My friend Christina lost her son this week.

Andrew was 34. He played all types of games — video, board, RPG, D&D, everything. He loved Disney, and theme parks, and superheroes. My most vivid memory of him is calling him in to adjudicate a battle in Superfight. He wasn’t playing, probably because he had to work, but he had passionate opinions about which superheroes would be superior in a face-to-face conflict.

I’ve got other memories of him, too — a conversation about learning to cook for other people while in the kitchen one day; laughing with his mom about which media mom she most resembled on the back porch when he’d just moved to Florida; a long afternoon spent playing a game that became a catchphrase for awful; and lots of meals. So many meals. Christina loves to cook and feeding people is her love language, so Andrew and I sat next to one another at more than one feast over the years. I hate that we will never do so again, just hate it.

And I am so incredibly sad for Christina. I want to get on a plane right now and cry all the way to Florida so that I can give her a hug. If I thought that hug would make anything any better, I’d do it, but it wouldn’t, of course. I’m not sure there’s anything that could.

It feels unreal, though. Not surreal, not like reality is twisted, but unreal, like of course that couldn’t have happened. Of course that can’t be true. Of course this isn’t real. It is, though. Every day, she has to wake up into this new reality that is just wrong. Truly so very wrong.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Christina’s immense loss has left me thinking a lot about my own son. I used to want to reach out to him all the time. I’d cook something good and think, “Oh, I should tell R about this,” or read an article and want to share it, or laugh about something the dog did and remind myself to remember it for our next phone call. That’s been over for a pretty long time. I still think of him every day, but I haven’t had to resist the urge to call or message him for… well, probably not since he called me whatever it was, an emotionally stunted creep or something like that. But this time… I just wanted to hear the sound of his voice. I just wanted to feel the visceral certainty that he is alive from an actual interaction, real words, responsiveness. I didn’t even try, though. I didn’t choose this estrangement, so there’s no point in me trying to un-choose it. I wish him well, though, wherever he is, however he is. I hope that he’s happy and thriving and… well, alive. Really, today, that feels like almost enough. Alive is so much better than the alternative.

I am so very sad for Christina.

Things I’ve appreciated today: cough drops, tissues, my thrift store rain jacket.

Level of happiness about my appreciations: pretty low, actually.

I bought tissues at Costco a couple of months ago and joked about how nice it was going to be to have a lifetime supply of tissues stashed in the storage shed. Today I took my 5th box out of the shed. Yeah, maybe not a lifetime’s worth after all. It feels a little like the universe is laughing at me for my over-confidence. Not that I believe in a malicious universe, but if I did, it would be laughing.

On the plane to SFO, I chatted with the woman sitting next to me. She’d just lost her live-in job (and therefore her housing) and was feeling a little shell-shocked, I think. She needed to talk. She was on her way to visit a son in Florida, to babysit for the grandkids while he and his wife vacationed, and was debating whether she should tell him what had happened. Along the way, she asked me if I had kids. I was so tempted to lie. I didn’t, because it felt like that malicious universe — the one I don’t believe in — would jump on any such statement and make it come true in some awful way. Like denying R’s existence would make him stop existing. That’s obviously ridiculous, and I know it’s ridiculous: even if he’s dead (no reason to believe he is, no reason to believe he’s not), his existence shaped my life. I am who I am because I chose to become his mother. No casual words to a stranger will change that. Fortunately, I no longer cry every time I mention him. I simply answered the question and immediately turned it back to her and we spent the rest of the flight talking about her five kids, fifteen grandkids, and first great-grand.

Random thing I want to remember: I had a little time to kill in Florida, between lunch with my friend Lynda and my stepmom’s birthday party, so I did a Japanese lesson in the car before starting to drive. While I was driving I was thinking about how little Japanese I know, even after 200+ days of tiny lessons. Then I thought, well, I do know the word for beach. Umi, that’s how you say beach in Japanese. And also, I know how to say that I’m going somewhere — ni iki masu. So I can say that I’m going to the beach — umi ni iki masu. And I know how to say tomorrow, too. Ashita umi ni iki masu — tomorrow, I’m going to the beach. So I guess maybe I’m learning more than I think I am. Tiny lessons leading to tiny triumphs. The next day I really did go to the beach, so it was even useful. Well, or it would have been if anyone I knew spoke or cared about speaking Japanese, ha.

Hey, good news: tomorrow is my last day of antibiotics and I am not going to be so afraid of them in the future. My stomach has had moments of uncertainty but I’ve been drinking my probiotic beverages every day and so far that’s worked to prevent too much misery. Less good news: as far as I can tell the antibiotics haven’t done a thing. One can’t have everything, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the prescription cough drops were/are completely useless as far as I can tell. In my not-entirely-scientific but extremely extensive experimentation, Ricola really are the best cough drops. Turns out, though, only the Honey Herb Ricola are guaranteed to be gluten-free, so it’s entirely possible that my cough drops were causing my cough. I honestly don’t believe in a malicious universe, though. Really. It’s just ironic. Or it would be if it were funny.

Time to go write a book! I’ve gotten a little stuck on Ceres, so yesterday I pulled out Cici. Beginnings are so easy; middles are so hard. I wonder if that’s a life truth, not just a writing truth?

Yesterday, I coughed so hard I threw up.

It was a bizarrely nostalgic experience. When I was pregnant, I spent the last few months throwing up every day, multiple times a day. I’m not quite sure when it started — end of October, I think — but I caught a cold, and the baby pushing up on my diaphragm plus an intense cough equalled vomiting. Lots and lots of vomiting. It turned into a weird self-perpetuating cycle where the coughing made me vomit and the vomiting made me cough and so it just kept going. For weeks. Months, actually.

I threw up so much and so often that I started strategizing about the best foods to eat before throwing up; if I knew it was coming, I’d quickly swallow some mint ice cream, which is honestly the very best thing to vomit. If you do it right, it’s still cool and creamy on your throat and the mintiness makes the taste bearable. Mmm, mint flavored vomit, so infinitely much better than tomato or orange juice flavored vomit.

I also knew all the best places to vomit on the streets I had to routinely walk. I was waddling along, of course, carrying a beachball in my belly, so I couldn’t move very fast. I’d pause at specific sewer grates to see if I needed to use them before continuing on. Worst place to vomit: at an ATM. I’m still sorry about that for the people who were waiting in line behind me. Second-worst place: on my plate at Christmas dinner. Fortunately for me, my sister saw it coming, and so pulled my plate of food away and slid her empty plate before me. I threw up on the empty plate, and she then replaced it with my unfinished meal. I kept eating. I wasn’t nauseous, I just threw up a lot.

Ah, nostalgia. LOL. It was weird to feel wistful about what was fundamentally an awful life experience, but I guess time puts a hazy glow on bad memories if good things come out of them eventually.

As a result of yesterday’s unpleasantness, however, I did go to the doctor this morning. My oxygen level is fine, my lungs are clear, and I’m not running a fever, so I’m more or less okay. He prescribed some antibiotics, given that I’ve been coughing for about a month now, but also asked if I was using a new detergent. Ans: why, yes. (Along with a few other allergy-related questions.) Do I think my new detergent is what’s causing insane allergies? Not really, no, but I’m probably going to switch back to my old detergent for a while. And reluctantly take the antibiotics. I’ve had such horrible luck with antibiotics in my life that I am very dubious, but I am also extremely tired of feeling awful.

Despite the coughing, I had a lovely weekend. It was a quick trip to Florida for special events and family time. It felt much too short, but also perfect. Now that I’m home again, though, I have two goals: write a book and stop coughing. Easier said than done, but I am sure I will manage to do both eventually. But not today. Today my goal is to unpack, to eat something healthy, and to appreciate Sophie, having already very efficiently gone to the doctor, picked up antibiotics and now written a blog post. Go, me!

Saturday started out rainy, but we went to the beach anyway, just in time for a couple hours of that intense blue sky. We saw dolphins, too, and loads of pelicans. No sharks, though, even though the beach is known as the shark attack capital of the world. (According to some sources, 10% of the world’s shark attacks happen at New Smyrna Beach. Not really the statistic you want to be thinking about while you’re swimming!)

A troll showed up on the blog last week which was, as always, an odd experience. I started to respond to its comment, and then paused, reread the comment, and clicked the Spam button instead. Good-bye, troll.

But I was thinking about it afterwards, in the way that one does, and it occurred to me that what I felt was actually pity for the poor troll. That troll, whoever they are, is a person who is so wounded, so in pain, that they seek out opportunities to be unkind. Not just take the opportunities that show up in life — the moment when another driver does something stupid and a little road rage makes you want to give them the finger, or that impatience at a long line that lets you be abrupt to the cashier instead of polite — but to seek out moments in which to be mean. To actually spend your time and energy to go out of your way to leave a rude comment on a blog, to be unkind to another human being. I can’t imagine what it feels like to live with that kind of negativity. Or actually, I can imagine it and it just looks awful. Like living with the flu or in chronic pain, only a spiritual, emotional pain. If you are hateful, then you are full of hate, and then you have to live with that feeling. Ugh, how awful that would be.

I never hated anyone before finding out that a friend (now, obviously, ex-friend) was enough in touch with my son to know that he was alive and well and reading my blog, and didn’t care enough to share that information with me. As far as I had any way of knowing, he could have come down with COVID in the early days of the pandemic and died. He might have been hospitalized or in jail or living on the street, homeless or hungry or suffering. I was living with that pain and uncertainty and fear every day, and she… well, she wasn’t. I still hate her fucking guts. I will never forgive her. But I don’t live with that on a daily basis. Every once in a while, I touch the thought. It’s like poking a bruise. Yep, still hurts, still hate her fucking guts. But that’s really it for the negativity I live with. A little, teeny-tiny part of my being still tied to that feeling, and a bigger chunk of my being that lives with the grief of loss and estrangement, and then the majority of my being… well, pretty happy. Content and easy-going and kind and really quite sorry for people whose hearts are nasty. That troll has to live with itself. What a fitting punishment for a troll.

Speaking of COVID, though, I never mentioned on the blog that I came back from Oregon and my allergies began kicking my butt. I had a couple days of an intensely bad headache, and I finally decided that it was a sinus headache, and upped my allergy drugs. The headache went away but the congestion moved into my chest and I developed just a phenomenal allergic cough. It got so bad that I started taking Benadryl — my own nuclear weapon for allergies — and then, of course, the side effects of Benadryl left me exhausted and sleepy and feeling like my thoughts had to work their way through molasses to reach my mouth or fingers.

Really, it was all so miserable that I started thinking maybe I can’t live in Arcata during spring. Then Suzanne came home from her trip, I started feeling better, she started feeling sick, and she took a COVID test. Positive! I took one, too, and mine was negative, but I’m pretty sure that was because I was recovered, not because I’d been right about allergies. Today is the first day in almost three weeks where I took Sophie for a walk and didn’t feel exhausted at half a mile. I’ll be taking another test before I get on a plane to Florida on Wednesday, but I expect it’ll be fine. It says something, though, that headache + cough + general malaise did not = maybe COVID? to me. It crossed my mind, sure, but not in a way that inspired me to actually take the test. Oops.

Despite her case of COVID, Suzanne decided about ten days ago that it was time to get rid of potential skunk habitats in the backyard, aka piles of wood. Every morning since, she’s lit a fire in the backyard fire pit a little after sunrise and we’ve had our morning coffee fireside. Such an excellent morning routine. A couple times we skewered sausages and ate grilled sausage for breakfast and this morning we baked potatoes in the coals, but mostly we just had coffee and played Spelling Bee and chatted and rewarded dogs for sitting quietly. A fire is a great way to start the day, especially, I suppose, if what you’re looking for is some nice mellow, peaceful energy with which to begin your day. It wasn’t great for inspiration — I didn’t rush away from the fire every day to add another 2000 words to my WIP — but I enjoyed it. All the skunk habitat is gone now, though, so our fires are over for a while.

Our roses are just beginning, though. Eons ago, back in those early pandemic days, I said I wanted roses by the tiny house wall. Sadly, the ones we tried to grow from cuttings didn’t make it. In 2021 and 2022, we were too busy with puppies to try again. This year, however, Suzanne planted rose bushes along the wall back in January and they have been thriving. Much to my delight, the first flowers are now blooming. Yay, roses!

I realized this morning that I am not blogging, because every time I think about blogging, I think that Carol is not around to read my posts anymore and it makes me sad, so instead of writing, I go do something else, like playing solitaire or eating candy. She, of all people, would shake her head at this behavior, I think. She understood that the only day we have is the day we’re in and that we should appreciate it. I don’t know whether she also knew that the only way through sad is to let yourself be there, but I know that, so it’s time I started acting like it.

I’m sad that Carol will not read this post.

And that said, I’m really happy that it is a beautiful day in Arcata today. Suzanne was gone through most of the month of May, off adventuring in Europe, but she had a really delightful house-sitter, with whom I got to exchange the morning greeting every day of, “There might be sun today. It could happen,” and the evening farewell every night of, “Well, maybe tomorrow.” So much fog. So cold. So gray and dreary. Sigh.

This is the weather that Suzanne told me about eons ago, but it is not the weather that I’ve ever had in Arcata. It’s the weather that made me rule out ever living in Arcata, in fact! Or, I should say, “was” the weather, because now we’ve had three days of sunshine and it’s been glorious. Does the weather relate to the fact that I’ve been making lots of little adventure plans instead of sticking to my commitment to write, write, write? Yep, absolutely. The only day we have is the day we’re in and even though I know I need to write, write, write, I am actually going to do a bunch of other fun things instead. Or, I should say, as well, because I’m not giving up my write, write, write commitment, I’m just not going to not enjoy my life while I’m doing it. Double negative adds up to a positive, so yes, I’m going to enjoy my life. And write!

Little plans: an overnight camping trip near a river, so the dogs can play; a day trip to Santa Rosa, so that dogs and I can have fun while S sees her eye doctor; an incredibly swift four-day trip to FL to celebrate occasions with family; a three-day camping adventure in Oregon to escape from fireworks on the 4th of July. S’s making bigger and even more exciting plans for farther out in the future, too, but I’m holding off on those, because I do need to write. Or rather, I do need to earn some money.

Am I making smart choices when it comes to writing –> making money? Absolutely not! Not really a surprise, I guess. But that’s not just about not doing the work, it’s about the choice of projects I’m working on. I’m now 20K words into a cozy science-fiction romance which has actually stopped being cozy and become more of a science-fiction mystery adventure. The practical thing to do from a writing point of view is always to write romance, and also to always write series romance, and… well… yeah. I keep thinking I want to be practical, but I guess it’s just not my strong suit. I quite like this story, though, and am having fun with it, so I won’t bother regretting my choices for now. (If you want to read it as I write it, I’m posting first draft chapters to the Rescuing Ceres category on my 1000words at a time blog.)

Proof of how beautiful the day is:

Sophie, playing in a field of buttercups.

Sophie and I finished our dog training class yesterday, with a field trip to a park where she got to play on some dog agility equipment. I promptly signed up for the next class in the series, because I think she really liked the class overall and I know she loved the field trip. Her big success on the field trip, IMO, was staying in a crate without complaint for the portions of the event where the dogs needed to be crated. It took me the third time of putting her in the crate to realize that the proper command for the request is, “Load up,” which is what we say to the dogs when we want them to get into the car. She completely understands “load up” as meaning, “enter this enclosed space and wait patiently for something to happen,” and when I told her to “load up” with the crate, she went straight in, turned around and waited, exactly as one would hope. For her first time at using a crate, I was super pleased with how well she did.

She also did a pretty great job on jumps, although she knocked the bar over a couple times, and a great job with the tunnel and the balance beam, and an exceptionally great job with all the optimism equipment, ie boxes of noisy things to jump into and out of, plus wobbly things to jump and balance on. If I had to pick a favorite for her… well, actually, her favorites were all the ones where I was crouching at the end waiting for her to knock me over and give me kisses. Those were her favorites. She was not a super big fan of any of the ones where I needed to use the lead to show her where to go, ie running around cones, running in circles around a center point.

Here’s an obvious thing I learned about dog training from this class: it’s really about training the person, not the dog. Some of the skills we haven’t worked on, like sitting for a heel, are skills we should work on, just because they’re gateway skills to other things that are more fun, like jumping. But all of it is mostly me needing to figure out how to tell her what I want, because she’s both smart and willing. It makes me think of Anne Sullivan, trying to teach Helen Keller to communicate.

I did think, though, during the field trip, that if I was a dog trainer (never going to happen) and/or had my own school of dog training (never going to happen), all of my teaching would revolve around trust and relationship-building. During the jumps, I let Sophie off-leash, because, as the instructor said, “She’s not going to go far from you.” She didn’t, although she did hop over to visit another dog for a few seconds and then returned promptly when called. With the tunnel, the other instructor said, “She’s a real mama’s girl, if you’re at the far end, she’ll go through.” Yep, she did without hesitation. We don’t have the skills that obedience or agility competitions measure, but it’s such a huge advantage to have the foundation of trust that we have.

Anyway, the class was fun for both of us. I’m not sure I could sum up what we learned, but we enjoyed ourselves.

Somehow my quick little blog post, just to break the non-blogging cycle, has gotten kinda long. And I’ve got words to write on Rescuing Ceres, so I think I’m going to get back to it. TTYL!

I said to my brother last week, “I think it’s a really good quality in a day if you think your dog would say, ‘BEST DAY EVER!!!’ about it.” Even if you wouldn’t say it yourself, if your own more measured perspective would think it was a pity that the sun didn’t shine more, and that the wind was so strong, and that the food was fine, but nothing so great that you’d remember it a week later… Even then, if your dog thinks it was the BEST DAY EVER!!!, then probably it was a pretty darn good day.

Of course, Sophie is kind of an easy audience. Her version of Best Day Ever!!! needs to include some time running around off-leash in nature, some activity with a ball, something to chew on somewhere along the way, and a fair amount of time with her people.

A ball on the beach might be all that’s needed for the BEST DAY EVER!!!

Speaking of her people, the BBE came to visit me for a couple of weeks and Sophie adored him immediately. I did not appear to be a particularly good dog trainer, because she was up on him, in his face, providing kisses and full body tail-wags and demands for tummy rubs pretty much from the moment she first saw him, and then every time they’d been separated for a few hours. Honestly, it was adorable. Not exactly well-behaved, but super cute anyway. I love that she loved him so much. She has good taste, my girl.

Not really a lap dog, but she wanted to be.

But speaking of well-behaved, she ate with us at a multitude of restaurants over the past couple of weeks and she was very good. The first time was the most work for me. She didn’t quite get the concept of just hanging out by my side and wanted to explore the entire patio. But after that one, she figured it out and was such a good girl that I got nice stranger/waitress comments about what a good dog she is.

In other news, well, yeah, I went on vacation with the BBE. We spent a few days in Arcata, while I dragged him around to all my favorite places — Moonstone Beach, the Mal’el Dunes, the Arcata Marsh, the bottoms, Stewart Park, Creamery Field. Yes, all my favorite places are basically long dog walks. Oh, but also Little Japan in Arcata which is a store with a great selection of Hi-Chews, a candy the BBE introduced me to in the summer of 2021, when we hung out in FL together.

After a few days in Arcata, we drove up to Oregon. We spent three days at a beach house in Waldport, where the weather wasn’t exactly awesome, but wasn’t too terrible either. We ate oyster tacos at Clausen Oysters, and gluten-free burgers and fries from a place called Skosh and more than one meal at the Drift Inn in Yachats, which had a great dog-friendly, covered patio. And we walked on the beach. A few photos:

A mysterious dead thing on the beach. No idea what it could have been.

But in the morning, bald eagles were eating it.

The sunrise view from the house we were staying at

After Waldport, we headed to Bend for a few days. We did nothing there except eat good food and take Sophie for long walks at the good dog trail next to our hotel. Well, okay — we went to one thrift store, and one other dog park, and the BBE went to the crazy expensive grocery store, I think to prove to himself that I wasn’t exaggerating. (I wasn’t!) And there was a little sitting outside in the sunshine reading and some peaceful hours hanging out. Mostly, though, long walks in a beautiful place, good food on patios so Sophie could be with us. And much nicer weather!

Still snow on the mountains! The clerk at the hotel asked if we were there for the skiing. Ha, no.

Sophie loved the trail so much. Lots of running and exploring and really just an excellent response to my recall whistle. There was one time when I’d gotten a little separated from the BBE — we were on separate, adjacent trails, that we assumed would meet up again soon but that hadn’t yet. I could see him over the brush and vice versa, but Sophie could not see him. She disappeared. And stayed disappeared. I stopped moving and stood still, whistling, waiting, calling, waiting, whistling again. It was maybe a minute or so when she came barreling up the path to me, racing so fast that her ears flew out behind her in what I fondly call her otter look. She’d gone all the way back to the river to try to find the BBE where I’d lost him. She was very happy when we found him again.

We made it to the river on Good Dog Trail more than once. Sophie did not approve of the swimming dogs! There was much barking.

The restaurants we ate at in Bend were mostly familiar but with two new additions: The Blissful Spoon, where I had a really incredible chakchouka, and Poke Row, for delicious GF poke bowls. I’d eat at either of those places again, quite happily. Oh, and on our way to Bend, we stopped in Philomath, aka the middle of nowhere, and ate at The Eats and Treats Cafe. Now I am SOO jealous of Philomath. Arcata is also the middle of nowhere, but we don ‘t have a restaurant like that. It was a really excellent, entirely GF menu. The roll on my barbecue chicken sandwich tasted absolutely like real bread, and my chocolate chip cookie was delicious.

On the way home, we stopped in Ashland for the night. Our hotel was very centrally located. Also very loud. It was nice to be able to walk to all the shops and restaurants on the main streets and wander around the downtown area, but I think I prefer a hotel where sleep is feasible at 11PM. (It was both a Saturday night and probably the first warm Saturday night of the year, so highly likely that it was worse than usual. But it was not good.) We ate at Vida, the Brazilian cheese bread bakery for lunch, and then stumbled across Thai Pepper in time for a really lovely dinner on a patio with Sophie underfoot and the sounds of a rushing creek nearby.

I did not manage to break my step count high for the year, which was 19,582 steps on March 26, but I did average 13,000 steps for the week, for which I’ll give myself some shine. It’s a little bit apples to oranges, because I do have a watch tracking all my steps now, not just a phone tracking the steps when I’m carrying it, but still, my 2022 average was 4652 steps, so I’m ahead of the game right now.

I will now, however, drop behind the game, because my goal for the next however much time is not steps, but words. Lots and lots and lots of words and these ones don’t count. I am determined that the next thing I do — no idea when, but the next thing I do! — will be to publish a book. So now I just have to get back to writing one. Although first, ha, I should probably walk a couple dogs. And eat a healthy breakfast with lots of vegetables! Our vacation was lovely but it included more cookies than vegetables. Which is not a bad quality in a vacation, really.

Suzanne was away for the past several days, so Bear joined Sophie and I in the tiny house. (Suzanne got a petsitter for the other animals, but Bear is not really the kind of girl who nonchalantly accepts random strangers wandering into her house. Or her yard.)

If I’d thought about it ahead of time, I would have assumed that Sophie Sunshine would be delighted to have her bestie staying with us and would happily ignore me entirely in favor of Bear. Not so much, actually. She was happy enough to have Bear visit us, but more than once she did her best to let me know that it was time for Bear to go back to her own house now. And I got excellent Sophie Sunshine snuggles because of the Bear competition. Sophie usually hangs out under the bed, often joining me on the bed after I turn the lights out at night, although usually at the foot of it. With Bear sprawled across the majority of the bed, Sophie felt it incumbent upon herself to establish that she was top dog and basically sleep on my neck. Fine by me, it was lovely to have dog cuddles.

Notable things about Bear as an almost 2-year old: she is extremely well behaved at meal times. She knows to sit and wait patiently until I put the food on the floor and then gesture at the bowl to let her know that it’s hers. I’ve made no attempt to teach Sophie that behavior because usually she’s the only one eating, no competition from cats or other dogs, but the two of them together in my small space did really well at respecting one another’s bowls, mostly because Bear was so good.

Bear is also such a smart girl. We went to the dog park in McKinleyville, which is a great place to roam with active dogs — lots of trails where dogs can be off-leash — and I played an off-leash game that I play with Sophie, where as soon as she gets too far ahead of me or disappears around a curve, I turn and start walking in the other direction. I’ll find a corner to go around myself if I can. As soon as Sophie finds me, I reward her with a treat and some praise. The goal, of course, is for her to always be paying attention to where I am. She needs to know that it’s her job to keep track of me, not vice versa, and that I will not always follow where she leads. It took Bear maybe three times to figure out the game and then she was always the first one back to me. She’s a little faster than Sophie when she wants to be, so possibly she was using Sophie’s decisions as a trigger, but I think she was paying attention herself. She’s not very treat-motivated usually, but she wanted her share of the duck jerky!

She also did really great with other dogs. She’s more reactive in general than Sophie, who’s pretty mellow about interacting with other dogs and quite capable of ignoring them if she feels like it, but we had two great incidents of solid Bear behavior. Hmm, both of them were when she had a ball in her mouth (she likes to carry it back to home/the car after we’re done playing), which is possibly worth noting — she’s a pup who likes having a job to do. But in one incident, we walked through a pack of dogs, probably four of them, all around her size and off-leash, on the path coming back from the beach, and she basically ignored them. She was on-leash and I was reminding her that she needed to hang on to her ball, but still, she did great. There’s also a dog that I call the junkyard dog (not really fairly) who races up and down a chain link fence barking at us on a section of our walk to Creamery Field. Bear’s had a very hard time ignoring that dog in the past, but this time she dropped her ball, then picked it up again and simply walked away. Yay, Bear!

Walking the two dogs together, though, still feels a little more like work than fun. (Outings with them = fun; just walking = kinda challenging.) Bear on-leash drags me as she tries to catch up to Sophie off-leash and/or Sophie mopes because she has to be on-leash to walk next to her buddy. Around Arcata now, Sophie is pretty much entirely off-leash. She roams ahead of me, but pauses at every street corner and waits for me to catch up and check for cars coming. I’ve noticed her checking for cars herself, too, which is really adorable. She looks both ways, then glances back at me as if to say, “Looking good to me, you agree?” I still have her wait until I can see, but she also clearly recognizes the difference between a trafficked street and a quiet street. On a busy street, she keeps her eyes on my face until I look down at her and nod to confirm we can go, and on a quiet street, she sniffs around and checks things out until I start walking. She loves exploring when she’s off-leash. Every new street is an adventure.

This afternoon, Sophie and I start a dog training class, called Training for Real Life, Level 1. It’s a foundations class. My real goal is to get into the classes that come after the three foundations segments — agility, games, and fitness, because I think Sophie might enjoy them and they might give her an outlet for some of her energy — but it’ll be interesting to see what we learn to begin with. The third section of the class — the one we’d be taking sometime in September, most likely — is where you work on a solid recall and retrieve, so Sophie’s ahead of the game in some ways. That said, she doesn’t have a “joyful stay” which is part of what she’s supposed to learn in Level 2, and I don’t know what she knows or doesn’t know from Level 1. The only specific they mention is “disengagement from scary things” and I don’t know that Sophie finds anything particularly scary. We had a seriously impressive thunderstorm last night and she was pretty dubious about it — incredibly loud thunder! — but I gave her a bully stick, and told her we didn’t care about those big noises, and she seemed perfectly willing to forget about it.

My list of things to do never seems to get any shorter: email, blurb revisions, update marketing graphics, write a book or two or three… all the usual stuff. I decided it was time to start using a literal to-do list, opened an Apple app, and realized there were things on it that still needed to be done from 2021. Ugh. In one sense, they probably weren’t important (send a letter re translation rights, update books where the rights have reverted to me), and in another… well, I used to be really good at getting things done. I was very efficient when I was an editor! I’m not sure why I’ve become so inefficient now, forever spinning my wheels, when it would surely be simpler to just Get Stuff Done. But I think I will try to check off at least an item or two on that list before heading off to our training class. Wish me luck!

I was thinking it was about six months since I realized I was depressed and decided to do something about it, so maybe it would be a good time for an update on my Depression Recovery Plan. Then I went back and looked and actually, it was mid-November when I wrote about crying in the middle of Creamery Field, December 1 when I wrote about deciding to do something about it. That’s not even five months. I had to count more than once to be sure — December, January, February, March, eleven days worth of April… yeah, not six months. But six months is a rather arbitrary number anyway, so update it is.

Sleep

I did my reading, learned what the internet had to offer about sleep and depression (plenty, as it happens) and created my plan. Well, created it, then evolved it, then evolved it some more. The current plan:

• No food after seven PM, especially not sugar, but really, not anything. Not even tea.
• Overhead lights off at 8.
• No internet or games after 9:30.
• Actual bedtime with lights off, book down, room set up for sleeping (heat off, all random lights, ie on power strips and appliances, off) by 10:30, including listening to a sleep meditation if I feel like I need it.

Sounds easy, right? Nope. It’s by far the hardest part of my plan, because even though all those things are in my power, the actual sleeping is not really in my control. Also, because I’m surprisingly unmotivated to do what I know is the right thing to do. Night time is when human beings typically have the lowest level of motivation — it’s a thing we use up during the day, and run out of by evening, which is why exercising in the morning is more likely to be successful — and I have to force myself to follow my own rules most of the time.

What I want to do is to play stupid games until midnight, and only grudgingly turn the lights off. What I want to do is read until I’m finished with the story I’m reading, regardless of what hour it is. What I want to do is have a snack at 9:30 or so, probably something a little sweet, and a big mug of mint tea. Ugh. It’s so hard to be a grown-up.

That said, I’m using technology to track my sleep, and wow, the difference not eating after 7 makes is really astounding to me. Literally, it’s worth at least a full hour of sleep, which for me is the difference between 6 hours or so a night and 7 hours or so a night. And not obviously! Not in a really clear “Oh, I ate at 8 so didn’t fall asleep until 12,” sort of way. I can still fall asleep, I just don’t stay asleep. Consistently, if I have eaten something after seven PM, then regardless of what else I do, I will be awake more in the night, and my sleep will be more restless.

Also, incredibly consistently, eight hours of sleep — which I very rarely manage — is a trigger for two good, cheerful days in a row. Not just one! And, also consistently, after a week where I average under seven hours a night, the clouds start gathering again. My motivation disappears, it’s hard to get up, and I don’t bother to fold my clean clothes, if I can even manage to get the laundry done.

At least for me, the research and history connecting depression and sleep is not wrong: I am doing much better when I get enough sleep. In the time that I’ve been tracking, I’ve averaged 7 hours 25 minutes a night, which includes a couple weeks of under 7 hours. The best week I had was 7 hours 44 minutes, and looking through my morning words reveals that it was also the most productive week I’ve had this winter. What a coincidence. (Also, yes, getting rid of the roosters has probably had a HUGE impact on my depression level. I wasn’t tracking my sleep in the summer and fall, but I’m definitely getting a lot more sleep now that I’m not listening to roosters crow from 3AM on.)

Walking

If you remember my post on exercise and depression recovery, you’ll know that I concluded that walking 7500 steps a day would be my goal. In November of 2022, when I was first realizing that I was depressed, my phone tells me that my average daily step count was just over 5000 steps. My average step count for March of 2023 was just over 10,000 steps. So I basically doubled the amount of walking I do. My 2023 average is 8007 steps, including all the rainy days of winter. Shine on, self. Has it been good for me? Yep.

Eating

Vegetables, specifically. The relationship between depression and nutrition isn’t nearly as obvious as the relationship between sleep and depression, but depression shrinks your hippocampus and eating healthy foods — aka lots of vegetables — grows it. My goal was to eat 8-10 vegetables a day. Sadly, I do not have a technology tracking my vegetable eating for me, so I have to rely on my own memory, which is never a good way to get accurate data. I’d guess, though, that I’ve averaged about 80% success, maybe a little higher? I certainly haven’t given up on it: most days, I eat a veggie heavy breakfast, and I think about ways to incorporate vegetables into all my meals.

Appreciation

Oops. I see that I never wrote my post on appreciation and mindfulness. I thought about it! And the short version — which maybe I’ll try to expand on later this week — is that every day I give myself an appreciation experience. It’s like my happiness practice, or a mindfulness exercise, where I take a deep breath, then use my senses to find something to appreciate. Look, listen, smell, touch, or taste — looking is often the easiest because Arcata has plenty of pretty flowers and beautiful clouds, but birdsong is often a winner, and a warm beverage on a chilly day is delightful when you pause to savor it.

And yeah, it can be hard to appreciate things when you’re depressed. Depression is such a gray fog. It takes an active effort to look for glimmers of light when you’re feeling nothing. But I make the effort and it helps.

TRACKING and Time

This has been a recovery of ups and downs. My first weeks of my DRP were a nice fast zoom into a hypomanic state, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but which I think messed up my sleep, which is probably why I slid back down again. The weather didn’t help: endless rain is hard. I used to love the sound of rain on the skylight; now I hear it and groan as I pull the covers over my head to hide.

And Sleeping, Walking, and Eating are not a miracle cure, because they require motivation, and motivation is hard to come by when you’re depressed. I can tell myself all I like that I will feel better if I go for a walk, but when it’s pouring outside, staying in bed just seems so much nicer. (Every single time — every single time! — I do feel better when I take the walk, even if I get soaking wet. Does this knowledge motivate me? No, it does not.)

But tracking my sleep, steps, and routines has been extraordinarily helpful, because I’m a person who can be swayed by good data. I’m using an Apple Watch, a habit tracker, and a journal, and the three tools in combination let me see what factors are affecting my mood. Not always, of course. Things happen, good and bad, and influence me unexpectedly. But tracking = paying attention, and attention (or awareness) is the first step toward happiness.

Also, though, Sleeping, Walking and Eating your way out of depression takes time. And consistency. Eating lots of vegetables every day helps my energy level as long as I keep it up, but as soon as I stop, the benefits drift away. It’s a set of things to do for the rest of my life, really, not a miracle cure. Obviously, that’s kinda fine? It’s not like sleeping enough every night is a burden. But you know, sometimes I want ice cream at 9PM. And sometimes I want pancakes for breakfast, and sometimes I don’t want to walk in the rain.

All that said, the other day I wrote an email in which I said, “I’m mostly happier than I’ve ever been before. My life is great.” And that is actually how I’m feeling about my life these days. Most of the time, I’m pretty happy, and I love my life. I think my depression fight is a lot like having Celiac’s — if I’m careless, I’ll be sick again. But as long as I’m paying attention and avoiding gluten (for the Celiac’s) and sleeping, walking and eating vegetables (for the depression), I’ll be fine. More than fine, really.

An appreciation experience. The baby Canadian geese were much too far away to make a good photograph, but it was such a beautiful day. And the sun was shining, at least for a while!

I lost a friend two months ago.

I didn’t know I had until last week. I suspected. She wasn’t updating her blog. There were no signs of activity on her Goodreads account, her Facebook account or Instagram. She stopped commenting on my blog posts. My email to her went unanswered. (And, relevantly, she was not in the best of health.)

I finally left a comment on her last blog post, dated sometime in January, and her niece responded via email. Carol Westover, who commented here as tehachap, passed away on February 9th, 2023, after a fall on January 24th that led to a short stay in the hospital, followed by some time in a nursing facility. She leaves behind her husband, Robert, as well as two sons, and, I think, two nieces.

And, I’m quite sure, some deeply saddened internet friends.

I’m definitely one of them. I didn’t know her, not really. I met her once in real life, when I was still living in Serenity. I stopped by her house and took her out to Vietnamese food, which she’d never had before. But we exchanged emails upon occasion, she sent me recipes that she thought might interest me, and… well, I’ve been blogging for 17 years and during that time, this blog has received just over 5000 comments. Over six hundred of them were from Carol. Every single one of those comments was supportive and positive and kind.

Blogging these days is essentially writing into the void for me. An average blog post of mine gets 10 views, sometimes less, sometimes very randomly more. (The Tucson post I did from my phone with only pictures got an astounding 34 views, way outclassing anything else I’ve written in 2023, which, you know, is kinda ironic, given that there were no words attached to that post.) I’m mostly okay with writing into the void, though. It encourages me to write for myself and not worry about my audience.

Well, to write for myself and for Carol. (And Judy and Barbara and Claudia and my dad and my brother. But for the purposes of this post, Carol.) I’ve been working on this post for almost two weeks now, trying to articulate what she meant to me.

Yes, she was an internet stranger. But she was such a nice internet stranger. She was enthusiastic about so many things. In real life, she was the kind of person who baked cookies and gave them away to anyone and everyone; made quilts, ditto the giving them away; volunteered at her local train museum. When the pandemic started, she made masks and sent them to us here. She volunteered to proof-read most of my books for me, and was great at catching those last few random typos. Her husband has Alzheimer’s and she was his full-time caretaker, and her life was not easy. But she was just an authentically kind, optimistic human being.

Her last blog post ended with this: “Take good care of yourself–enjoy your life. I told Robert at dinner that I was going to spend the rest of my life enjoying life, and then I ordered Flan for dessert with everything on it!! LOL It felt good.

Each day is a blessing. Take good care of yourself and those you love. And be sure to tell those you love that you love them. Apologize when you’ve wronged someone through word or deed. There is a whole world of possibilities for gratitude–find one and think on it. Be at peace with yourself and others. Blessings to you…”

Words of wisdom from a friend. I am sorry there will be no more of them. And I guess I just needed to say that in this space, to acknowledge that she was here and now she’s not, and I will miss her. I already do.