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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tom Ryan
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September 14 - September 18, 2017
A wrong turn, an unlikely choice, a knock on the door, and the next thing you know, life is never the same. Sometimes even the grandest of stories are launched as regrets. They turn into an unforeseen voyage taking us from where we are to where we are supposed to be, and from who we are to who we are meant to be.
Words are prayers, spoken or silently ruminated.
I’ve learned to accept the seasons of the year, and those that make up a lifetime.
In my most common prayer, I list what I’m grateful for, and starting out each day like this reminds me what I have instead of what I don’t.
My aunt Marijane Ryan, my father’s youngest sister and a former nun who had left the Church to become a therapist and who worked in hospice, pointed out that Jung thought of the forest as a place of the unknown in us. It is frightening, and eventually can turn into a place of transformation or of refuge, depending upon where you are in your personal journey.
Campbell said, “It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life . . . The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for. The damn thing in the cave that was dreaded has become the center.”
Whenever I think of this part, and I think of it often, I imagine how that had to feel for him. How hopeless and cold. How empty. How haunted he had to be that first night all alone. I think of the smells of disinfectant, urine, feces, and fear, with fear being the worst. I think of his confusion, and how he could see little and hear nothing. I imagined his underfed body shivering, because that’s what he did when he showed up in our lives a few days later.
Another friend offered similar advice over lunch. I asked him, “What would you do if the situation was reversed?” “I told you,” he said. “I wouldn’t take him. It’s not worth it. You and Atti have a great life. Your first book just came out. You’re on top of the world. Why change it?” “No. I meant what would you have me do if you were the one who was old, in pain, alone, and had no place to call home?”
My mind was made up. It was as simple as William needing a home and the slim prospects of him finding one.
It was like a switch had flipped, and that was that. But isn’t that how so many of life’s most important decisions are made? A flash of awakening, a jolt of acknowledgment, a decision made—no matter how unrealistic it may seem.
Sometimes you don’t understand what you do until long after you’ve done it.
First, no one should have to die alone. And I asked myself, What would I wish for Atticus if something happened to me, and he was without a home and was just as frightened and confused?
My insides were churning, and I was wondering how he was still living, why he was still living. I felt sick, thinking it was cruel that someone had kept him alive. There was nothing to him. He was as brittle as a leftover husk the winter winds had hollowed out.
When the groomer appeared, she showed me a little dog who looked more like a sheep. He was all gray hair—a bushel of it—with a black nose and chestnut-brown eyes that could barely be seen under a thick curtain of eyebrows. I wasn’t sure what to make of him. But he was kind, and while I didn’t have a leash or collar with me, I didn’t need one. He followed me out the door happily, hopping into the front passenger seat of the car, and that was that. We were together. I was his, and he was mine.
Something else took hold, something stronger than the burning pain in my hand and my rage. It was instantaneous and involuntary. Call it an epiphany of sorts, if you will. Or heavenly intervention. Or something else beyond my ability to comprehend. With my hand tensed to strike, I stopped thinking about the William I was expecting to meet and instead put myself in his place. I thought about what had been done to him. He had had no say in what had befallen him, no say about the pain in his body, about being betrayed, about being left alone in a strange place, about being passed from stranger to
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Mostly, though, I prayed for William. Not for him to live or to die, but to be without pain throughout his body. And I prayed for his suffering heart. He didn’t ask to be left behind or to live with someone he didn’t know. He didn’t ask to be neglected or forgotten or discarded or left off in some strange place when he got old. He didn’t ask for the pain in his body, the way his teeth were rotting, the way his hips ached so much he couldn’t sit down. He didn’t ask for any of it.
How grand is that? Infinitude. It speaks of endless possibilities for the individual so he or she can flourish and make more of a contribution to the world.
Emerson was a proponent of the individual, believing that government, the education system, organized religion, and society exerted pressures on people to always conform. He also noted, “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”
“You have it right,” Marijane wrote to me. “Dogs and coyotes and owls and bears and people are all the same inside. We have the same emotions. We fear and love and get angry and are happy. We all have compassion and empathy. People like to say that dogs live in the moment. I think some do—like some people do—but look at Will, he’s not living in the moment. He’s tormented by his past. I admire that you treat Atticus like you do. It’s worked. I have to believe it will eventually work with Will, too. Just remember that you can only do your best.” Whenever Will attacked me in the coming months,
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“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.”
We wear our emotions, while our thoughts are our own.
Anthropomorphism—the attribution of human motivations to animals—has a bad rap these days, and if it’s taken too far I reject it as well. But it’s an important step in our empathy with other species.
For his daytime naps, I placed a dog biscuit on top of his blankets, not too far away from his nose. I wanted to believe that no matter what Will experienced in his past, there would now be a little magic waiting for him when he awakened.
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our journey.”
Nature can show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. —ECKHART TOLLE
No longer in any hurry, or with much to prove, I plod on, remembering it’s the passage that counts and not the destination. You could say that spirituality is a lot like hiking.
We may have taken him in to give him a place to die, but on the way to death, Will appeared to have other plans.
He was breathless. I swept him up in my arms, and for the first time since I knew him I heard him whimper. Not a sad, terrible kind of whimper, but one of relief and happiness. He nuzzled against my neck, and he couldn’t contain his excitement. He kept singing his little song for me, his heart racing against my hand, his head pushing farther against me to get even closer. I squeezed him tight and rocked him back and forth, back and forth. When he grew silent, I kissed him on his nose, something I wouldn’t have done before for fear of his teeth. That's when I heard his snores.
With Will, small steps were reason for big celebrations. For him to have nothing, to have lived so long without health and happiness, and to see good things return to him one at a time was like stumbling upon little gifts around our home. To be part of it, to be witness to it, was humbling. Grand things were happening!
It feels strange to write about urine and feces so easily. But live with either long enough, love the one you are with, and even piss and shit become an acceptable part of life. One night I heard Will crying. I bounded out of bed and planted my foot in a pile of shit. There was nothing else to do but laugh—and hop to the bathtub on one leg.
God bless Will. I think he finally grew tired of being ignored. One morning, while we were getting ready to go out, Atticus sat facing the door. Will walked up to him and circled around. Atticus kept looking straight ahead. Will drew closer and closer still as he circled. Finally he stood within inches of Atticus’s left ear and let loose with one loud, resounding bark. Atti didn’t flinch. Even then he wouldn’t acknowledge Will. That bark was so piercing and strange to hear that I laughed. “He’s telling you, ‘Pay attention to me, Atticus!’”
Perhaps something was born in me during those weeks that taught me not to worry about things I couldn’t do anything about. Or I realized that each day holds its own challenges, and when they came along, somehow I’d be ready for whatever it was.
There is humility in dedicating yourself to another. In serving others. In a way, washing the feces from Will’s fur, or holding him through a seizure, or seeing him awaken to wonder again—every bit of it was humbling. All of it seemed like some kind form of atonement, and I began to take comfort even in the unpleasant tasks.
the best way to change this world is to change yourself and your perception of it.
When I chose to sidestep drama in my life and avoid those who drain others, I also made an active choice to spend time with people who embrace life.
Will didn’t care what they looked like; he cared what they smelled like. As the garden matured, I’d find him pushing his way into the middle of it to sit and look around. I’d find him sleeping among the blooms many an afternoon.
Others took more time to notice the dogs they lived with, and reported if they also enjoyed wildflowers. And it didn’t stop with flowers; people told me they started to think more about what pleased the dogs and cats in their lives, other than chew sticks and catnip. Will’s love of music and affection for flowers were having a rippling impact on the lives of other animals.
For there is little in this world more fantastic than to be living your life, only to see one of nature’s wildest beasts walk across your yard.
Even our lawn was enough to make Will happy. He’d be stopped in his walks by a lone dandelion. He’d lean in and study it, and sometimes he’d look at it so long that he’d slump down when he became tired, and fall asleep under the weed’s spell.
This is what friendship is made for. It was for climbing mountains and sharing the view and facing troubles together. You don’t get one without the other. Worrying wasn’t going to do any good. It would only get in the way of any good energy I had to offer Atticus. So why waste time with it?
Barbara Brown Taylor, describing how my life had changed on the trails, “The only real difference between anxiety and excitement was my willingness to let go of fear.”
As late in life as my early thirties, I used to wake up in the middle of the night and wonder when I’d make something of myself. Mostly what I wanted was to be happy and at peace with who I was. But I had no career. Although I always had friends, I rarely fit in, wherever I was. I was still waiting to discover who I’d become.
But looking back on things, every turn in the road, every uphill, every crash contributed to make me who I’d become. When I looked at Atticus and Will and my monastic life, the words of Paulo Coelho came to mind. “So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”
In spite of all my human frailties, I had come to love myself, and therefore was able to love others. Completely. Selflessly.
There, in the middle of our messy lives, with things not at their best, I thought, I am right where I am supposed to be.
Life wasn’t easy, but it was beautiful. It was filled with grace.
Nothing is guaranteed, nothing but this moment. I told myself this again and again.
In one of them hangs an old carved sign: REMEMBER, YOU ARE DYING.
The very idea of standing still on top of a mountain, of watching bears come and go, of being covered by a blanket, or of having a pie baking in the oven brought out the best in folks. It touched on something that had more to do with being than owning something, of feeling complete and feeling nurtured, or of having a simpler life.
I had something more than contentment—perhaps I was full of what matters, and no longer fearful of what didn’t.
