing take place on my bed. I am thankful that her death was so peaceful. But what I return to, again and again, when I chat with her before bed, is how thankful I am that she made me feel safe, that she helped me get strong, that she loved me with every fiber of her being, and that I know that I can carry on that love, that strength, that safety even though she may be gone.

I can think of no greater gift.

I miss her. Of course I miss her. But I do not mourn. It is not for lack of love, but because of love, a love that has not diminished, that death cannot diminish. It is not, one might say, for lack of suffering, but because I have already suffered so much that I have learned to accept what cannot be changed and to find gratitude in what remains. It is for lack of fear, because I taught myself not to fear her death and not to fear my grief, and for a lack of regrets, because I have none. What I do is celebrate, celebrate the life of my tenderhearted, sensitive, intelligent, playful, soulful, easygoing, engaging, communicative, brown-eyed, brindle-coated, velvet-furred, funnily-proportioned companion of so many years who enriched my life and changed me forever for the better and whose love lives on.

In memory of my beloved Abbey

2002-2016

Drifter 'n' Me

It's hard to believe it, but nearly a year and a half has passed since I first started my horse-riding experiment and that I've been either leasing or taking lessons at Sage Meadows for 15 months! As is to be expected with my health in general and the trials--foot/back injury, stomach woes--of the last year in particular, I was only able to be with the horses about half of the time, but the horses have proved to be powerful medicine even on a part-time basis.

I was at the park where I took my first lessons the other day and spied Lacey, the horse who gave me my first lessons, on the far right. Drifter is both much larger and a much better teacher, but she did help me figure out that riding and being with horses was something that I wanted to do.

My guy.

The benefits of hanging around equines in general and Drifter in particular have been numerous. One of the most valuable has been that my weekly horse fix has given me something to look forward to. Weeks or sometimes even months will go by when I do not leave the house except for medical appointments--or to be with the horses. When I'm at the stable, I cease to feel like I have any kind of disability. I get to exist in the moment, whether it is brushing Drifter in a meditative state on a winter afternoon or trying to perfect my posture while riding him around the arena on a sunny spring day. I love the act of grooming itself, so the winter months when I was leasing and not riding were no hardship. I love the solidity of Drifter's massive warm bulk and the pleasure he gets from a thorough grooming. One of my favorite things is when he stands in the cross-ties, nose against my chest, and descends into a drowsy, trancelike state of pleasure as I brush and caress his face. I know that Drifter has taught hundreds of students during his 20-odd years as a school horse and that there are several other students currently riding him, but Drifter feels like MY horse. I like to think that I am the very best groomer of all the students and that therefore he likes me best!

The tree-lined arena is a beautiful place to be on a sunny day.

Bear, one of the other school horses, looks up to see who is interrupting his grazing session.

Drifter's grooming tools.

This is rather silly, but I was delighted to learn that Drifter and I have something unusual in common: we both turned 32 in June! Yes, good ol' Drifter really is OLD. The average lifespan for a horse is 25-30 years, but Drifter is still plugging away and I think the good care he receives and the fact that he's still working (part-time) at a job he loves helps keep him young. He's been switched, much to his pleasure, to a pure alfalfa diet to help him keep weight on his old bones. I intend to keep learning from him and giving him excellent grooming session for as long as he's around.

So when I looked like this...

....Drifter must have looked like this!

(These are not actual pictures of Drifter as a baby, but I searched for images of a sorrel quarter
horse foal with a white face, so they are probably pretty close to how he looked in June of 1981!)

The two of us looking good together at 32.

Halters hung on pasture
fenceposts.

Other benefits from my association with the horses include building up my strength and a sense of mastery. As someone who can no longer do many activities that I once excelled at and whose life is such that even the ability to do chores or run errands is a luxury, it's nice to get a sense of accomplishment from something! It turns out that I'm good at riding a horse. Missing lessons due to not feeling well and fatigue often limiting what I can do when I can show up has slowed my progress, but even so, I have something of a feel for it. By the end of each lesson, I always feel that I'm a little bit more skilled than when I began. The progress may be small, but I have so little progress elsewhere in my life that it makes a big difference. I also like the sense of mastery I get from making a large animal ten times my weight do as I say. Drifter, of course, is as obliging as they come, but he is a little bit fussy about having his feet picked sometimes and, like with dogs, it's important with horses that the animal listens to you. That means if I say we are going to clean hooves, I can't give up until all the hooves are cleaned. The last thing you need is a giant animal who thinks he can walk all over you--especially when there's the possibility that he could do so literally as well as figuratively! So having the gumption and stubbornness not to give up on those days when Drifter is feeling lazy during lessons or fussy about his feet is very rewarding for me, especially given the size of the payoff. I also like that working with Drifter helps me build up my physical strength. My spindly arms now have muscles in them from all that intensive grooming and my legs have been regaining the strength they lost during those months when I was on crutches and then going through physical therapy to get my back stabilized. I also love that riding well requires using exactly the same core muscles that I was working on strengthening in physical therapy. It also demands a certain looseness that is beneficial to my hips and my shoulders when I'm out of the saddle, too. Riding has turned out to be a natural extension of what I was striving to accomplish in physical therapy and now that I've been discharged from PT, I'm pleased that I'll continue building on what I learned there, resulting, as I continue to ride, in a strong, stable, but flexible core that provides equally strong signals to both of my legs. Talk about a bonus!

Syd, another Sage Meadows horses, heads off for a lesson with an advanced student.

Bear.

Now that I have some mastery of the basics of riding a horse, my growing skills are being channeled into the discipline of dressage. It makes sense for me to go this direction because a) I'm not going to be riding Western for anything other than pleasure and b) Drifter is the only horse at Sage Meadows trained in Western riding, so switching to the English disciplines in general and dressage in particular creates a framework for perfecting my control even after Drifter passes away or I grow skilled enough to graduate to a more advanced horse. Dressage is best known at its highest level, where the rider guides the horse through a series of dance-like steps, but entry-level dressage is quite different. It involves riding the horse in a variety of formations at different paces. The most important part is for the rider to maintain steady speed at each pace during the maneuvers. The other important skill is riding in perfect circles. Horses naturally slow down while being ridden in a circle, making the task of maintaining a constant speed more of a challenge. I'm pretty good at executing circles, but Drifter and I are still working on the steady pace aspect.

This diagram shows steps involved in an entry-level test. After riding down the center of the arena, stopping at the exact center to salute the judges, the rider then turns to the left, executes a 20 m circle with the center point of the circle being the center point of the arena, continues around the outside of the arena and does another circle starting at the point opposite to the first, crosses the arena at a diagonal and repeats the maneuvers going in the opposite direction, and then rides down the center of the arena to the center point for a final salute to the judges.

The ears of Beacon, Drifter's stable buddy.

Drifter with an English saddle.

Since I was starting to work some dressage skills into my lessons, it was only right that I switch over to an English saddle. It just felt wrong to be saluting an imaginary dressage judge while wearing jeans and riding Western! I made the switch over to the English saddle about a month and a half ago and I love it! Because it is smaller, lighter, and less stiff, I've found that the English saddle gives me a better feel for what Drifter is doing. This has made posting (rising and falling with the rhythm of the trot) much easier! I really believe I'm going to make tons of progress this summer now that I'm in the different saddle.

It's always nice to have the right outfit for whatever your task at hand may be, so once I had switched saddles, I wasted little time in ditching the jeans. I now have full seat breeches, paddock boots, and half chaps! While it may seem slightly silly to have such an official get-up when my ambitions are minimal, the breeches and half chaps (what the rest of the world would call gaiters) do serve practical purposes. The breeches, in addition to being comfortable and flexible for riding, are lined inside the legs and on the seat for better grip on the smooth English saddle. And I quickly learned the benefit of half chaps when I wore breeches inside my Western boots: everything I picked out of Drifter's hooves dropped straight into my boots and pebbles jumped in as well as we did our warm-up walk around the arena. But the whole get-up--boots and breeches--looks so official and there's no harm to getting a psychological boost from your clothes when you're trying to make a thousand pound animal trot when you say so and stop when you say stop!

Decked out in breeches and half chaps, I guide Drifter around the arena on beautiful summer day.

Me and my guy. Look how big his head is in comparison to my torso! And yet, this good-natured horse does my bidding--as long as I ask him in the correct manner. This is why he's a great beginner's horse: he's just particular enough that you've got to get your signals mostly right, but not so particular that he'll refuse to obey unless you perform them perfectly.

There's always more to be done. On days when I'm feeling strong enough, I work on posting, but even on the days when I'm more tired, I'm always working on my form and I'm learning how to tell him what to do simply by changing how I sit in the saddle. Riding requires a subtle balance of looseness and control, so I'm always having to remind myself to keep the elbows bent at a particular angle but not rigid, to have my pelvis rotated just so, to have my heels down and my legs back, to pull my shoulders back but not too far or too stiffly, to be moving my hips with the horse but keep the shoulders still and even, to arch my back just so, to have my fingers closed on the reins, to not unconsciously pull up on the reins, to keep my hands down and forward when posting while keeping the elbows loose, to try to lift from the inner thighs when posting and not from the stirrups (I'm not quite strong enough to do this yet, but am working on it), to keep my eyes up and looking ahead (sometimes I forget to do this because I am admiring the passing scenery), etc., etc., not to mention all the particulars that go along with the tack. Of course, all of the riding works best when you're not thinking TOO hard about it, so until it becomes second nature, you have to figure out how to remind yourself of all the particulars at the same time as not thinking about them at all. I find that it works best if I concentrate 90% of my focus on getting my hands in the right place and letting my body naturally (more or less) follow the information I'm getting from Drifter. I love the challenge of it, though, and it's why even slight progress can feel like a satisfying accomplishment.

Getting better all the time! Best of all, I don't look or feel like a largely housebound chronic migraineur when I'm proudly mounted on a horse. 

I've made lots of progress on my posting in recent weeks.

It's been an amazing journey so far and I hope that Drifter, despite his advanced age, will remain in good health long enough to teach me everything he knows. I will forever be indebted to his calm, patient, and willing demeanor long after I have graduated to more advanced horses and he has departed from this life. I know that with him (and with my great instructor), I am laying a foundation to make me a competent horsewoman that will serve me well no matter where this newfound passion takes me. Dogs, photography, and maintaining a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world all play a role in helping me remain positive despite my significant health challenges, but adding horses to that mix has proved beneficial beyond my wildest dreams.

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Watch TV

I didn't get enough sleep the other night. If I sleep through the night (which seldom happens), I can function on nine hours of sleep. But that's my absolute minimum. If I'm awake in the night, I need more than that. This is why I typically am in bed at least twelve hours out of the day. If I don't get enough sleep, migraines are an absolute guarantee.

Because I had only managed to scrape together seven hours of interrupted sleep yesterday, I found myself in damage control mode, trying to make my day go as gently as possible to void jostling my already stressed brain. The dog and I spent a pleasant three hours or so dozing and snuggling on the couch, but then she opted to abandon me in favor of basking in the sunshine streaming into the front room. I thought to join her, but found that even when not directly in the sunlight, my eyes were too light-sensitive, even without an active headache, to tolerate spending time there. I read a little bit, but found it a hard slog because my mind had lost its agility and acuity. I loathed to shut myself in my darkened bedroom where I'd spent far more time than I would like in the last couple of weeks. The time needed to be passed somehow, so I decided that I should watch TV shows on my computer for the rest of the day.

"I should watch TV."

I've become accustomed to my small and homebound way of living and strive to be unapologetic about the choices I make to cope with the disabling effects of my headaches, but every once and a while, I am struck by the absurdity of it. My life has become an inversion, in many ways, of a normal life. The refrain is usually, "I shouldn't be watching TV," and it's all about guilt. "I shouldn't be watching TV because I have all this work that needs to be done." "I shouldn't be watching TV when there are so many other constructive ways of spending my time." In my world, though, I shouldn't write, I shouldn't work on photo projects, I shouldn't read, I shouldn't cook or clean, I shouldn't exercise, I shouldn't walk the dog, I shouldn't socialize, I shouldn't leave the house, I shouldn't even get dressed in something other than pajamas. What I should do, if I know what's good for me, is to sit down and spend the next five hours watching "Law & Order."

Talk about weird.

And rather galling, too, considering that I grew up without a television and was always rather proud of the fact. I had plenty of ways of entertaining or relaxing myself and never felt the need to have one, not when there were books to be read! I'm very glad that I still don't have a television (TV commercials are hell on migraines), but I am quite grateful that I am able to stream TV shows on my computer. The twelve hours of the day must be filled somehow and when reading--once an effortless activity for me--is too much of a strain and I need to keep my physical activity to a minimum, television really comes in handy.

(For the record, I've been on a "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" kick lately because it isn't visually dramatic, the music is subtle, it isn't too heavy on the gore, and in the course of 43 minutes, unlike in my life, a resolution is reached with a criminal almost always brought to justice. Also, there are eleven seasons available to stream on Netflix, so even if I watch several a day, it will take some time before I exhaust the supply of episodes.)

In the world out there, the bright, noisy, busy, hectic, active world beyond my window that I cannot be a part of, people are trying to turn off the TV, trying to be more productive, trying to use their time constructively, trying to get more done, trying to be better, trying to be perfect. Me, I'm trying, not always with great success, not to do anything at all. And now, having spent my day's allotment of brain power in writing this, I'm off to watch TV.

The video accompanying this song is migraine-inducing, but am sharing nonetheless because I'm often reminded of Rasputina's "Watch TV" (especially the line "It makes me better") when I must resort to television to pass my days.

To follow what I do when not watching TV, visit my Facebook page!

Disability: The Game

I've been pretty sick this past week, spending every afternoon in bed, lots of migraines, lots of fatigue, and no mental energy. It reminded me that I've been meaning to post "Lyme Disease: The Game!" that a friend of mine wrote. It can easily be adapted to work for any chronic illness or disability and has the advantage of being even more nuanced than the much-loved "Spoon Theory." Welcome to living with a chronic health problem!

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Lyme Disease: The Game!
no fun at all for ages 8 to 108

You need:
a die from a board game in the closet
a fleshy, corruptible body
a spirit to be crushed

SINGLE-PLAYER RULES

You contracted Lyme disease. Roll the die to see if you notice.

>3: Congratulations, you got a classic red ring tick bite. Go to the doctor and get antibiotics, spend 2 weeks feeling awful, then get on with your life. FOR NOW.

3 or lower: You have no external marker. Disease remains unnoticed and untreated. Please progress to Chronic Lyme.

CHRONIC LYME

Spirochetes have colonized your body in ways largely impenetrable to your immune system. Now the fun begins! You begin experiencing diverse symptoms: severe muscle/joint aches, incapacitating fatigue, mental fog, digestion problems, temperature and drug sensitivity, dizziness/fainting, AND OTHER FUN THINGS. You cannot function properly; something is clearly wrong. Go to the doctor and roll the die to see what they diagnose.

1: "[Patient name] is a young girl clearly in need of reassurance." You got a sexist jerk doctor. No treatment. Continue to suffer until you can afford to see another doctor.

2. Battery of tests show nothing. Doctor shurgs. Given vitamins and/or stress management pamphlet and/or psychiatric recommendation and sent on your way. Continue to suffer until you can afford to see another doctor.

3-4. Battery of tests show nothing. Doctor diagnoses arthritis, IBS, or some other minor, unrelated condition. Receive ineffective treatment for wrong disease. Continue to suffer until you can afford to see another doctor.

5. Battery of tests show nothing. Doctor diagnoses Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Receive largely ineffective treatment for symptoms but not cause of illness. Continue to suffer until you can afford to see another doctor.

6. Doctor actually believes in the existence of Chromic Lyme AND recognizes symptoms AND knows proper test to administer. Chronic Lyme diagnosed. Some kind of punishing antibiotic regimen plus other treatments administered, effect unclear. Proceed to "Daily Lyme Funtimes."

DAILY LYME FUNTIMES

Wake up. Roll the die, then multiply by 3 to get the number of pills you must take today. Roll the die again to see what kind of day it is.

1: Very bad. Stay in bed all day, hardly moving due to pain and fatigue.

2-3: Bad-ish. Stay in bed all day, but at least you can read or watch TV.

4: Meh. Stay in bed most of the day, but can get up to shower or fetch some minor item up a flight of stairs. Probably need a nap afterward.

5: Okay-ish. Stay in bed most of day, but can do some minor tasks such as wash dishes or play a video game as long as you take it easy and don't stand or concentrate for too long.

6. As good as it gets. Go crazy and do something wild, like walk to the mailbox up the street and get the mail, or be driven to the pharmacy to pick up drugs. If you are in advanced stages of recovery, you may even be able to eat in a restaurant or go to a movie theater PROVIDED someone can drive you and you don't have to walk too far from the parking lot. See next section for details.

ACTION POINTS!

Every day that you roll a 4, 5, or 6, you may spend Action Points! Multiply by 3 to get your number of points. The following is an incomplete list of actions you may choose to take with your points.

Shower: 6 points

Prepare a meal more complicated (but not much!) than cereal of microwave meal: 6 points

Concentrate of something (typing/writing, book more complicated than "beach read," balancing a checkbook, conversation with someone more complicated than "beach read") for 30-60 minutes: 6 points

Go up a flight of stairs: 6 points

Stand in a short line, such as at bank or pharmacy: 10 points

Drive yourself somewhere extremely close, such as bank or pharmacy, and back home: 12 points (may be impossible depending on exact symptoms and driver's license status)

Sit up for extended period, such as at dinner or movie in public: 12 points

Take public transportation (bus) somewhere extremely close and back again: 18 points (probably impossible due to large amounts of standing and walking required)

Actions involving more than one set of points will cost you both! For example, going up a flight of stairs to shower costs 12 points. Having to take the bus to the bank and then stand in line there costs 28 points.

"But I don't have enough points to do everything I need to do today!"

Tough. Your choice is as follows: either do without whatever it was or "borrow" points from tomorrow. If you have the good fortune to roll a high number tomorrow, your "borrowed" action points are deducted from your point total. If you don't have enough action points to borrow, you go instantly to Very Bad and must spend all day in bed suffering. This continues every day until you can "make up" the points you borrowed, for up to one week.

Example 1: You roll a 4 and have 12 action points on Monday. You spend 12 points going up a flight of stairs to shower because you really stink. What a relief! But then your friend who lives cross-country calls and you really want to talk to her. You spend another 6 points talking on the phone for an hour. Tomorrow, you roll a 4 for 12 more action points. Due to your good luck, you simply deduct the 6 points for the phone call. You now have only 6 points to spend for Tuesday. Going up the stairs is possible, but another shower would be a bad idea.

Example 2: You have some business to conduct in person at the bank. You wait until you finally roll a 6 for 18 action points on Friday. Fortunately, the bank is very close and you have a car and a driver's license and a handicapped parking permit AND you feel as though you would not endanger yourself or others by driving today. You spend 12 points driving to the bank. But unfortunately, the bank is busy on Fridays and you have to stand in line for another 10 points. You overspent by 4 today. On Saturday, you roll a 3 when you wake up for no points. You are screwed. You spend all day in bed in extreme discomfort. You cannot shower or do anything else requiring action points. On Sunday, you again roll a 3. You still cannot make up your action points. You spend all day in bed suffering again. Finally on Monday you roll a 4 for 12 points and can make up the points you overspent. You can finally shower, but if the shower is up a flight of stairs, be prepared for more Very Bad days.

WINNING THE GAME

You don't. The game continues indefinitely. You may progress to the point where you are essentially rolling a 6 every day. You may even progress further than that. But there is no guarantee. No matter how good you feel, you will always know it is possible to do too much and collapse. You will always remember the Very Bad days. You will never know spontaneity again. You will never truly feel confident that you will be able to support yourself or do basic life tasks for the rest of your life.

Game is over when you die.

MULTIPLAYER

Everyone plays alone. However, you will undoubtably be forced in the course of playing to affect the lives of those around you, particularly your spouse or family members who will be forced to care for you when you cannot care for yourself, which is almost always.

Subtract 2-10 action points every day for every caretaker you are forced to rely on who is abusive in some way.

If you have no access to caretakers of any kind, I don't even know what to tell you. You are already playing a very different game.

EXTRA HANDICAPS

For added challenge and absolutely no added benefit, choose one or many of the following handicaps while playing:

• other pre-existing serious health problems (subtract 2-10 action points every day!)
• very young (15 or younger) so no one takes you seriously
• old age (65+) so no one takes you seriously (and subtract 2-10 action points every day!)
• poverty
• live in isolated rural area with few doctors and far distances to do life tasks
• live in large city with lots of health-destroying pollution and inability to own a car
• live in backwards country without guaranteed health care for all humans

HAVE FUN, KIDS!!!

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Thanks to CM for allowing me to share this. I hope the day comes when you roll nothing by sixes day after day after day!

Things I Liked in 2012

I'm sorry to say that 2012 wasn't such a good year. The first few months I was still suffering a great deal from my concussion from the previous summer and I also managed to sprain my dominant hand in January and one of my ribs in February. While I started feeling like a human being again in March, when I began hanging out with horses, I was still very adversely impacted by bad weather. Unfortunately, we had a long, wet, miserable spring that just wouldn't quit--2012 is going down as the 7th wettest year in Seattle on record! When the sun finally came out at the end of July, I felt so much better and stronger! I felt so good, in fact, that I went swimming in the lake with Mr. Gorgeous, hurt my back, and spent the next five weeks on crutches. I had a great trip to Florida at the very end of September, but there was the inevitable backlash from the exertions of the trip that meant a week in bed. Then, shortly after I was finally recovered enough from my injury and my trip to have, at last, another riding lesson, I came down with a virus that eventually led to a stomach infection and I ended up spending two months in bed and only just barely escaped being sick on Christmas! While there were good days scattered throughout the year, 2012 was not a winner.

Syd: A handsome hunk of horseflesh!

The single best thing that happened in 2012 was my decision to get involved with horses. Spending time with horses has been an incredibly positive experience. When I'm with Drifter, especially when I'm grooming him, I forget about all my health issues. My mind goes quiet, I cease to be a migrainuer, all the difficulties presented by my disabilities melt away, and I'm just a human soul communing with a horse soul, spreading love through touch. I'm proud of the fact that I also have some natural ability in the saddle and am excited about being able to resume riding soon. But the riding is really a bonus; the true medicine is in the sensory pleasures of the stable: the sweet smell of hay and horse manure; the snorts and bumps and knickerings of the horses in their stalls; the sound of rain on the metal room; the warmth of the large, solid bulk of my drowsing horse in the cross-ties; the sweep of my arms as I run the currycomb over my horse's body; massaging Drifter's face as he presses his nose against my chest and closes his eyes with contentment.

Drifter.

Dogs, of course, were also a postive part of 2012. I acquired two new dog-sitting clients in addition to my longtime collie friend, Mr. Gorgeous. Lady the Golden Retriever was lovely, but Sweetheart the German Shepherd has been very special! I love her cheerful, goofy, playful personality and, of course, she's very handsome. Dog-sitting other wonderful dogs has also served to make me appreciate my own dog even more. She is absolutely the perfect size, the perfect energy level, and has the perfect personality for my needs! Abbey has been a considerable source of comfort all year long and makes me smile every day.

Mr. Gorgeous looking, well, gorgeous.

I love how much fun Lady still gets out of life despite being old and arthritic!

A (rare) serious portrait of Sweetheart. It wasn't easy to get her to sit still and just look at the camera because she kept wanting to bring me toys!

My own dog at play...

...and at rest.

It wasn't just dogs I met in person that brought me pleasure this year; I also enjoyed following the exploits of a number of dogs on the web. Some of my favorites:

Love and a Six Foot Leash

The handsome fellows in this photo are Snickerdoodle a.k.a. Doodlebug a.k.a. The Dude and his brother, Chick, of Love and a Six Foot Leash, a blog and Facebook page. The blog used to be largely devoted to the tales of Chick (who takes over the blog on Fridays) and the various foster dogs that came through his house, but then along came the Dude. Everyone loved the Dude, including Chick, and so now he's what they call a foster failure: home for keeps! So the blog is no longer focused on fostering, but there are lots of well-written updates about dog training, dog sports, and the adventures (mostly napping) of Chick and Doodlebug, all accompanied by beautiful photographs.

Bah Humpug

Most of the dog blogs and Facebook pages I follow are devoted to pit bulls and pit bull advocacy groups, but I also have a soft spot for pugs and the corgis. I was delighted, then, to come across this lovely little blog devoted to pug drawings! Charming, simple, and updated several times a week, these delightful doodles always make me smile.

Maddie the Coonhound

Maddie is a coonhound. She gets photographed standing on things. It's a simple concept, but the results are strangely elegant, funny, and poignant. Maddie, of course, is very handsome, and her standing-on-things skills are quite amazing (a coonhound balancing on the top of a tomato cage!), but the artistry of the photography is impressive, too. It reminds me, in many ways, of William Wegman's photos of his Weimaraners. I know she's only standing on the floor in the photo above, but it's a fabulous image. Big kudos to Maddie for standing so nicely and to her owner for capturing her in the act!

Betsy & Pups

I love the "Betsy & Pups" Facebook page. It all started back in January when a massively pregnant pit bull was brought into an Atlanta-area shelter just days before she was due to give birth. The foster parent who took Betsy in started up a Facebook page to chronicle the birth and growth of Betsy's ELEVEN puppies. The puppy photos and updates and live streaming video were all great, but I've been extremely happy that while Betsy and Betsy's puppies have all since been adopted, the foster mom has continued to post photos and updates of the foster dogs, many with medical needs, that come through her house. The photo above is of two of her own dogs spooning with a recent foster and is quite typical of the beauty, charm, and "awww!" factor of the images posted! Current foster pup Billie has brought many a smile to my face in recent months!

Sarge Wolf-Stringer

Another Facebook page devoted to dogs that made me smile this year was the one belonging to Sarge Wolf-Stringer. Sarge himself has passed on, but Mary Todd Lincoln, Martha Washington, Nancy Reagan, Junior, Fannie, and El Capitan remain devoted to reducing prejudice about pit bulls. Well, that is, when they can fit it in between searching for Mary Todd Lincoln's neck, band practice with Axis of Weevil, exorcising Cappy's demons, Martha's work as a therapy dog, Air Out Your Pug Days, cheering on UF, listening to rap music, and cultivating charming personalities. One of the highlights of my year was actually getting to MEET the pack in person while I was in Florida! That's me in the photo with Mary Todd and Martha, very happy that the internet and my love of dogs has, in fact, expanded my world and my friendships.

Dog Shaming

And finally, when I had exhausted all of my dog blogs and Facebook sources and I still needed a laugh, I could turn to the weird wonderfulness that is Dog Shaming.

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I'm not able to read as much as I used to, but I suppose I still pack away more of the printed word than most folks even though I can no longer whiz through books at pre-migraine speed. These are a few of the books that mattered most in 2012:

Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" has showed up on a lot of "Best Books of 2012" lists--deservedly so! I gobbled this book up in one day, pausing only for meals, and the moment I finished it, I flipped right back to the beginning and started it again! There's a big twist in the middle, one that I didn't see coming, so once I knew how everything turned out, I had to go back and read it again, this time knowing that one of the narrators was unreliable! I received Gillian Flynn's two previous novels, "Sharp Objects" and "Dark Places," for Christmas and can report that they are also page-turners. I read "Sharp Objects" in a single sitting, not even pausing for meals, because I was so committed to finding out what was going to happen. I'm usually the sort of reader that prefers character development to a lot of plot, but I found her fast-paced mysteries to be highly engaging. I would add that the sophistication of Flynn's stories have evolved which each book, from the crude violence and somewhat clumsy characterization in "Sharp Objects" to the much more subtle psychological evil of the characters in "Gone Girl." I'd definitely recommend her work, and not just for fans of mysteries and thrillers!

Annie Proulx has been one of my favorite authors since I first read "The Shipping News" back when I was in high school, but I've felt that her work has gotten more caustic in recent years and that maybe she needs an editor to say "no" to her from time to time: some of the short stories in recent collections have seemed self-indulgent to me. I wasn't in the mood, therefore, to read Proulx's work when I received "That Old Ace in the Hole" last Christmas. It wasn't until this summer when I finally got around to it, but I'm glad I did, because it's one of her wry, quirky, but loving looks at a seemingly unlovely region, in this case, the Oklahoma Panhandle. (The book was published in 2002, perhaps accounting for the less bitter tone than some of her more recent work.) I love the vividness of Proulx's writing, her utterly original similes, and her manner of capturing the nuances of character, dialect, and place through lively language. This is not a fast-paced book, being much more about creating a portrait of a place and its people than plot, but I found it so satisfying that I started it again from the beginning the moment I finished it. Fans of "The Shipping News" should definitely check it out.

I may have reread both "Gone Girl" and "That Old Ace in the Hole" immediately upon finishing them, but that's nothing compared to the half dozen times AT LEAST that I read "The Plague and I" this year. "The Plague and I" is Betty MacDonald's account of her year spent in a tuberculosis sanatorium in the late 1930's. Earlier generations may know Betty MacDonald's book "The Egg and I," while younger readers may have enjoyed her Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle children's series. I grew up loving "Nancy and Plum," her romantic children's story about two orphaned sisters and their escape from evil Mrs. Monday's boarding home, so I was familiar with her name, if not her adult writing. I found myself picking up "The Plague and I" on long, dismal, discouraging afternoons when I was feeling too sick with fatigue and migraines to get out of bed and I found myself longing for an old-fashioned "rest cure" in a silent, spotless, dimly-lit nursing home where the bed would always be the right temperature, the pillows always the right degree of plumpness, and quiet and kindly nurses would massage my temples and be able to intuit exactly what delicacy might tempt my poor appetite. I find Betty MacDonald's humorous account of her months on bed-rest in the frigid sanatorium with the equally frigid nurses to be nearly as soothing as the my fantasy rest cure, despite the fact that she was always cold, had many bizarre and unpleasant roommates, desperately missed her children, and was faced with the terrifying possibility of death. "The Plague and I" has helped brighten many of my worst days and I'm thankful to have it by my bedside for when I'm feeling my sickest.

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Because I haven't felt well for much of this year and reading can be difficult for me when I'm not feeling well, I've ended up watching rather a lot of TV. Since we have no television in my house, I get my TV shows through the internet, either on Netflix or Hulu, which is nice, since I means I can watch older shows. The downside, of course, is that you can gobble up a series in just a few days if you get really hooked on it!

One of the series that I got hooked on this year was "Battlestar Galactica." I'd heard friends rave about it, but I have rather nerdy friends and assumed that it was merely a sci-fi show, which is not a genre I'm particularly interested in. (I've found that I'm rather partial to spy shows.) I needed something to watch, though, and by then my sister, who is even less of a sci-fi fan than I am, was watching it and loving it, so I gave it a shot. And was hooked. It turns out that underneath the veneer of spaceships and the cyborgs, the show is really about people, about how we respond to crises, how governments respond to crises, and how we define our enemies. I finished all but the last two episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" months ago; I am still waiting for the perfect time when I'm not too sick or too tired to finally let the series come to an end. It's been riveting entertainment and a great way of filling many of my evenings this year!

It's absolutely no surprise that I enjoyed "Downton Abbey." I like any book or movie or TV series that gives me a sense of what it was like to live in a different time period and I often watch the marvelous 5-hour BBC "Pride and Prejudice" miniseries when I'm not feeling well. I'm also well-versed in British literature (not to mention Edith Wharton and Henry James), so this series wonderfully brings the world I know from books to life. (I also recommend the 2002 miniseries, "The Forsyte Saga," for its ability to make a bygone age seem real.) I liked everything about "Downton Abbey": the clothes, the houses, the way it clearly illustrated the roles people were forced to inhabit, the drama between the characters, and the way Anna said the name of Mr. Bates!

While looking for shows to watch, I stumbled on the British police drama, "Luther." I don't generally care for extremely dark and violent shows and I don't much care for suspense, either, but I was so impressed by Idris Elba as the title character that I was extremely disappointed that the show only ran for ten episodes. When Luther ran his hands over his head in stressed vexation, I felt like I was watching a real person, not an actor. I also love the way he pronounced the name "Alice"!

Somewhat less dark (or at least more humorous), and therefore even more to my liking, was the new British show, "Sherlock." Cleverly done and well-acted, I am eagerly awaiting more episodes! I haven't read any of the original "Sherlock Holmes" stories in ages, so all of the mysteries are fresh to me and I like the character development very much. The tie-in to the "Sherlock Holmes" stories series also has the benefit of enabling me to keep a sense that the show is fiction. Overly-realistic police/detective dramas can bother me (which is why my enjoyment of "Luther" was so unusual), so I appreciate that slight distance that allows me to enjoy how well-written and well-acted the show is!

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While 2012 might not have been a great year in terms of my health, it was a fantastic year for photography. I continue to enjoy my DSLR, which I purchased in the fall of 2011; I have taken 10,4588 photographs so far! I've taken a great many photos of the plants and flowers that can be found near my home, so it was with delight that I discovered the power of my 100 mm macro lens to take photographs of insects and other animals. It started when I came across a bee on a cornflower. I was amazed by the results and began photographing bees whenever I found one. As fall came on and the local spiders grew larger, I turned my camera on them, too, and was excited to photograph banana spiders and yellow garden orbweavers in Florida. The spiders may have been more intriguing than attractive, but I was utterly mesmerized by the beauty of the blue and red betta at Sweetheart's house and took dozens of photos of sunlight shining through the fish's trailing fins. Getting the opportunity to photograph a shrew-mole in my lawn this spring and successfully staking out hummingbirds visiting our fuchsias were highlights, but I think my very favorite (non-bee) animal photo of the year is the one I snapped of a Florida soft shell turtle sunning itself on a road in St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in the Florida panhandle!

You can find more bee photos here...

I've gotten rather obsessed with photographing spiders, but haven't gotten around to posting an album of those photos yet. Here's one of my photos of a banana spider.

I have more betta photos in this album...

This photograph of a Florida soft shell turtle is one of my favorite animal photos from 2012!

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I was very fortunate in 2012 to be able to travel. Since the migraines began in 2009, my world had grown very small. Therefore, it was wonderful to have a chance to have an overnight excursion to San Juan Island and then, just weeks later, to travel all the way to Florida! I hadn't thought air travel would be possible with my sensitivity to pressure changes, but with medication I managed and therefore got to see some of my favorite people AND photograph some fantastic wildlife. I'm looking forward to getting to travel just a little bit in 2013!

You could hardly find two places less alike than these two extremes of the contiguous United States, but I enjoyed my visit to both!

* * *

Striped socks and a
striped dog can help
make things better!

So while 2012 won't go down in history as one of my favorite years, it still was a year full of dogs and horses, of internet entertainment of all kinds, of absorbing books, interesting travel, and lots of very cool photography. I'm hoping in 2013 to manage to be well enough to get back in the saddle and stay there; to travel to Los Angeles and, hopefully, to Arizona, too; to draw dogs and photograph dogs and dog-sit dogs; to learn all the ins and outs of my camera, continue building up my portfolio, and expand into the realm of stock photography; to be clear-headed enough to finish a number of blogs I have in draft form and to write down the many others that are floating around in my head (especially when I'm awake in the night); and, with luck, feel better more often than not!

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