When you look at me your ancestors fall out your eyes–
Romania, the Camps, Zion and Lady Liberty.
You are traveling still, I may not be home.

You look at me when you’ve found a crack in
your grandmother’s violin. Your swaying and fingering
stops in the stream as your son bows still.

Your china shop bull is prancing in my living room,
and my grandmother’s candy dish clanks claps in time
or on the edge of it. You would build a village with

words or playing cards or particles, electrons, if you
could just learn the trick of pulling them through
the veil. The veil to that dimension, the veil between

the world of the living and the world of the dead.
The ancestors, reduced to Platonic forms in your head,
to the thoughts of a violin bow as she sings old notes,

and remembers leaving home.

When you pull at me your ancestors fall out your eyes
and you become all ages of a human man, out of order as
your face squints affection and worry. “Impish,” that’s the

word you prefer for the boy who makes you say the
wrong thing. And a moment later you’re a lover at my
neck or the traveler at mid-life, the highway a neck of a

violin. Thoughts veil your face and your fingers twist your
beard. I expect a Torah lesson but then you return to me
and the boy grins, hands full of liberty and my locks.

You hide in science as if God has hidden your homeland in
space time and we are to live in the house that experimentation
built. I just want to collect your DNA. For further study.

I’m a witch. I know the power of words better than a physicist.
But I’m a poet. I know words are sirens and a ship on the rocks
is no homeland. But our eyes locked, telling ages and the
myths we make to hold hurts, our eyes locked, our bellies

locked, dimensions, homelands, make me your violin.

–Wren Tuatha

My yin-yang shelties are eight years old. I adopted Tuatha when he was eight weeks old; Echo at eight months. He, Tuatha, is the extroverted, demonstrative one who will bring poor guests endless sticks, balls and plush toys to throw. She, Echo, is reserved, waiting for the quiet moment to greet a guest with her “still waters run deep” energy.

The yin-yang comparisons continue. He, the jock, eats to live. She, the former kennel dog, lives to eat. He runs to Mama at every fright. She is my brave protector. He campaigns for, and gets, lots of my attention. And until recently, I believed my slower, calmer dog was content by herself in the corner.

Now I am checking her feelings under those still waters, and valuing every moment we share, because we may have less time than I thought.

She has always taken her food and water as if she were still competing with her kennel mates. But recently she began drinking so much water so quickly that, minutes later, she would throw some up. And, data in, data out, she needed to pee constantly. I had thought she just craved oral gratification. But the vomiting put me over. I wondered if the drinking meant diabetes.

The vet quickly ruled out diabetes, and agreed with me that her symptoms were subtle. Dogs often throw up. It’s a dog thing. But Echo’s kidneys weren’t functioning well. The vet suspected Addison’s disease, but now it appears she has the opposite of Addison’s: Cushing’s disease.

In Addison’s, the body produces too little glucocorticoid, in Cushing’s, it produces too much. Having visited a few sites on Cushing’s, I now suspect that Echo has been dealing with this imbalance for most of her life. I recall noticing certain symptoms, which I assumed were simple variations in body type or behavior:

• A barrel shaped gut, which I pondered each time I bathed them. Tuatha has a more hourglass, slender waist and Echo has always been thick there. But then again, she likes food…
• Over eating/food stealing. Echo has competed for her food, even though she no longer has to. Since I know shelties can be prone to obesity, I’ve watched her portions like a hawk and police the food stealing…
• A thinning of the face. I noticed this a while back and dismissed it. Now it is not noticeable. But it is listed as a sign of Cushings.
• Lethargy. Echo has always been slower, less athletic than Tuatha. Again, it has been easy to excuse this as individual variations between dogs. People have assumed she was his mother, or at least a much older dog. I’ve just answered that she’s an old soul.
• Hair loss. Echo’s hair is not to the point of the characteristic balding around the abdomen associated with Cushing’s, but it has thinned generally. Now I watch it more closely.
• Urinary tract infection. Another issue with Cushing’s, Echo did a round of antibiotics that failed to clear out her current infection. The vet’s having another look at her urine to better target the next meds for her specific infection of the moment.

Now I appreciate that Echo probably has been suffering in silence for a long time. Although I want to blame myself for not visiting the vet years ago, the truth is, most people do miss these signs, which are subtle and typically associated with aging.

It looks like we should be able to control the imbalance with medication eventually. And I’ll also look for alternative treatments. I hope that it doesn’t have to mean discomfort or a shortened life for my brave protector.

What are your experiences with Addison’s and Cushing’s? These are people diseases, too! I’d like to hear your stories!

http://www.hippiechickdiaries.com/

“Obama is Change” but some things never change. I know well that sex and women’s bodies sell everything in Western culture. I discovered this t-shirt, with celebrity women allowing their images to be idealized, on Barack Obama’s site. I was searching for an image to accompany a post expressing my giddy elation that he’d been elected. But my bubble was burst, so here’s my witness that we can do better. We can be many changes!

And if not, some staffer from Obama’s campaign has a great future laying out department store ads in the Sunday paper!

http://www.hippiechickdiaries.com/

Perhaps, but so could the piteous groans I emit when I don’t get laid. So here’s the plan: I’m coming over and I’ll drive the speed limit. I’ll pick up any hitchhikers I see on the way and we’ll stop every fifteen miles to plant native trees and spay stray dogs. In my current state, I may not be thinking clearly, so I’m not sure how stray dogs contribute to global warming, but I’ll spay them for our collective karma. You have your pet issues and I have mine…

When I get to your house, I’ll graze locally on your lawn and shrubbery for dinner. Then I’ll let you slowly peel off the seven layers of Goodwill clothes I’m wearing because you minimally heat your house. Then, after all these mitigations, we’ll commit some serious global warming…Ooh, baby!

Follow Wren Tuatha's complicated adventures in simple living at:

http://www.hippiechickdiaries.com/

My new pet, gurrlfriend/boifriend, speaker of those bottle rocket fears, operator of those hands, and what else can that mouth do? I am so edgy tickled you have landed here for a while. Welcome to the possibility that you might get what you need even as you protest that you may or may not want it/trust it/taste it.

Welcome to my hut in the woods that smells like pond dogs and sounds like a relaxation birdcall CD. Take scratchy dreadlocks and three hours sleep. Take or leave the chore list and remember to warm the hammock with slow streamside breaths. When my work is done I might squeeze in and hear you tingle and purr and set off fire crackers of doubt and flow chart scenarios.

It’s about this moment.

The next will have its way with us. Specific as a seed, a thistle won’t grow from the acorn you bring. There’s more in the site you pick, the depth of planting, a drink of water, getting dirty, respiration and the waiting.

Give breath to this presence, like a wordless animal noticing the planet as it turns, then taking another bite of bergamot; like a pilgrim arriving, the stony muscles of travel loosening with an inhale at the sight of the temple–more honest, quiet and timeless than the brochure could show. Touch me here. Pray this moment. The next will have its way with us.

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