pets – Sidecountry Living

“Are you still writing?”

October 10, 2018 eamillikin2 Comments

“Are you still writing?”

Yes –

and no.

Writing isn’t my job anymore, but I write every day. Notes to myself in notebooks I keep close to my side, away from prying eyes. I write hopes and fears and to-dos and notes and lines of code.

Even I, though, wonder why I no longer write here.

In everything I write, there is a thing that I am writing about that I do not speak of. That I refuse to articulate. Whether it’s love or loss or a half hidden anxiety disorder, there is always something huge under the surface.

I write like an iceberg.

That’s why my style jumps from place to place, why I pull in poems and speeches and works of art. Like funhouse mirrors, they obscure as much as they reveal.

One of those chiaroscuri still lives where you wonder if there’s a shape in the darkness or if it’s your imagination. In the changing light, the shadows cast by paint strokes seem to move.

Like me at a party, I flicker from place to place, nervous energy in perpetual motion. If I keep moving, only the dedicated will be able to keep up. If I keep writing, I can keep speaking the truth without ever having to consider that you’ll hear it.

Every once in a while I will claim a corner and sit on the back porch railing and give you a piece of my mind, bold and invulnerable under the night sky.

∆∆

What am I not writing about now?

I’m not writing about how I can’t keep running, how I can’t keep moving. How I must, for my life, be still and focused.

See, I want something. I want something so badly that last winter I said no to ski dates more often than I said yes. I said no to the mountains and woods and freedom more often than I said yes. (Should I have said yes? These things are medicine, but they are also time. I do not feel like I have enough time, although I whisper the words my partner tells me: “The universe loves and supports you in all that you choose to do, and you have an abundance of time.” Whisper that to yourself. Try it right now. Whisper it with the almost cliché, embarrassing sincerity that forces you to believe it.)

See, I am going to be a professional programmer.

I say that now.

“Hi. I’m Liz. I am going to be a developer. It’s nice to meet you.”

See, I am already a developer. I write things. Code is just another kind of poetry, and I’m probably better at writing Javascript than iambic pentameter.

I’m not writing about that because it’s not interested in writing about it yet. For a long while, I was pretty bad at it. And then less bad. And so on. It will be a good story in retrospect, but right now, I’m in the middle of it.

Perspective makes the heart grow fonder because the view is more expansive, like an aperture opening to welcome in more light.

The things that are, perhaps, the most interesting to write about aren’t things that I really want to write about. It’ll either be too much or too little.

For me, I mean. I won’t be so arrogant as to dictate to you what your definition of lagom is. Define that for yourself.

I have miles to go.

∆∆

Shall I write about this – this morning after our walk, Nova jumped on the couch next to me. And after a few minutes of pets, she lay down and pushed her head into my lap (tentatively) and I screeched and massaged until she fell asleep with the weight of her pressed into me.

We camped a few weekends ago, and when it was time to sleep she curled into a tight ball next to me. I draped a vest over her back to ward off the chill. I wished she would come into the bag with me as I tried in vain to curl into a ball, too.

Doesn’t work the same in a sleeping bag.

I bought a new sleeping bag last week. One with enough room for me to tuck my legs up. There’s room for her, too, I think, if she ever does want to come in.

A few days later we slept half the night on the back porch, warm breeze like a balm. She curled up with me then, too, even though she could have slept sprawled out on the whole bed.

This is enough, but it’s all so saccharine, don’t you think? With each step we take together, I add more to my love song to Nova, my heart’s own companion. But sugar isn’t interesting alone.

I stare out of the window on gray days, daydreaming of Faerûn and Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms.

I wonder if I should drink more.

I wonder if my grandmother was a Swedish citizen and if she was, if I would be able to claim citizen by birthright. I am made for high lands.

I press “pay now” on my very last student loan payment.

I’m building soil, I tell myself. One does not become a developer in a day.

I am certain of this. Nothing and no one will deter me.

Backcountry Skiing with Dogs (or, I want to write about heaven)

December 30, 2017 eamillikinLeave a comment

“I want to write.”

Has your brain ever spoken to you so loudly that it feels like a voice external to you speaking?

Last night, in the dark, where just a moment earlier I had been falling asleep, came the not-sound, insistent.

“I want to write.”

I haven’t stopped writing. I write a dizzying number of emails. My journal is never far from my side. And yet, I don’t write.

Instead, the evenings and weekend hours when I would have written, I still write but I swap one language for another.

Javascript.

∆∆

I’m sure I’ll talk about that more some other time. For now, suffice to say, even in this moment when I’m writing (finally), I feel the guilt.

I’m writing, but I’m not coding. I’m not studying. I’m not working toward something.

Am I?

∆∆

Let’s not get distracted.

∆∆

Nova is curled up, a tight bun shape, on the couch. She’s tired because yesterday she ran.

Oh, how she ran!

We – my boyfriend, my dog, and I – went to St Vrain. There’s less snow than when he and I went last year, but the snow that is feels surprisingly soft. No melt freeze crust to punch through, just snow wind packed.

When I got Nova, I resigned myself to having a dog that might never be allowed off leash. Huskies aren’t known for their penchant for sticking around. But there is something else in her. And this other side is what I wanted – obedient, responsive, a white shadow at my heel.

Granted, she doesn’t actually know “heel.”

She is a mix of these things. A snow dog that loves to run and wander. An independent spirit who checks back to make sure I’m still there. Who learns quickly to run behind the skier, just to one side. Who comes when called – eventually.

But who gets distracted and has to be gone back for, calling her name as I carry my skis back up the skin track until rounding the corner I see her, just at the next corner up, looking down to be sure it’s me.

Can I try to tell you what it felt like to see her running with me?

I have new skis, new bindings, new boots, and new skins. I’ve skinned up this path on St Vrain before, but never with such comparative ease. The pain in my knee that plagued and crippled me all last winter, gone. The weight of my old equipment dragged me down and held me back. The right, light gear seemed to propel me forward.

And a white dog ducking in and out of the woods. She alternated between trotting along on the skin track and wiggling through the deep snow on her belly.

We hadn’t broken tree line when we decided to turn around for the day, but discomfort in my right foot (the previously broken foot) and rising wind speeds made the decision easy.

My partner and I switched to downhill, and so did she.

We alternated, finding it best to keep the dog between us as we skied.

When it was my turn to ski first, she ran at my tails as if she knew the command for “heel.”

She ran just at my periphery. A tilt of my head and there she was, tongue out and charging.

When we stopped to let her catch her breath, she dove into deeper snow. When we started again, she was there, running at the heel of whichever of us was first.

In me, with skis on my feet and dog at my heel, the sense of Vonnegut’s heaven; everything is beautiful and nothing – not my knee, not my tweaked shoulder, not my mind – hurt.

∆∆

Nova: A Blog in Which I, Predictably, Talk About My Dog

October 18, 2016October 19, 2016 eamillikin4 Comments

This is Nova.

She’s sleeping, curled in a crescent, on my bed. Half in a sun beam. Every once in a while, her toes twitch as if she is running, chasing rabbits in her dreams.

Are you real? I ask her.

She moves awake, turns to look at me.

Of course I am. Why would you ask such a thing?

I ask such a thing because I have been waiting for her for so long. Ten years, approximately. More than a quarter of my life has been spent waiting.

And now I get to say it: this is my dog.

I get to speak these words over and over again. This is my dog.

The day I picked her up from her foster home, she greeted me as she greets everyone: silently, at the door, pressing her face and shoulders into my hands to be pet. She leaned into me. And I took her home.

In the car, she looked politely out of the window as I talked to her, nervously, as one does when there is too much silence to fill.

You’re coming home, Nova. And I won’t let you leave.

I don’t remember exactly where the name Nova came from. It’s been on my list of dog names for ages, but it was close enough to the name her fosters had given her that it wouldn’t be difficult to switch to. And, it is also the name of one of my current Shadowrun characters. And, more importantly, the week before I picked her up, I dreamed of her every night. In my dreams, her name was Nova.

I gave her a middle name. It’s Popcorn.

She’s named after my parents’ first dog together, a mutt they found in their barn in upstate New York.

Popcorn found her way into my parents’ life.

I went looking for Nova.

I am a dog person.

An introvert. The kind of person who thinks maybe the anchorites have the right idea.

But I am also a dog person.

Maybe it’s because I was a lonely child. Don’t misunderstand me – I was happy. I was always happy. But I was lonely. I created a rich and wonderful world in my mind, but I had no real way of sharing it.

I didn’t have a dog when I was young. Popcorn died when I was a toddler. We didn’t get Sophie until I was 11.

Instead, I wrapped myself up in books. Books of horses in the desert. Of hawks in the Catskills. But best of all were the books that took place someplace cold. I read them at midnight under the covers with a flashlight. They were books of sled dogs and wolves and the northern lights.

And I dreamed of a dog that would be my friend.

It must be a family trait.

Once, I found my brother’s journal. In it were Robert Frost poems and one entry about Popcorn the First. In it, he wrote that she was his best friend and companion.

I wanted a best friend and constant companion.

I remember the first moment I saw Sophie. She was a puppy, her ears still folded over. A little strawberry blonde and white ball of puppy barreling down the hallway to greet me when I opened the door.

I was sweaty from soccer practice.

My father walked in after. He had no idea that we would be coming home to a puppy.

We’re really good at communicating in my family.

When I turned 16, I’d help Sophie into the passenger seat of my Geo Tracker and we would drive. Usually just to the drug store, where usually I would park for a few minutes just to turn around and drive home. Just for something to do with her when I was bored and lonely.

I would take her hiking, a girl and her corgi, when no one else would go.

My mother sometimes calls me Sister.

I called Sophie my little sister.

For some reason, the dogs in my daydreams were always male and either pitch black or blue merles. Sheepdogs, the lot.

Instead, I have a white female husky mutt. She is strikingly beautiful, her coat pointed with red like a Siamese cat. Her features foxlike.

Another strawberry blonde. It must be a family trait.

Her eyes are brown. But in one, a smudge of white like an iceberg adrift in a murky sea. Or, maybe, in her eye is the reflection of a mountain peak only she can see.

I mentioned it briefly in an earlier post, but I had foot surgery in September. 18 days later I had a dog.

I’m two weeks away from the day when the bone they broke will be fully healed. Two weeks away from the day when I can run and jump.

I can’t wait to run and jump with her.

I can’t wait to disappear again into the high alpine, this time with her by my side.

I can’t wait to see how far we’ll go.

You should see her smile when she’s on trails. Like me, she isn’t made for concrete. She’s made for dirt and snow and the high alpine.

On Saturday, the two of us drove up to Breckenridge to visit with family friends. We ended the trip with three circuits of a tiny .7 mile loop. I stubbed my bad toe three times. I was limping long before we stopped back at the car.

On the way home, she slept in the back seat and I played Blind Pilot as I drove on mountain roads.

And I wanted to cry from happiness.

Because I was a lonely child.

Now that Nova is here, that little girl never has to be lonely again.

Nova takes up almost the entire bottom half of the bed. She’s sprawled out with a squeaky Kong ball that her godfather, my roommate Kenny, bought her this afternoon.

She’s not a cuddler, but she must be warming up, because she’s using my shin as a pillow. Every once in a while, her toes twitch.

I don’t know if she’s ever seen snow before.

This thought struck me the other day. Prior to coming to Summit Dog Rescue, she was a stray in Arkansas. There is a chance that she has never seen snow.

I drove by snow on Loveland’s slopes. Low enough down that even I, gimpy, could reach it without a problem.

We’re going to find snow this weekend.

A friend asked how I felt just a few days after I found out I was getting Nova.

I told him, it’s scary. But not for the reasons people think. I’m not worried about the responsibility or the cost or any of that.

Rather, I have been dreaming about this dog for years. Thinking about her, wondering about her, planning for her for a decade.

And now she’s here.

I don’t like life goals. I don’t like bucket lists. Even my birthday lists are sort of haphazard and half-assed. I barely have dreams.

But Nova has been on my list. On every list. For a decade.

And now that I have her.

Now that this dream has come true… I can’t help but be afraid.

What else can I do?

We are going to go find snow.

And in two weeks, we are going to go to the high alpine.

A human and her husky. And we’ll never be alone.

Desiderata

August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 eamillikinLeave a comment

I want a dog.

I want to live where the color of summer is green.

I want a quiet dirt road where I can feel the mountains in the air.

Where the spring snows cling to the shadows.

I want a place on this road that will always feel like home.

And in it, a room full of books.

I want to work hard.

But, I will find joy in that labor. To write words that will – in some small way – help. To rake mountains of leaves in the fall and cut wood for the fire that will – on some winter nights – feel like a treasure stolen from the gods.

I want to play.

By this I mean to be in motion. To climb trees and behind their leaves pantomime hide and seek until I am very, very old and very, very gray.

I want the freedom to wander away, to disappear for days on end.

It may not always matter where or when, but simply that I can and, most of all, that I can always, always come home to warm my fingers on a cup of black coffee…

With a dala horse watching from the windowsill.

––

These are my desired things.

That which I will seek until I find.

Everything else is negotiable.

∆∆

Dog Borrower

April 12, 2013September 25, 2014 eamillikinLeave a comment

I’m an unabashed, unashamed borrower-of-dogs.

From Sophia, my old corgi girl. My first dog and my litte sister. A quintessential corgi personality. Impossible to photograph, impossible to train out of begging for food at the dinner table.

To Joey, my brother’s Norwich Terrier, who conquers hearts and gains admirers wherever she goes.

Or Tanner, the English Shepherd mix who might just be the perfect dog. A rescue, too, who’s found his forever-ever home.

Then there’s Hailey, the most opinionated dog on the planet. I have never met another dog more convinced that she’s right and you’re incredibly and incurably wrong.

Ella, my dog-cousin. She looked me in the eyes one afternoon, and the wordless knowledge passed between us that she owned me and there was nothing I could do about it.

Younger than the others, though fast growing out of her gawky teenage years, is Clover. A free spirit and mountain dog with a soulful face and a hound dog’s bark.

There are others, too, that I’ve held and held back. And still more that I’ve stopped on the streets to say hello. Corgis that have brought tears to my eyes. German Shepherds that won me over in a matter of moments. A Chow-Chow-mix who was the sweetest dog I ever did see, but who definitely did not understand the concept of me spending a night on his sofa. And my parent’s first dog, who I know only by pictures. A protective mutt they found in a barn.

–

Here a mutt, there a pure bred. From rescues, puppy mills, pounds, breeders, accidental litters.

–

Dogs who evolved to stand at our sides. Who we brought into our tents, homes, families. That lick our fingers and faces. That leave marks on our lives, and maybe even our skin.

I still have the scar from when I was bit in the face as a child. An accident on both our parts – mine and the dog’s. Neither of us meant any harm, and there were no hard feelings. I loved that dog, Oscar, before and I loved that dog until he passed away, a very old man, years after. When someone tells me they don’t like dogs because they were once bit, I lift my chin and trace the thin mark of stitches against my jaw.

–

Like a dog, forgive. And love again. Other lessons: stop to admire the leaves on the ground, the grass. Appreciate a blanket and a sofa. Stay hydrated. Stretch you legs. When it feels good, lean in to it. Sigh with contentment. Love your work. Love your play. Get dirty. Shake when wet. Kiss the ones you love every day.

–

Mine is a life lived in dog-years, a heart marked by paw prints.

Goodbye to this girl’s best friend

December 16, 2012December 16, 2012 eamillikin1 Comment

14 years ago, I opened a door and a tiny, strawberry-blonde barreled into my legs. She was a ridiculous little thing – tiny legs, a stump for a tail, and two soft ears folded forward… I was a a sweaty 11 year-old just getting home from a soccer game. The last thing Dad or I expected to come home to was a puppy.

I got the news last night – Sophie was put down. Her degenerate spinal disease had progressed to the point where she could no longer use her back legs. To walk her, Mom looped a long scarf under her stomach.

In short, I knew it was coming.

Sophie was my friend and companion. Then, when I turned 16, she would sit in the passenger seat of my first car, her head on my hand as I shifted gears. We’d go for walks in the woods together when no one else could come along. She’d follow gamely along in our tracks as we went snowshoeing through snow deeper than she was tall. She slept on my bed every night.

When I came home from college, she ignored me. She jumped all over my mother, but took one sniff of me before walking away. I was devastated the first time this happened. But, just like old days, come bed time, she slunk into my room and I lifted her up. The next day, we were friends again.

She was terribly bad behaved. Barked incessantly. Had a sick obsession with toys that squeaked. Not a meal went by where she didn’t put her front paws on our laps desperate for handouts.

And death i think is no parenthesis — Sophie Grace Millikin 1998-2012

Oh, and she never got along with other dogs. She wasn’t a dog’s dog. She was a people’s dog.

If we lived in a world where Philip Pullman’s daemons were born with us, Sophie wouldn’t be my daemon. From the start, she was my mother’s. While Sophie loved us, her family, she loved my mother best. Truly she was my mother’s dog… but she was my little sister.

I love you, girl. I’ll miss you always.