The Minnesota River Valley is a pretty stretch of Minnesota. The drive is filled with rolling hills and a pretty little river that winds south then east and finally north towards Minneapolis where it meets up with the Mississippi. We moved from Iowa to Minnesota when I was 9. We moved to a small country town outside of the cities called Jordan. I had friends that had sheep farms, dairy farms and a couple of friends that lived in town. I remember my school teacher this year very distinctly - Miss Stemple. She was supposed to retire but they couldn't find a replacement for her. She was an old fashioned teacher. She used overhead projectors and kept her Kleenex in up her sleeve or in her bra. I remember her leaning over that projector writing something and then reaching into the front of her dress to pull out a tissue and wipe the plastic sheet with the tissue. Then she would tuck it back in either her sleeve or bra. One time she was frustrated at my lack of focus. I don't remember ever being bad or not getting something done, I think it was more that I was talking to other kids who needed to get things done. Anyway, she came at me with a rope and tied me to my chair to help me remember to stay at my desk. I'll never forget it - she was a big round woman and her arms needed to bow out to walk and she swung that rope back and forth and you could hear her nylons sliding back and forth under her dress and her pumps clicking and dragging on the floor. Humiliation is the best way for me to describe what I felt. On the other hand it was something you might see in a juvenile Jack Black or Ferris Bueller movie. Now, in fourth grade I went through an oddly grandiose phase of time where I was so afraid I would cause someone to die or go to hell that I prayed constantly that no one would go to hell. I made my parents drive me 20 miles to another town so I could go to Sunday school. The church in town was not one that my parents wanted us to attend. At this time, I also washed my hands incessantly. They cracked and bled I washed them so much. My Mom never directly asked me about this but she would do what she could to help - she would put rose water and glycerin on my hands and I wore gloves to bed at night. I was so afraid that I would kill someone by passing a germ to them that I had calculated the number of times I needed to soap up and wash my hands to remove 99% of the germs. Every time I touched something I would wash my hands - touch the dog, touch the floor, touch something that had touched the floor...and on and on.... Oh, my goodness - crazy how my kid mind worked but there you have it. I was so afraid of my thoughts and and germs that I would soak my tired brain in books. I couldn't get enough of reading. My mother worried that I would not have friends and told me to stop reading so much. I worked through all the Black Stallion books, all the Misty books, the Big Red books, Lassie, the James Herriot novels. I loved reading and more importantly it kept my mind occupied and not busy focusing on something other than my anxiety.
We moved from Minnesota to Iowa in the middle of my sixth grade year. We lived in the Quad Cities. It is the only place where the Mississippi river flows east to west. It was a bigger town a bigger school, bigger city and we all went to church not just me. I remember the exact moment I thought I needed to get over this germ thing. When we moved I had to make new friends. One of the new friends I met at church had an apple and she took a bite and handed the apple to me asking if I wanted a bite. OMG - she was okay with my germs - she thought I could take a bit and give it back to her - wow - I was going to be mortified and then I remember thinking 'oh, oh I am going to have to get over this germ thing if I was ever going to have friends again." It lingers a little today - but is pretty much gone. I knew in order to be a part of the world and have friends and be close to people I was going to have to figure out how to let go of my need to control everything in my environment. In some ways I knew I was going to have read fewer books and have more conversations. I was not going to able to incessantly recite prayer in my brain. I was going to have to come out of my world and find out where the rest of the world lived.
I have been thinking about dogs and moving a little bit. I went with a friend to pick up her new puppy a couple of weeks ago. I hung out with the puppies out in the yard for a while. I couldn't help but wonder about the whole idea of removing a puppy from this group. I guess it is the way it works but I somehow felt kind of sad as much as I was happy about the home the puppy was going to go to live. Dogs and puppies are not people. Even people eventually leave the nest most of the time. The puppies played and played. They barked at each other and if I don't know better I might have said they were laughing sometimes. I knew there were other dogs at the new home and a great dog person in my friend. I knew the little blue boy puppy had the best opportunity for happiness. I wondered this about Gromit when we brought him home. When Gromit was about 1.5 and Chewie was just a year, we moved six blocks to a new house. This was about 2 years ago. We moved into a different house than Gromit and Chewie were familiar with but they still had us - Kristin, Schmadios, Tiace and I - the same furniture and a good picture window that overlooks the happenings on the street. I understand dogs to be in the moment so Gromit and Chewie pretty much learned the ropes here at the new house pretty quickly. They found the doors, the windows, the squirrels and their yard. They found their new food dish location along with the cats new litter box location. We kept the same dog school so they didn't have to change teachers mid year LOL! And the only ritual new behavior that I can see is Chewie's ritual to go outside and not come in until there is food in his dish - can't that gorilla face back in the house without food or a ball - it take that long to train us. Gromit and Chewie still play fiercely with each other like they did at the old house. We walked by their old neighbor dog friend - Ginger the other night and they sniffed in her smell for a while as they greeted at the fence at Ginger's house. We walked by the house where the family that used to walk Gromit and Chewie live. Gromit and Chewie pulled in together to get us to the house. So maybe dogs are in the moment, but they sure seem to remember things.
I still live along a river - the Mississippi - I love the slow moving water. Gromit and Chewie love to walk along the river They love the loamy smells and extra wildlife benefits of living along the river. Once I was afraid of the world, but Gromit welcomes all the things along the river. Chewie greets them with caution but greets them none-the-less. The dogs have helped me let go of the grandiose idea that I can control germs and life. Instead, I have focused on sharing the apple, sharing the path, sharing the good smells and winding along in the moments of life.
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