Dog blues

Our dog Klaus is getting old, and having some quite typical health problems.

He had an enlarged prostate, and the wonderful Czech vet gave him some medicine six months ago that has shrunk the prostate significantly.

But in the meantime, Klaus is down to one functioning sense--taste--and has dementia. The vet made these diagnoses today, but she was only confirming what I already knew, from his behavior. He cannot see much, cannot hear well, and cannot even smell things anymore. He insists on licking everythinghe can reach, from the pavement to our parquet floors and IKEA rugs. It's is rather gross to hear him lick, lick, lick. And of course he will lick any person foolish enough to let bare flesh near his tongue. We now know our true friends--people who will let Klaus lick them!

The dementia is also obvious. He will start to pee outside, and forget what he is doing. No kidding. You can read the expression on his face--"now what was it I wanted to do?" as he squats to pee (he can't lift his hind leg anymore, due to arthritis and lack of muscle/nerve coordination, so he squats). He can no longer recognize the door to our apartment house, and has to be dragged into it. We look like we are not kind to him when we are outside, as we have to drag him up when he poops and can't get back up, when he licks something filthy, or when he's trying his best to run in front of a speeding car that's coming up the street.

It is very hard for us to watch these changes in our little dog. We are relying on the vet to help us through this, the last stage of his 17-year life (so far). He mostly sleeps and begs for food, as taste is just about the only pleasure he has left. Our little friend is old.

How much longer? and variations

Anyone who has been around children has heard the questions, "are we there yet? how much longer? when will we be there?" "when will we stop again?" I ask these questions, too. Here are some examples:

1. "How much longer?" I moan inwardly,  when my husband takes me on what I call a magical mystery tour. He remembers some place he wants me to see, and takes me there, but never directly. We weave in and out of streets, courtyards, alleys, and parks, as he gives me the scenic tour--for free. He knows where he's going, so he is always relaxed. I don't know if we have another minute or another hour before we reach our destination. This drives me crazy. He gets very hurt if I ask this question out loud, interpreting it as a lack of trust in his ability to give me a wonderful surprise. So I bite my tongue and suffer...

2. "When did this happen? Who planned it? Why didn't I know about it?"  I have this reaction to any surprise. I've been the honored guest at three surprise parties in my life--a baby shower, a small gathering of friends so low-key that I didn't even realize it was a birthday party for me, and a bigger birthday party that my kids planned when they were 8 and 11 years old. In all three cases, I was so discombobulated that I couldn't quite grasp what was happening. Surprises are just too surprising for me, as I like to know where I am and where I am going, on a nice neat timetable. I need firm beginning and ending times to be happy. Long, complicated ceremonies have the same effect--a bishop's visit, a dance recital, a sneak preview.

3. "When will it stop?" This is my anxious question when I'm waiting for something to happen--for a dog to stop barking down the block at night, for a baby to stop crying in the next room at a hotel, for a pot to boil on the stove, for the dentist to finish drilling my tooth. What makes me so nervous is not knowing how long this will last--if I know that there are 56 more seconds of drilling, I have all kinds of coping mechanisms to use to pass the time. It's the unknown that defeats me.

4. "Where will I be next year at this time?" When I'm making a big life change, which seems to be about every two years or so, I can't help but ask this question. In my younger years, not knowing was exciting and adventurous. Now it's kind of scary. Since I try to follow God's guidance in these changes, rather than planning them out logically with my own brainpower, I spend lots of time in this state of uncertainty. It really drives me mad, at times. I like limited commitments, like a one-year teaching contract or a two-year lease. Being enclosed in a well-defined agreement is comfortable for me. I would have liked being in the military for this reason--except I would not have liked the enforced obedience, the constant conformity and the weapons training. Well, maybe I wasn't meant for the military!

I used to make fun of people who were so timid that they couldn't do anything new. Routines were for unintelligent people who couldn't enjoy the spontaneity of life. Now I am one of those people. I think that life's most stinging moments come when we realize, as Pogo said, that we are the enemy. Or, to put it another way, "what goes around comes around." What we consider our strengths are so often the areas of our downfall--what we scorn in others is what we may, indeed, end up scorning in ourselves.

So all my questions--"how much longer?" "are we there yet?" "when will this be over?"--reveal the lack of trust that I hoped to avoid as an adult, and as a Christian. We really don't know the answers, but can only guess. How much smarter to admit how little we know, and to trust God that He has our best interests at heart and is bringing into our lives exactly what we need, when we need it.

no more morning hassles

I had a job here in Prague for about 2 months, starting last September. It was a little job--teaching children aged 3-5 in a Prague preschool--and I loved the children.

Most parts of the job were pleasant or at least okay, but one thing I really didn't like was giving up my morning routine with my husband to rush to work.

Since 1985 I've worked full-time and then some, usually putting in 60-hour weeks at my main job and handling a few part-time assignments at the same time. That's a lot of work. I was on a strict schedule for many of my jobs, and grew accustomed to hassling to get where I needed to be, when I needed to be there.

Moving to Prague in 2010 was like taking a vacation. I didn't have a regular job, but instead took on some tutoring assignments with Korean high-school students living in Prague for a few years (there's a large Hyundai facility in Ostrava). My time was my own, and life was luxurious.

In March 2011, I created a consulting assignment in a Prague preschool, with the goal of helping the school with teacher training, curriculum, and strategic planning. I completed parts of this assignment, then was hired as a teacher in September 2012.

For a number of reasons, the teaching assignment didn't work out, and I left it about a month ago. Now I have my mornings back! I can have a leisurely cup of tea with my husband, pray with him, and get the day off to a civilized start!

sick as a dog/weak as a kitten

I have had acute bronchitis for three weeks, and am taking antibiotic and anti-coughing pills. I feel better in my lungs (no more asthma) and do';t have those terrible coughing fits, but I am "weak as a kitten"--I walk the dog and feel like I hiked the Appalachian trial.

I guess "sick as a dog" describes the utter giving up of a sick dog. When he's sick, my dog has so little energy he doesn't even lift his head when we open the closet door to the sacred treats (plastic-y "beef jerkies" from DM). He just lies there, indifferent to the world.

I am finally able to imagine that some day I'll feel like myself again, with normal levels of energy. But I still feel a bit like a helpless animal, resigned to weakness and not caring about the rest of the world.

In mourning--enough. already!

Mourning is a period of time when a person adjusts to a loss. We mourn people who have died; relationships that have ended; dreams that have evaporated; projects that seem to have failed.

Most advice about mourning in the US is to get over it as quickly as possible and move on. Plunging into a new relationship or project; changing jobs or homes, taking us a new, consuming hobby--these are classic ways to move on. As Bobby on Hill Street Blues once said about a sorrow, "I just want to get this behind me."


In Central Europe, in contrast, mourning is a way of life. Think of those Greek widows who wear black from the day their husband dies to the day they die. On any Prague street you may run across a plaque on a wall, commemorating the tragic death of someone you probably never heard of. The news magazines routinely have feature stories on Hitler, Heydrich (Prague's Nazi boss, who was killed by Czechs as he rode in an open car), Stalin, Lenin, and so on. It's as if WWII is still being fought somewhere not far away.

After living here for 16 months, I can say that I'm a bit sick of being in mourning. First there is the general social mourning around me, the heavy feeling that the past, with its pains, deceptions and murders, is just a step behind us. Prague is famous for this; Franz Kafka's The Trial explores the idea of free-floating guilt and terror.

Then there's the mourning for my friends. Since I've been here, I've had four close friends endure exceptionally nasty treatment in their jobs here in Prague. All four left those jobs, two to move back to the USA. I miss my friends, and I also feel indignation that they were treated so poorly.

And then there is my own mourning. I came to Prague enthusiastically, with a host of ideas for ways to contribute to the city. I believed that, if I treated people well, they'd do the same in return. But this didn't often happen, and much of my initial enthusiasm has been squeezed out of me by now.

I've had four jobs that didn't work out, for various reasons. The common thread in all four was an inability to build relationships of trust with my employers. Too much information was withheld for my comfort level. I felt that I was being deliberately misled and confused, just so that the people I worked for could maintain control over me. Why?

In the 60's, management Theory X was shown to be stifle creativity and lead to employees feeling no loyalty to their companies (see box at left for Theory X). I guess managers here haven't gotten that insight yet! When Jarda and I ran the Business Leadership Forum: USA programs for Czech executives, we saw that Theory X was alive and well. But that was 20 years ago! Surely things have changed.

So I am in mourning again. The last consulting assignment I had ended in some unpleasantness, and I am making my peace with it, looking for the positives as well as the negatives.

But I must say that what I'm really mourning is the severe beating that my life-long beliefs have taken here. Like Anne Frank, the Jewish girl captured and killed by Nazis for no reason except that she was Jewish, I still believe, in spite of all, that people are good. I have tried being tough and cynical, but I can't pull it off. Deep inside me is the certain knowledge that God lives in each person; I seek that God in people, and usually find Him.

Yet here in Prague, it's as if people's goodness is hidden deep underground. Jarda tells me that oppression, terrible wars, betrayal, and several police states have turned Czechs into masters of deceit. Like Good Soldier Schweig, Czechs are cunning and crafty, No wonder their managers still use Theory X!

So, the mourning continues. But at some point, as an American, I will pick myself up and move on spiritually and psychologically. I think I'm at that point!

Dead Zone

Stephen King wrote a novel called The Dead Zone. I never read it, but I love the title.

I know what it's like to exist in a dead zone, though. Dead to emotion, dead to my instincts, dead to pleasure and rage. For me, the dead zone is more of a numb zone, the place I go when I can't cope with my feelings about what's happening around me.

I've spent some rather tediously long stretches of time in the numb zone--going through the motions of daily living, containing my boredom, my sorrow, my anger, my fear and my disgust at what I'm dealing with. In this zone, I have handled some pretty tough times, times of terror, confusion, regret and indecision.

So the numb zone has its virtues; like a POW who endures till she is free, I can endure what comes into my life. I am grateful for times when the numb zone has kicked in, freeing me to deal with difficulties and challenges without the encumbrance of emotion.

But the numb zone has its drawbacks. Shutting out negative emotions, like pain, sorrow and anger, inevitably shuts out the positive emotions, too. It's hard to allow joy into a well-established numb zone.

My greatest moments of joy in life have always been lived right next to times of anguish. When I feel all my emotions, when I stick my head out of the numb zone, I can expect to shoulder the burden of my own sins and everyone else's, in a spiritual sense. But I can also expect boatloads of grace and love to pour into me, making it more than worthwhile to let myself feel what I feel.

No doubt this drive to enter the numb zone is what makes druggies, heavy drinkers, exercise freaks, computer nerds and all kinds of obsessive people do whatever they can to shut out the world that's just too much for them. I feel empathy with anyone who tries to escape the pain of a child's death, or of a lover's infidelity, or of a ruined career. It's normal to create a numb zone when these catastrophic life events loom over us.

But the problem is that living in the numb zone can become such a habit that it cancels out all the zest and spontaneous laughter of life. By the time you react, with your slow, numbed emotions, the moment has passed.

By the way, an excess of happiness and joy also produces a numb zone for me. The day Jarda and I got married, a day I had prayed to see for 10 years, I was so overwhelmed with excitement that I was as numb as a frozen turkey. Jarda had to lead me through the ceremony. I only remember a few moments of that wonderful day.

So the numb zone is a haven, a place of refuge for people like me whose emotions are powerful and consuming. But it's also a prison, where life is just in shades of gray. I noticed last week that I was starting to be glad when the days and months passed, waiting for Christmas holidays while enduring my daily routine. If I were still 20 or 30 years old, I could put up with that numb zone thinking. But I'm not. So I changed the circumstances that had led me to retreat. As a consequence, I have hardly slept the past few nights, as suppressed emotions have churned themselves into my brain and heart. Oh well--better a sleepless night than a heart that cannot feel.

For Nadine: rainbow, rainbow, rainbow

Nadine loves rainbows. So did poet Elizabeth Bishop, it seems.

The Fish
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled and barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.