A Real Person

Last week Jack and I headed off to do a book club event. Carolyn got in touch via Facebook, and asked if we would visit two in combination near Wintergreen Resort (a high end retreat in Northern Virginia)

Since we were driving up on a beautiful Spring day and had “all the time in the world” Jack and I did what fools do: turned off our GPS and started back-roading. At 8 pm, twenty miles off target, we left the Blue Ridge Parkway via a dirt road I am pretty sure was an irrigation service track for someone’s cow pasture. (We rehooked the gate after we went through.)

Carolyn and her husband live in a community of DC refugees. The book club’s women were either retired from work in Fairfax or Richmond, or keeping gracious, spacious homes open for men still making the daily commute. Those of you who do author events will recognize the underlying intimidation factor: that gig where, as you stand to speak, you realize the people sitting in the front row could pool their changepurse contents and buy your car.

But they asked such insightful questions amid repeated offers of “Would you like a cup of coffee/tea/juice/wine” so often, we had a great time. One of the attending clubs was called “Needs and Deeds.” They support causes they feel need quiet yet swift attention, donating their own discretionary income but also holding fundraisers, often involving books or handmade items.

The night before the club meeting, we took to our hostess Carolyn right away; she’s the kind of woman who opens her arms and the world walks into them. She cooks and makes things better, maintains graciousness with an effortless grace. She has magnolia-blossom white hair and blue eyes that, when you look in, are just looking for ways to make your day better.

Here’s the kicker, though: as Carolyn was making us a breakfast of fresh ground coffee, cheddar scrambled eggs, homemade bread and jam, and fresh raspberries, we started talking about a book idea I’d been kicking around: “Invisible? the lives of American women after 5o.”

I didn’t bring it up, though; Carolyn did. She was trying to write her family history for the publishing market, and thinking of going back to school. Among other things, she said, she wanted her three daughters to be “proud of her,” to feel that she had “done something with her life.”

I looked at the spacious home full of grandchild spaces, the tended garden, the bread, the dogs – one of whom was a Hurricane Katrina rescue. “Done something?” I repeated.

“Well, I mean, yes, I used to work in a bookstore,” Carolyn said, bunching eggs with her spatula. “In your book, you talk about dreams, living a real life. And my life…”

“Your book club is called ‘Needs and Deeds,’ right?” I asked, blinking.

She smiled. “I know. But I want my daughters to know I was a real person.”

We talked a long time that morning about what a “real person” meant for women with white hair in America, swapping stories, and having some good laughs near tear territory.

And Carolyn, if ever there were a real person, hands and ears and eyes tuned to what’s going on around them, it is you. Whether the outside forces of American society see it or not, you are not invisible, but radiantly transparent. Different thing. God Bless You for it.

Zora the Bookshop Dog’s Advice to New Graduates

Well, every year about this time humans come in looking for graduation gifts. Apparently their puppies, or their sister’s puppies, or the puppies of a friend–humans have such odd kinship systems–are graduating. It is a time of great consternation for the whole human pack.

It all seems a bit artificial to me. Take that kinship system of who has to buy presents for whom: we canines have instincts for a reason, and we’re not much bothered about the rules beyond that. You either smell good or you don’t; you wag your tail and are friendly, or you’re a growler. Blood doesn’t matter–unless it’s about to get spilled.

But then, I’m a dog, not a human, so maybe I haven’t got enough of that “schooling” stuff.

That’s the other part of the “graduation” ritual that strikes me as odd. I understand that the human puppies have done something that took a lot of time and was quite expensive, but we canines know that it takes a whole lifetime to absorb the learning that goes with being alive. In my experience, those that don’t keep learning get run over on the highway. Or left behind in a move. You gotta stay ahead of those noises you hear in the distance, y’know? Ears up, nose into the wind.

There’s another part of the ritual I don’t get. We bitches love our babies all the time; they get licks and snuggles and we sing them lullabies when nobody’s around. I know humans love their puppies too, but they seem to wait for special occasions to say so. Every day alive is a special occasion for us. We call it “every dog has his day.”

Then there’s that weird thing humans do where they run around each other–or run away from each other–looking for love. In my experience, love comes when you’re sitting down minding your own business. Someone scratches you behind the ears, you look into each others’ eyes, and you got a home. Just don’t go messing it up by barking when a little kiss will do the trick.

And one last thing. There are no books that will stuff into a pup’s head in one sitting all the things they haven’t got by now. In our world, we say “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” The time to tell ‘em what they need to hear is all those years you’ve got ‘em around the food bowl – kitchen table, I think y’all call it. Those toss-off evenings that tick by one by one, racing past ’cause you’ve got places to go: THOSE are the nights that count. Once they get old enough to go out on their own, they aren’t gonna listen any more. So get their ears full while they’re still wet behind ‘em.

That’s what I’d say if humans could hear me. But y’know, they usually can’t, so never mind. And to all you puppies out there leaving the school, here’s my advice: keep your ears up, scratch when it itches, stick with the love you find, and don’t get run over.