the last blue iris

On Friday, the vet came and I held Mr. Bill in my arms as he left this world and went back to wherever it is we come from, wherever it is we go. It had been a difficult night for him, and he could barely walk, was incontinent, was clearly in pain. Earlier that morning, I picked J. up from his dorm and we drove home in silence. Then, around 2 PM, I held the dog in my arms as the vet administered the last shot.  I was 30 years old when I adopted Mr. Bill; J. had just turned two. We had just moved into our apartment post-divorce with our two cats, and I had left Luther and Charlie, the dogs I had with my ex, with him because I couldn't find an apartment that would accept two dogs and two cats. I was paying my mortgage and my rent, and I was terrified and desperate. But I'd never lived alone, and had never really lived without a dog before. So I saw Mr. Bill's photo on a rescue site, and drove out to Richland, Michigan where I picked him up from an animal hoarder's house. H...

 Today we learned that our 17 year old dog, Mr. Bill, dog of my divorce, J.'s double, is nearing the end of his days, and we need to decide soon when he will compassionately exit this life. I sobbed for an hour, called J., picked him up from his dorm, sobbed some more. Mr. Bill can barely walk, can't stand up on his own anymore without assistance or a rug, has lost enough weight that his bones are traced beneath his thin fur. But he still eagerly eats the cat's food, can magically hear when I open a can of dog food (though he cannot hear much else, nor see, nor understand where he is or why most of the time.) I have always hoped he would die peacefully in his sleep and I would not have to make this decision, having made it traumatically for numerous animals before him. But. I do not think that will be the case. This week is our birthdays, J. and me. He'll be 19, I'll be 47. Both feel impossibly old and young at the same time. We have had Mr. BIll since I was 30 and ...

 All week, the weather app on my phone has threatened apocalypse at the furthest range of the forecast: snow, temperatures in the teens. Meteorologists have been quick to temper with caveats: we don't know much that far out, it's unlikely in an el nino winter to have a snowstorm, etc.  Living in the Midwest, you can see your weather coming: great colorful blobs moving eastward along the jet stream from the West Coast to appear as thunderstorms, blizzards, arctic blasts. Here, the weather moves silently across the Pacific, out of sight (I guess?) of weather satellites and all the vaguaries and mysteries of the Pacific, and we know about it a few days before it arrives. Snowstorms appear in Portland sometimes unannounced, sneak in and change their mind somewhere beyond the buoys and the city shuts down.The city panics, like most places that aren't used to regular snow. Life stops, busses rattle down the streets with chains on their tires, people cross country ski to the liquo...

 A quiet Christmas. I've been sick with covid since the late on the 15th, R. was too but is better. J. has avoided it, praise goddess, and D. just came home today, me fully masked. I feel fine now, but the virus seems pretty complacent to hang in my bloodstream. We are supposed to fly to Albuquerque on Wednesday to see my inlaws, but I'm doubtful I will be able to go. The olden dog, who sent us to the emergency vet last weekend (me sick as hell with the virus, but masked and worried) and who has apparently some kind of a mass on his liver, is home and seems his normal self. He is 16.5 years old and has terrible arthritis and dementia, but is beloved by the cats and J. and seems determined to live for another 16.5 years. Today is blustery and cold and my walk left me pink and wet and numb. It is three PM and already getting dark. We exchanged gifts in the dim light of the Christmas tree, the boys retreated upstairs to their rooms, and I'm back in my office working on the bac...

We are halfway through our run of The Sorcerer  with the Light Opera of Portland . Next week, I start rehearsals again with In Medio . Tonight is Halloween, Samhain, All Hallow's Eve. This morning the sky was red. Yesterday the wind whipped through the Gorge and tore every red leaf from the dogwood behind my office. Hummingbirds still visit the feeder three offices down. A week ago I watched a bald eagle pull a harassing bird out of the sky and disappear behind the factories along I-84 and the Columbia River. When I was my son's age, I knew I had a few true loves: music, theater, and books. At 18, was in my first college play, being the church accompanist to Our Town . I hadn't been an unnamed character since my freshman year in high school. This time, 28 years ago, I wanted to transfer, to be a playwright, or something other than what I was: a little college freshman from Chicagoland drowning in Kalamazoo. Soon enough--through choir and theater and the Women's Resource...

Some nights--oh, most nights if I'm honest--I hold whole poems or essays in my head but cannot bring myself to write them. Here, or in a draft, or in my little composition notebook. I feel like I haven't written in months, feel utterly estranged from that part of my life. Am I writer? who is she? I drive through  the city on the way to rehearsal, rain pummeling my windshield, downtown Portland flickering across the river. I sing, I put on my costume, I come home exhausted, unable to sleep. J. continues to figure out his young-adult life. I drive through the wet city, uncertain where to turn and on the wrong bridge. Is the Steel  Bridge north or south of the Burnside Bridge? Does Naito Parkway go all the way up or? Am I in the bike lane or am I in the right lane? I read my tarot. I listen to a colleague talk about another colleague's recovery from COVID--a miracle. I tear up as she explains it. Am I an atheist? Do I believe in any god? I  see every fellow Leftist take a si...

It has been a difficult autumn, full of unbloggable things that aren't my story to tell. And there are things in the world that are unbearable. But there has also been beauty. I run through rain, and then unexpected golden afternoons. My boy brings me and his camera to the little mountain, to the woods, to the Rose Test Garden and the old money neighbhorhoods around Washington Park. We walk, we cry, we talk. I have never been prouder of him, nor more heartsick.  I wake up most nights drenched in sweat; J.'s cat has taken to meowling loudly while she brings his discarded  socks down the stairs, or dirty laundry up from the basement--until now, she's been mostly silent for the first 13 years of her life. She yowls and then drops the sock beneath the Chinese cabinet in the living room. When J. is here, she wraps herself around his legs. I spend my days at work, then at rehearsal for the opera; this week, I started having double rehearsals for the opera and for the chamber choi...