We have landed.
A Spring and a Shift in the Landscape
Spring has always been my favourite season, mostly because I dislike the cold immensely, always have. In fact, when I tell people I am allergic to the cold, they always smirk with the assumption I simply do not enjoy it. Wrong. I am clinically allergic to the cold; always have been: swollen digits, itchy rashes, painful (frostbite-like) burning ….
For me, Spring is the farewell of a painful season, named Winter. I welcome it with open arms. I know others also get excited when the first robin bird appears on the landscape. Usually, we hear its shrill warbling song from some unseeable perch, often the heralding of dawn around 4:30 am outside our bedroom windows. When the robin actually does appear, it marks the assurance that we have moved forward, that matters are right or normal. Nature’s confidence is irrefutable and equally comforting. But what happens when Nature brings along the unexpected? Are we simply supposed to accept it, or is resistance the key if it’s not suitable or healthy, or worst of all dangerous?
In light of the past several months, many argue profusely that Nature had nothing to do with our global horror and the crashing of economies, forcing us into isolation. Many will, in fact, attest to the contrary, the matter being a contrived tactic to control and shift landscapes in the name of hunger, greed and power. I won’t go there, not here. Check out my Twitter account. Rather, I’ll stick to my humble garden and Nature’s analogies instead. I am now seeing new species of birds that I have never witnessed visiting my back yard in the near three decades I have lived in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and a residence just metres from a provincial woodland forest. It thrills me to see a bobcat on my fence, a raccoon scratching at my window in the dark of night, a deer chewing my petunias for breakfast, and the return of the allusive brown bats and flying squirrels at my suet feeder late into the night. Last week I documented an unprecedented Evening Grosbeak at my feeder and fed a red-breasted nuthatch from my hand in the nearby forest. On the flip-side, it also saddens me to mourn the annual reduction in the sitings of hummingbirds, despite my consistent efforts to attract them. Although, I am told there is an abundance of them a mere 20 kilometres from where I live as well as the Mountain Bluebird. Nature seems to have shifted and it always will. It’s how we manage it that dictates our success when the shifts cause us measurable stress.
I shared in my last blog some of the ways I personally was attending to my daily balances in an effort to stay sane and hopeful recently. One of the measures I have always embraced (and recently ramped up) is meditation. For the past eight weeks, McLean Meditation Institute (Sedona, AZ) has been graciously gifting meditators all over the globe with free online sessions, twice daily. When I first encountered the power of meditation more than a decade ago, I’d just been diagnosed with a one-in-a-million auto-immune disease (Transverse Myelitis) and had to learn how to manage chronic pain so I could (at minimum) walk my dogs again, let alone play soccer, golf or ride my bicycle. Meditation then brought me the ability to destress, self heal and manage my pain. When our landscape shifts, we too must shift.
Resistance is healthy if your goals are to gain an advantage, such as denying the temptations of poor nutrition to achieve your goal to compete in a road race. But, sometimes resistance comes in surprising forms that may not even be recognizable but should be reexamined all the same. I am talking about my personal commitment to myself to “never own another dog again.” After the death of one of my long-time dogs (a Yorkshire Terrier who lived to be 14), I was left with a chasm of loss and loneliness. A year after Tony’s passing, I adopted a rescue (a Chinese Crested, named Daisy) to fill the void. Following a year of challenges and frustrations, coupled with a seemingly endless (and unsuccessful) effort to source solutions, I was forced to re-home her. Fortunately, she is now living a dream life with four other dogs in a palace on a hill named “Forever Home.” Whew!
So, on I went stating “never again will I own a dog.” However, with Mr. Winter being so long and relentless, I decided that I should consider shifting my love of dogs towards caring for them while retaining my promise not to own one. Thus, I commenced 'My Rover Life;' my online profile had an apparent tendency to attract only large dogs that needed daily walking, daycare, puppy training. Then along came Sadie, a Catahoula Leopard.
Her owners were off to Bali for six months and chose me to be her new mom while they were away. Little did I know how Sadie would shift my landscape. With her high demand to be active, we walked several times every day, whether cold or unbearably cold. With her donning her knitted sweater and me my fur coat, Sadie introduced me to the dog park, a beautiful place (a sanctuary, truly) to which I had never been in spite of a lifetime of owning dogs. One beauty of the dog park is that all dogs meet happily and without barriers there. Nature has empowered them with the skills to cope.
Near the end of Sadie’s stay, I encountered the owner of a five-year-old male Yorkie who was seeking a good home for him. In fact, he had seven other canine siblings living in the same dwelling. Remembering how I re-homed Daisy two years ago with pure intention, I offered to relieve the Yorkie’s owner, knowing it would be very easy to find a better place for him. I walked away from that scene committed to my promise to nurture the petless freedoms I had created. But something niggled me and stuck. The wee Yorkie needing a home had features so very very similar to my Tony. I resisted the pulling sensations on my heartstrings and focused all my time on Sadie instead. A month later, the Yorkie owner called me and asked if I still had a home for her dog. With very little hesitation, I told her of course. Sadie accepted the four-pound intruder in her home without much resistance. Sadie’s owners returned home a month early from their Bali adventures and I was left staring at my new dependent, Mr. Marco.
Two months later now, Marco and I have adjusted to our new partnership with absolute ease. What I did not know when he entered my life was that he would become my daily sanity, my rituals of sustenance and love, my best friend throughout some very long days of solitude during the pandemic when going outside was nearly a crime. As Spring breaks through the soil bringing forth crocuses, yesterseason’s perennials and the songs of birds shift from the winter varieties to the springtime tones, hope is the new blossom. A widening sense of gratitude prevails as I plant my vegetable garden while my new best friend and life partner lays his wee furry body in the garden soil warmed by the springtime sunshine.
