Jana's Musings

I'm just in from playing outside with my dog. It's November 6 and I could be in a tee shirt and shorts. I wrote a piece a couple of years ago for a Berkshire Festival of Women Writer's contest that I recently published in an anthology called Writing Fire. Here it is:

An Unusually Warm November
By Jana Laiz
 
It’s early November and the bank clock announces a balmy seventy degrees. I shake my head in disgust, car window rolled down several inches. Arriving at the post office, the chatty postman says, “Good morning! What a day! I would love to be outside today!” The wind is up, leaves swirling on the too warm breeze and instead of agreeing with him, which I actually do, I say something like, “It’s too weird, unnatural.” He looks at me, disappointed, probably thinking what a downer I am. One of those environmentalists. “Leave the door open on your way out, “ he calls, trying to stay upbeat amidst my gloomy protestations.

The day is magnificent, he’s right. The sky is wrapped in shades of dusky blue and gray. The sunlight is hitting the trees in that almost divine way, bathing the leaves in color; light here, dark there, forcing me to pull my car over and just look. The night was warm and full of stars when my puppy needed to go out. The howling wind had woken us both up. I padded out in only my nightgown and slippers. No need for even a robe. My pup and I looked up, watching clouds scudding across the star-dotted sky. He cocked his head as he listened to the coyotes yipping far off in the distance. So warm, so strange and new, yet oddly comforting.

It’s been said that while we were busy discussing climate change, climate changed.

I’ve fought so hard against this change for most of my life; running from one protest march to the next to save the whales, to stop big oil, to decrease our carbon footprint. I’ve reduced, reused, recycled, composted, bought gas-sipping cars, climbed on soapboxes, asked people to turn off their idling engines, angering them in the process, written eco-themed novels, and tried to live the most conscious life I could.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my postman. Does he not get the implications of this unnaturally warm November? Isn’t he worried about floods and storms and landslides, hurricanes and wild fires burning out of control? Do the plea-filled envelopes he delivers, adorned with photographs of ailing bats and drowning polar bears, move him not at all?
Or is he simply a person living in the moment and enjoying a beautiful day? Is he merely being present when someone walks into the post office flushed and windswept, with only a windbreaker for protection when in the past they would be swathed in wool and down? And if so, is there anything wrong with that? Is it a sign of naïveté? Ignorance? Denial? Is he a Zen master in disguise teaching me to enjoy the sun on my face and a cup of coffee on my deck, sitting on furniture that normally would have been stored away in preparation for a long cold winter?

I picked a violet the other day. Just a lone violet growing in the November grass. I put it in a tiny vase and admired its purple perfection, all the while being disturbed by its late presence. Today, I watch my two dogs basking in the sun, my twelve-year-old dachshund, blissfully rolling in the warm still-green grass while the puppy gnaws on the stump of a dead tree, both oblivious to global warming or whatever this new paradigm signifies. They are simply enjoying a warm November day. My puppy looks up from his stump to watch a yellow butterfly flutter past. A butterfly. In November.

There are two woodstoves in my house that have been lit twice since my wood was delivered. By this time years past I would have gone through a quarter of a cord. So how do I come to terms with this change? Do I adapt? Fight it? Accept it? Complain? I’m not sure. I do know that when the winter winds blast in from Canada, I’m ready for the Costa Rican Pacific. I’m not a hypocrite, but I don’t want to be a purveyor of doom. Change is definitely happening. There’s no denying that the world is heating up. But today, on this unusually warm November day, from where I sit, it’s beautiful.
There’s a story of a man falling off a cliff to his death. On his way down he sees a flower growing from a rock and smiles. Can I be that guy?

I think I’ll go to the post office and get some clarity.  And my mail.

I’m alone in the woods. Just me and my dog. No other human around. We hike around the trails for quite a long time and besides the occasional bird I hear chirping, there is no other sound. It is silent in these woods and I wonder how this is possible when I share the planet with seven billion souls. Human that is, and that’s not even mentioning the millions and millions of other sentient beings who inhabit this place. Alone among billions. I’m not complaining. Letting my dog off leash, letting him run like a maniac, bounding down the trail, jumping up on old stone walls and jumping back down again, grabbing sticks far too big for his jaws, is better when there is no one else around. He practically flies, turns to make sure I am there, then goes wildly in another direction. I brought him here to let him run wild, but I came for me also. This time when I can walk over ice and slush onto wet leaves and bracken, be with the trees, appreciating the green, green moss. I haven’t seen green for so long. And I think about this being alone on a full planet. When I was a child I used to think that the planet would get so heavy with people it would sink or we would fall out of orbit or tilt, dropping some excess weight over the side. Does a sphere have a side? Gravity does a really great job of keeping us all from falling off. 

 

There's a flowered chair that sits in my living room and it's empty these days. It was Jordy's chair. When he sat there it was covered with blankets for softness and to prevent him from shedding all over it. It is lately uncovered to reveal the lovely flowered pattern and it is mine now. I sit in it and try to imagine his soft, furry warmth draped over it, from head to hassock. I try to feel his presence, try to fill an emptiness that is palpable. The emptiness washes over me and comes upon me at odd times. It mainly comes when I walk downstairs and see the chair, devoid of dog. No soulful eyes looking at me from over its arm, no stiff, achy old boy needing help to get down from it and make his way to the kitchen for his breakfast.

I have lost a dear friend. A friend I took care of and loved for over 15 years. My children were tiny when we brought the little guy home. A who knows what ~ Pitbull/Lab? Boxer mix? Brindled and gorgeous, he was our Nigerian Lionhound. My children are adults now and Jordy is gone. Wrapped in a blanket, under a tree in the yard.

But when he lived, he lived! Every moment filled with joy. Running in the woods, on the beach, catching balls and sticks thrown, gulping down snowballs caught in midair, digging in snowdrifts, rolling in who knows what, stealing the lemon cake and eying the turkey, sneaking his way up on the bed, one leg at a time.
Oh, he will be missed.

Here's the poem I wrote for him on his passing:

It's been a week since the devastating tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School and I have tried to find words to express my feelings on this subject. I am a writer, I should be able to write something profound, but I am at a loss, still, for the right words. I am sitting here in my kitchen, sick with a cold the size of Texas, waiting for my tea water to boil. The rain is pouring down tears. My head aches, but so does my heart as I scroll facebook messages, as I read articles about a funeral for a little 7 year-old boy attended by the entire NYC Fire Department, as I remain quiet, reflecting in my moment of silence. This tragedy has cloaked the nation. These are our children.

I sent books to Sandy Hook School along with a promise to come to the school to write with the children, when they are ready, and if they want me to come. I hope they will.

I have tackled life-altering subjects before. My book, Elephants of the Tsunami dealt with the December 26, 2004 immense tragedy. The book was sent over to Thailand on a healing mission. I wrote that book to heal my own sorrow, and for the children I taught, who were scared from afar. I never thought it would be sent to Thailand and I was worried that it would hurt those Thai children, that it would bring back memories of that day. But Wachiramat, a Thai teacher working with 600 children in the villages of Khao Lak and Pang-nga, where 5000 people lost their lives in 5 minutes, told me that the words were so beautiful and that even though the story was sad, it helped the children heal. The children would never forget that day, but the book brought them out of themselves for a moment.