Oh, to be a dog in mud season

My beloved dog died suddenly and too soon this week. He taught me so much.

HI! Thanks for welcoming me into your inbox every week. I appreciate the support, and I love the fluttery feeling I get when I push send and know my words will make their way to you. This one's from the archives.

March 7, 2024.

It's warm for a March morning. Rain drips from bare-limbed trees. The road I live on is currently mud, up over your ankles, boot-sucking mud. My yellow Lab Rangeley zig-zags in front of me, coating his belly in a gritty brown sludge—oblivious, happy.

It's a good day to write. I should be writing.

Chocolate dipped Lab.

A new normal

I wonder if Spring is here to stay in a new and unthinkable normal. "I should take down the bird feeders!" I shout in case there's a hungry bear nearby just waking up from winter. Rangeley pauses mid-zig to look at me and takes a mental note.

The dog's enthusiasm strains the leash and the hold I have on it. He parades up the road with his tail in the air, chasing newly overturned scents of squirrel, rabbit, and skunk.

A Vermont mud season

I hate the look of mud season. In this part of Vermont, where 60% of the roads are unpaved, as the weather warms and the frost lets go, the hard-packed surfaces liquify—imagine driving in thick frosting and deep ruts filled with pudding that grab your car's wheels. It’s a force to be reckoned with.

Mud season usually comes in late March or April. Just before, there's a week (or sometimes two days) known as Fool's Spring—the sun is warm, and a few brave crocuses break through the icy mounds of leftover slush. Then, the wind shifts, the thermometer dips, and my driveway becomes a luge run.

Without snow, and before the trees leaf out and the clover grows, rural Vermont reveals its broken side. The dirt roads are cluttered with downed tree limbs, decomposing leaves, dog turds, and discarded empties—Natty Light, Monster Energy, nips of Fireball whiskey. Everything looks tired and exposed, the energy to bloom again buried deep in debris.

Who’s the fool

I really should be writing. Walks like these are part of my story—I've had countless revelations while holding this leash. At last count, five thousand good words in the one-thousandth draft of my book. I almost believe I will finish.

I should race to the keyboard, outrun the second-guessing, take the stairs two at a time. Maybe this time, I will beat the self-doubt gremlins before they grab me by the toe and growl, "You can't capture these feelings."

I should have more faith. "What's wrong with me, Rangeley?"

The dog looks up from licking his empty scrotum. "Perhaps you try too hard to impress?" He seems to say.

Rangeley's right. I care too much about what people think. I should not look at social media first thing in the morning. The most prominent posts in my feed fit into three categories: partisan outrage, bitter souls purging their existential dread, and beautiful, silver-haired women insisting they are a force to be reckoned with. And I should be, too.

"I am a force," I say, but the feeling passes as quickly as Fool's Spring.

A force to be reckoned with

I scan the wetlands for early pussy willows, and there's Rangeley on his haunches. He looks up at me with raised brows and downcast eyes. "It’s okay, buddy,” I say. “Everyone poops.”

I wonder why I can’t grant myself the same compassion—a respite from worrying about what people might think. My harshness is perhaps a vestige of corporate life, where consensus ruled, and performance was evaluated from every angle.  

I haven’t stepped into an office for years, and still, I feel pressured and impatient. Get to the to-do list, cross things off, get to the next thing, and the next, as if breaking some finish-line ribbon was the ultimate goal.

Maybe it’s career PTSD, or perhaps this is what it means to be a woman raised by 80s and 90s YOU-CAN-HAVE-IT-ALL marketing. In midlife, I feel those expectations amplified by constant online comparisons—SO, WHY DON’T YOU?

I should calm down. I should be grateful. I should lift other women. I should just … BE.

I should rake the front steps where the dead leaves collected last fall. I should grocery shop. I should lose weight. I should go gray. I should age boldly. I should speak out.

I should. I should. I should.

Rangeley slows his pace as we walk up the hill and homeward. Now and then (it’s a huge hill!), he stops and waits for me—drops to his haunches to scratch an ear. My feet sink into the quagmire of mud and self-talk. My legs waver. I should do more squats and cardio.

The canine body language says, “It’s okay. Take your time.”

An escape

I make a smoothie for breakfast, spinning and crushing frozen strawberries and spinach with coconut milk. I should add cinnamon. I should eat more anti-inflammatory foods.

I reach for the spice on tiptoes as Rangeley, sweeping the floor for last night’s dinner prep remnants, bumps my leg.

A jar falls before I realize I’ve touched it—a streak from the corner of my eye, a brush of fabric as it grazes my sleeve. It lands hard on the counter, gouging the soapstone before exploding in shards of glass and ooze. Molasses.

The sticky, dark liquid glugs slowly toward the counter's edge. It’s a new jar, a full jar. The lid stands upright, still screwed on tight, resting on a jagged collar of shattered glass in a viscous brown puddle.

I shoo away the dog and stare at the treacly liquid, ignoring the hard clot in the back of my throat and the sting of tears in my eyes. When was the last time I let the tears come?

No longer bottled up, the molasses flows around obstacles and takes the shape of its surroundings with slow-moving ease. I redirect the gooey river toward the sink, extract the broken jar halves, and sweep the remaining shards of glass with damp paper towels into the trash.

Swallow. Deep breaths. You’ve got this.

Throughout the debacle, Rangeley naps on the couch in the living room— warm and soft, he molds himself to the fraying cushions. He groans when I lay down next to him. I’ll only rest for a bit. It’s nine a.m. I should get to work.

I close my eyes, and the tension softens across my neck and shoulders. The perma-frost of hardened fascia loosens like the earth during mud season. Like the escaped molasses, I take the shape of my surroundings and weep.

Work hard. Be Brave. Believe.

Catherine

Rest in happiness, my friend.

On Friday, 3/7, Rangeley was diagnosed with cancer. On Sunday morning (3/9) he died. Just like that. He was such a brave and sweet pup, and we had little idea how sick he was.

Rangeley (range-ly as in Rangeley, Maine) was the most handsome boy, a little weirdo afraid of the cat, men in hats, and trashbags at the end of driveways. He had the most smushable, cuddly neck and gave us hugs by tunnelling through our legs. Rangeley tried very hard to be a good boy, though the puppy in him never left. He loved us as we loved him, unconditionally.

We'll do our best to honor him by practicing what he taught us. Be present, stop and smell everything, and play, play, play.

Catherine