Julie R. Enszer's Blog, page 28

Tibe Lives

Friends, I know many of you are reading and following Tibe’s stories and the trials of our family. The hearing was today. What we know for sure is that the Animal Control Board will not, as the people in our neighborhood requested, order that Tibe be put down. One commissioner said, “We do not do that.” We do not know the full outcome of the hearing yet. We are wiring for the full decision.

Two elements introduced at the hearing today were my Facebook posts and my blog posts. I have locked down Facebook with stronger privacy settings and for now I have set my blog to private.

The truth is, even in our safe place in Michigan, we remain concerned about all of our safety. The bigots testifying at the hearing as a part of the angry mob suggested that both Tibe and Emma are vicious dogs, that we are unfit parents of any animals, that we should not be allowed to return to the neighborhood ever. Even the formal town joined in on the petition that Tibe never be returned to Prince George’s County with the town attorney present. Photos of Tibe from the blog and Facebook demonstrated that I was an unfit handler because we allow Tibe on the couch and because I hug him. One of the angry mob noted that yes, they would buy guns if we returned to the neighborhood to protect themselves. Buy and use guns. In front of the police at the hearing and the officers of the court.

Reports of the two and a half hour hearing were surreal. The beloved was a champ representing us all. I am on tenterhooks wondering what the ultimate decision will be, but for now I am relieved that the hearing is over.

Thanks to everyone for their kind messages and support.

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What We Mean When We Say Forever

My beloved will tell you she committed to me forever on the day we declared our love (or perhaps more accurately, lust) for one another on a cool fall day at the end of September. And she did. And she has never wavered. She jumped in with both feet. Forever.

I dithered. I should not admit it. I should write myself better in the story. I should say, I, too, knew this was it, and I was committed to forever. Starting on that day in September. Except it would be a lie. I was committed to getting her into bed. To seeing what a relationship would be like with her. To trying things out. The fact of the matter is forever seemed to me like a very long time. It took me a long time to make that commitment. I did, I have, but it took time.

I’ve always been interested in the back doors, the ways out, the modes of shirking one’s responsibilities but still being within the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. Forever is a very long time. I am more of a renewable contracts kind of gal in my heart. Let’s start with a year, if things go well, we can make it two then five and extend five years at a time after that. This proposition seems to me like a much more rational way of organizing relationships.

In principle, I still am that let’s be cautious forever is a long time kind of woman, but, in practice, I have a different relationship to forever because of our critters. When I first adopted HD and GertrudeSteinGertrudeStein, a coworker cautioned me about adopting two cats. It is a long commitment, she said. Think about it, be sure you can do it. I thought, flippantly, well, if I cannot, I will find another home for them. This was before I knew about love and dependency. Once I had them, I loved them and they depended on me. They were in my life for sixteen and twenty-one years respectively.

Forever is a very long time, but not as long as I would like it to be with my cats and dogs. So when we adopt a new critter, when we become their forever home, it really is forever. For the life of the animal. No questions. No give backs. Forever. Good times and bad. Thick and thin.

Has someone loved you though a hard time in life? Through the months you did not want to get out of bed? Through the grief of losing a parent? A friend? A sibling? Has someone lifted you up when you could not pull up yourself? Has someone told you, I will be here for you forever?

This is what the critters we adopt expect from us. They cannot ask in language we immediately understand, but they convey their need for stability, for love, for affection.

Tibe’s hearing is tomorrow. In the morning on the east coast. My beloved is in town and prepared to speak on our behalf. I am not sure that I believe in prayer (as you now know, I was slow to come to forever), but if you do and you would, pray for Tibe and all of us in our family.

I have been flummoxed by the number of people who think given our challenges with Tibe that we might just give him back. Some people think we could give him back to the rescue or an animal shelter. That we could and should turn our backs on him in favor of neighborly peace or to avoid the investment of training or to  eschew the uncertainty of our future. I do not think these people understand commitment. I do not think that these people understand forever. I do not think these people understand love.

I know love. She will walk into the hearing tomorrow morning at 9:30 am, devoted to me as she has been every day for nearly twenty years. I know love. Love in snoring in the kitchen and will insist on an extra long walk tonight in the twelve degree weather; love will romp through the fresh snow, her paws like snowshoes. I know love. She squeaks in the morning for wet food and curls up on my shoulder midday. I know love. He will sleep beside me tonight, his strong, muscular body pressing against me, warm, solid.

This life, this family, these creatures, a motley crew. This is what we mean when we say forever.

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Undoing Dates and Blood

Facebook is awesome on your birthday. All day long great messages have come in from friends, colleagues, intimates, and associates, far and wide. It has been lovely for a day that has generally been sucktastic. While today is my actual birthday, this year, in my mind, my birthday was on Saturday. On Saturday, I woke up with my most beloved one. She bought pastries from the patisserie down the street from the house. We puttered around the house, laundry, cleaning, newspaper reading, then had sex. We went to lunch at Panera. I read all afternoon. We had a lovely dinner at Jakes on Saginaw’s old west side. It was a wonderful day. 

Today, I woke alone, I walked both of the dogs, I ran errands, including buying groceries for the week for my grandmother. We met with the attorneys about Tibe’s hearing on Wednesday. I signed and express mailed my statement for the hearing. I delivered groceries to my grandmother and wrote up the weekly meal plan. I came home and did some work. I had a delightful visit with a friend on Skype, did more work, walked the dogs more, and now am listening to the wind and thinking about how the dogs will go out one more time before bed. Maybe all of this does not qualify as sucktastic, but it has been a day of fulfilling obligations and a day of courting concern about the hearing on Wednesday. Not a day of celebration, a day of obligation.

Except for the Facebook emails, I have not regarded this as my birthday. My birthday passed on Saturday. While this may sound like a sleight of mind or some sort of delusion, this practice of understanding a lovely day with a beloved one as being the actual special day is a practice I learned from a dear mentor. After a spectacularly bad birthday of fighting with a girlfriend, I cried to this mentor, angry about having my birthday ruined, upset about the fight. She consoled me, then told me this most important piece of advice. She said, one day soon, you will have a lovely day with your girlfriend, you will laugh and have fun and feel happy. When that day comes, tell yourself, this is my birthday. Then remember that day as your birthday forever, letting go of this bad day. In time, you will only remember the good days, the bad days disappear from your mind. 

This seemed like good advice and also like some kind of key to creating a life for myself. This mentor had a life I admired. She had a marriage I admired, a career, a family. She navigated the good and the bad with aplomb. I feel like she told me one of her secrets. I listened. I held on to it. I used this advice. I have come to think of this as “undoing dates,” and it is an idea and a skill that I love.

I have used it dozens of times to create a memory for something special. And I tell people in their own anger and pain about a day gone bad to do the same. Undoing dates removes the pressure of a single day and expands the possibilities for celebratory happiness throughout our days. This advice of undoing dates is the best advice I have ever received.

I connect this undoing of dates with undoing blood today. Just as we imagine certain days as being particularly special, birthdays, anniversaries, and in our imagining of their special need they become filled with pressure and expectations, we also imagine blood relations as having particular meaning and power. All of this is fine, of course, except when it is not. Except when we have a birthday that is not fine, a birthday that is sad, lonely, hurtful. Except when people who are our blood disappoint us, hurt us, abandon us. Why should one day have such particular meaning, hold such power? Why should blood relations be more important that our kin of choice?

I think just as we can undo dates and in the undoing create new positive memories, we can undo blood and choose family  who will be with us through thick and thin regardless of biology. We are not bound by time and blood. We can undo time; we can undo blood. We can imagine something better.

  

The birthday gift that arrived today from the sister I choose.

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Saginaw Still Life

Vita is huddled by the warm air vent waiting for the furnace to come on. She loves the blowing hot air all over her body. She sleeps between the forced air excursions. When the furnace kicks on, she raises her head so that her whiskers blow back as her body warms.

Tibe is sleeping on the couch with his head on a pillow. Occasionally he rolls over, gently thrashing in a dream, his paws quivering slightly.

Emma is asleep in the kitchen. Blocking the back door. Listening to the hum of the dishwasher. Earlier, on her walk, she sat down in the fresh powdery snow for a good five minutes, sniffing the cold air, looking all around the neighborhood. Our mild winter seems to be over. Yesterday in the 40s and raining. It was lovely. Overnight, snow. Fluffy, but dense, heavy. Then the bitter cold descended. It will have us in its clutch for at least this week, but I imagine it will continue through much of February.

Kim is on her way to New York for work. I am drinking tea and waiting for Downton Abbey. After that, one more time outside for each pup, then off to bed. I think we will listen to the wind howling outside all night long.

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Drop It!

Today, while the sun was rising over the Saginaw river, there was a bit of a melt at the park. It must have been in the mid-30s. While Tibe and I have been sticking to the plowed paths since we have had snow, today we ventured into the untouched snow covered area in the center of the park. Tibe loved romping through the snow, some of it still powdery and not too compact.

One of the great things about walking the dogs in the snow is that you can see the reasons for everything that they sniff. In the spring, summer, and fall, the long moments sniffing random bits of grass, or the gentle pulling to get in a little closer to something, seems inexplicable to me as a human, but, in the winter, the evidence is visible. A rabbit came through here. Oh, another marking from a dog. Ah, this looks like a deer.

This morning, while Tibe tracked another dog who had walked through the park, suddenly he came upon a bone. I do not know how it got there. I do not know what it was from.

We have been working on “leave it!” and “drop it!” at home, but he hasn’t really understood either of those commands. I have almost resigned myself to thinking that they were simply commands for me. If we were playing with a toy and I said “drop it!” Tibe would grasp it harder and play more roughly. Then I would drop it, and he would and we would move on to another toy. I almost felt him mocking me with the “leave it!” command. Really, mom, he would look up at me? Really? Why would I leave this lovely, delicious, unknown thing when I must explore it with my mouth?

I was on the verge of giving up on both of these commands. Then, this morning, walking through the snow, the ice beneath my feet, the horizon pink and yellow and luminous over the lumber baron houses on the other side of the river, Tibe put that bone in his mouth and I said “Drop it!” And he did. And he looked up at me with all of this love in his eyes as if to say, OK, mommy, what next? What next?

I’ll be damned. We all learn. We all continue to change.

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Green Wool Coat

The beloved and I exchanged gifts with a single theme this year: warmth for the Michigan winter. Coats, hats, arm pants, long sleeve shirts. It was as if with the distance between us as she commutes to New York, we could not trust the world to provide enough warmth so we bought it and gave it to one another.

Our first holiday together, I gave her a long, green wool coat that I purchased from Jacobson’s. I remember buying it so clearly because I was nervous. We were new lovers. It was our first holiday together. She was rich, or at least made way more money than I did–and she worked in a place where she had to dress up every day. I did not know what to give her, but I wanted to give her something that she would love, something that she would use every day, and something that felt substantial. When I saw the big, green, wool coat, I thought this will surround her with love and warmth every day of winter. I never expected that coat to be still worn on occasion and in our coat closet nineteen years later.

I also never expected that nineteen years later, I would again be shopping in Michigan for the beloved thinking about how to keep her warm, how to keep her surrounded in love. But I was. And on one of my shopping excursions, I found a green, wool coat. It is only a jacket, not the full length winter coat, but it is the same color. It was eerie. I bought it not only because of the earlier gift but also because it seemed like the kind of coat that would look stunning on my beloved. It does. Now I am looking forward to nineteen years from now when that coat is hanging in the closet, slightly frayed, and I am shopping for a new one. I only hope I am not in Michigan again!

  

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Creature Comforts

We established that, in the face of bigots, we can pull up our roots within a few days, leave behind everything but the essentials, gather our family in our cars, depart for a new, safe home, and set up our lives anew. We are not far from our ancestors in our ability to flee for safety, for family, for justice.

  

Tiberius, relaxing on a Saturday night.

Yet when we arrive, we lack the mettle of our foremothers. Yes, we make do with much and little. No cast iron pans so every culinary foray that involves scrambled eggs results in lots of pan scrubbing (the dishwasher is really simply a sanitizer, it no longer cleans as it did when I was a child), and we have adapted to the fact that the bathroom upstairs lacks the flush-umph for anything save number one. The beloved marvels at the local butcher who she says is better than anyplace in “the old country,” and we have rediscovered the magic of layered socks to keep our feet warm. On one hand, when we are all together and we have good food, there is little else that we need. On the other hand, after almost six week, we decided that we could not sleep any longer in the full size bed. A king was in order. And the beloved could no longer sit in the broken upholstered rocking chair.

On Wednesday afternoon, we went out to lunch at the very cute (and gay-friendly)  Savoy Bar and Grill. Then spent an hour at the Saginaw Art Museum, with a great Ansel Adams exhibit. Finally, an afternoon trip to the local Art Van yielded an inexpensive King mattress set and a new comfy chair. They were delivered this morning. We take comfort in our ability to flee and in our ability to make home wherever we are. We also are looking forward to a great night’s sleep.

  

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Tibe’s Bath

Sometimes you do not realize the pressure and stress you have been experiencing until someone holds up a mirror with a different way of being. That happened today when I picked up Tibe from the place where he got a bath. I took Emma there when we first got to town and she had a great bath. She came out smelling fresh and puffier than she has been in years.

When I picked up Emma and when I made the appointment for Tibe, I explained his issues in detail. Dog reactive. Needs careful attention. Strong. A dedicated handler. When I left him (after a perfect display of obedience in the waiting room), I worried all morning. For six weeks, now, Tibe has been with no one but me. I am the only person who puts his leash on, walks him, moves with him in the world. The day animal control came to take him away, I committed 100% to his care and safety for the rest of his life. No matter what. I have always maintained that I would not do a lot of medical interventions in case of sickness, but now with Tibe I would do everything and anything to stay alive and care for him. With me, he has a life of joy and satisfaction. Without me?

All morning, I feared what might happen while they we giving him a bath. It is a doggy day care, and there are a few “house dogs” wandering around. The beloved was nervous, too. When the phone rang and they said he was ready, I was out the door in less than a minute to pick up Tibe. I did not want to leave any extra time for problems.

The fact is, Tibe was great during his bath. He came back to us clean, soft, and smelling delicious. No problems. The women working at the dog bath place seemed to regard me as the slightly crazy, overprotective dog owner who “isn’t from around here.” I’m fine with that, but I am overjoyed with what they gave me. After a bit of chitchat with the women who bathed him and were working on this holiday eve, one of the women said, oh, I have to give him a big hug before he goes, and she got down on the floor and hugged him and he gave her kisses and she said, oh, he is just the best dog in the world, aren’t you Tibe? And I remembered the joy of a devoted pup and the pleasure of the human canine connection and I remembered that I can have that in the world and so can Tibe. A small group of hateful, homophobic, racist people have tried to take away our joy and our pleasure and would like to take away Tibe’s life, but this morning, one young woman in Michigan reminded me that I have the best dog in the world.

  The beloved and Tibe after his bath.

Filed under: personal writing, spirituality, Tiberius, Uncategorized

On Vulnerability and Dependence

The dependence of animals on us is extraordinary if you stop to think about it. Until recently, I have always thought of domesticated animals as interdependent with humans, and more particularly with me and the beloved. Yes, we provide them with food and shelter and vet care, but they provide us with unconditional love, daily affection, warmth and care equal to, if not greater than, what we provide them. I still believe in the interdependence of me and the animals, Tibe, Emma, and Vita, our pack at the moment. Yet, I am struck in the past two months of the dependence of animals on humans.

Part of this reflection comes from the process of training with Tibe. Prior to Tibe, our training goals wee always modest: walk on the leash, try to refrain from jumping (try being an operative part of the verb phrase), and, well, that was about it. Once the puppy stages ended for Emma and Shelby (Mary Claire and Homer were different stories completely; part of their stories are here), they generally settled into a routine that did not involve much obedience but they appeared trained and happy and well-adjusted. Tibe needs more training. More training involves him seeing me, his human handler, some might even say owner, as the alpha dog. He must be obedient to me; he must depend on me for his safety and well-being while we walk, while he poops, while he pees, while he navigates the world. I find this dependence and my need to assert my authority and enforce his dependence sobering, even frightening. I am not confident in my own ability to ensue MY safety and MY well-being let alone take responsibility for a dog’s. Yet I have no other choice. I assert my dominance and his dependence. Often, walking, after I have commanded him with me, I will say, I have everything under control. Nothing bad will happen to you. I am here to take care of you. Tibe does not understand these words. They are meant to remind me of my responsibility. His dependence creates even more gravity to this responsibility.

Tibe and I have been training intensively the whole time he has been living with us–since late March of 2015. Yet, I am thinking more about dependence and vulnerability as I spend time with my ninety-three year old grandmother. The last thing that she wants is to depend on anyone. Her greatest pride is living in her own house, driving her own car, paying her own way, and never being dependent. While Tibe’s dependency on me builds our relationship and his obedience, for my grandmother dependency is an anathema. Yet, as she ages, as she faces medical issues, she needs assistance. She needs to be dependent and accept help to improve her own health.

He is where vulnerability enters. When I did training classes with Emma, the hardest command was down. I remember clearly the first day of instruction and practice. The trainer hollered at me and said you must put her in a down position. You are in control. She is not. It was a crisis for me because I could not help wondering, why should I impose my will on Emma? Does she not have a will of her own? Can she not decide for herself when to lie down and when to stand up? Who am I to enforce my will on her? These are not questions to ask a dog trainer. (If you have been in training, you know; if not, go.) It was a philosophical crisis that led me to tears. This did not endear me to the trainer.

When my grandmother told me that she did not need any maintenance medication any longer because she was over ninety,  I wanted to believe her. She is an autonomous human being. She has  a will of her own. She can make her own decisions. Except now she cannot. She lost the capacity to make the good decisions for herself. So she enters a new kind of dependency and a new kind of vulnerability. My grandmother and Tibe each experience these conditions differently, but they are connected at this moment in my life. Seeing the dependence of both and the vulnerability of each forces me to contemplate the dependence and vulnerability in my future. I cannot dwell there now, however, my grandmother needs daily shots and weekly meal plans. Tibe needs a stronger stay and an immutable down.

While Emma made me question my authority over a dog, I have no question with Tibe. When I say down, he needs to go down. Sit. Stay. We are still working on come. (Insert lesbian joke here.) Yet, I see the vulnerability of Tibe every time I put him into the down position. He looks at me. He wants to know is he ok? If he is vulnerable to the world, will I protect him? He wants to know that his dependence, that his vulnerability will pay off with me. That I will protect him. That I will care for him.

I want to tell him, Tibe, that is what I am doing. I am not sure he understands. Neither does my grandmother. That is, ultimately, what makes them most dependent–and most vulnerable. As they must trust, I must be worthy of their trust. I must bring the protection and care their dependence demands and meet their vulnerability with care and strength and love

Filed under: personal writing, spirituality, Tiberius, Uncategorized

Harassment by Animal Control: Another Story

  Photo: Tiberius at rest on the couch. Vita watching the birds in the swimming pool.

Throughout the Tiberius ordeal, the beloved and I have been grateful for the resources that we have and the ability to make choices for ourselves and for Tiberius. We have often said that had this happened at an earlier point in our lives, we might not have been able to do everything to save Tiberius’s life. We were reminded of the challenges other people experience with a story from my own family.

My cousin’s oldest son has had a similar experience of harassment by animal control. He is in his early twenties and has Tourette’s Syndrome. He has lost his dogs and is on probation. Yes, his story ends not with a hearing at animal control, but with criminal charges and probation. This cousin, a lovely, gentle, kind young man, had two small dogs that he kept in his rented apartment. He loved them and doted on them. And, being a young man and a young man who did not value cleanliness next to godliness, sometimes the dogs pooped in his apartment, and he did not clean it up. This is the fact set that we must stipulate, just as I say repeatedly, Tibe did a very, very bad thing when he bit the other dog. We cannot lose sight of the fact that there are kernels of truth in the charges levied against us.

A neighbor, who did not like my cousin, the gentle, kind young man, called the police. Perhaps she thought that he was doing drugs (remember, he has Tourette’s so he has some ticks and unusual mannerisms) or perhaps the police thought that he was doing drugs when they came out to the house. The arrested him, charged him with animal cruelty, prosecuted him, sentenced him, and put him on probation. He paid a daily fee to the local animal shelter to care for his dogs until as a condition of his plea agreement he agreed to give up the dogs. He paid court fees, penalties, and fines. In the end thousands of dollars. He will be in debt for a while working it off.

Was he cruel to his dogs? Absolutely not. Was he judged suspect and undesireable by a neighbor? Absolutely. What was the cause of his suspect behavior? His non-standard neuropathy? His age? Of did she just want to exert her own power in a system that leaves so many of us powerless?

I do not know the answers to these questions. My cousin never will either. He told me the other day that before this ordeal he really did not understand suspicion of police. He had always been told to be respectful; he had always been told that the police are there to help him. He is a young white man. He told me now he understands in a different way what is happening in St. Louis and Chicago and so many other places in our world.

It was so painful to hear his story and to know that this is one incident of a lifetime of exclusions, punishments, and harassments that he will experience. I cannot protect him. I cannot make things right for him. I can protect Tibe. I can stand up for him. I can challenge the bullies who drove us from our neighborhood. And I can ask questions.

How can we envision a world where criminal justice is not based on cruelty to individuals, where it is not differential based on race, ethnicity, ability? How can we prevent people with power from using systems, criminal justice or animal control are on my mind most of all, but there are, I am sure many others, to harass, intimidate, and punish people that they do not like, that they deem suspect, that they deem intolerable to be a part of their community? How can we create a world with more care and compassion, a world where our beloved animals are not pawns in other people’s small-mindedness and hatred?

Filed under: personal writing, progressive activism, Tiberius