When I was in kindergarten I was put in time out for singing too loud. I still attest to this day that I had in fact diminished my volume when the teacher asked and was wrongly punished. I felt this injustice as a five year old. My reaction: to cry. I cried the rest of the day at school, on the bus ride home, on the walk back home, under the dining room table.
In third grade I decided to call a teacher a bitch. Unfortunately I have always had a habit of speaking too loudly and at the same time not paying attention to my surroundings. The teacher heard me say this and punished me swiftly. I admit now looking back that it was a very cruel thing for me to say. I deserved the punishment. Of course I hate being in trouble though. My reaction: to cry.
On more than one occasion through out elementary school and middle school I would receive a poor grade. Now to me this met anything less than an A. Once I earned the highest grade in the whole class on an assignment most people failed. It was a B-. My reaction: to cry.
As a sophomore in high school I was fu**ing up royally during a volleyball match and my coach rightfully took me out of the game. I was so mad with myself and knowing she was equally disappointed made me even more upset. I went to the end of the bench and cried. At the sight of this, needless to say, I sat the rest of the game. My reaction: to cry more.
In college I received a C- on a paper. I think that was the first C I had every received on any paper in college. I was a junior. I went to see the teacher and figure out what I did wrong. She ripped each sentence to shreds. My reaction: to cry. Don’t worry she didn’t change my grade and she ended up being one of my favorite professors.
When I worked at National Geographic I was under a great deal of stress, as I was finishing up school at the same time. I wrote something and of course it wasn’t perfect. I blame shear exhaustion and maybe an unhealthy habit to be perfect, but as my boss sat and edited it, as she would anything I wrote I could feel it coming. I cried.
Two days ago the vet came over. Beaugarde was not any better. He was worse. I hadn’t slept very much and I knew I was leaving on Friday for a week. Not that my neighbors aren’t capable of taking care of my dog. I know Beaugarde gets slightly sad when I am gone. He shows his discontent by being disobedient when I get back. At the same time I questioned whether my neighbors would really want to hold Beaugarde up to go to the bathroom or heat up water and create a make shift warm compress for his legs.
The vet is just as puzzled as I am. He says he will think about it and then come back tomorrow. Then he says if he doesn’t get better after that I can just give him away and get a new dog. He might as well have just picked the dog off and hand him over to the meat venders, because that is what would happen. Here they kill dogs and eat them, and surely Beaugarde is no exception. My reaction to all this: to cry.
Unfortunately, in all these years, while I know it is not in my best interest to cry over such silly things I have gotten away with it. But I guess it is someone’s idea of a good joke that I am now living in a country, where it is totally UNACCEPTABLE to cry, especially over a dog—again dogs are food to many people here.
I try to hide in my house so no one knows I am crying, but at the vets insistence on just getting a new dog, one that is better, I can’t help myself.
My Maman comes to lecture me about crying. Saying I need to have courage and that everyone gets sick and that Beaugarde will get better. Il faut avoir patience. Then she says she is mad at me for crying is she is going to leave if I don’t stop. This of course makes me worse; I hate for people I care about to be mad at me. My reaction: to cry.
I take a bucket-shower and come into my room where Beaugarde is sitting. I lie next to him and cry some more. I want to get it all out before I show my face to Benin again. As I cry, Beaugarde crawls over to me the best he can and starts licking my face. He has been getting better ever since.
Friday, February 19, 2010
My Dog is Sick: Part I
My house is on pause. I imagine this is what the home of someone whose husband is dying slowly of lung cancer and is laid up in a hospital looks like. I have floors that need to be cleaned, dust looms over everything—even sheets of paper need to be wiped down—and the floors are stained. It’s like I am waiting, like the woman with her husband, for the decision to finally come down so I can finally clean up and deal with the reality of it all. Of course there is always a glimmer of hope, represented in the ability to bring myself to wash the dishes.
It is as I have finished washing off a plastic plate in the green plastic basin and proceeding to clean it off once more in the clean water I have set aside in a clear bucket that I hear cries. I know he must be moving again, but leave the plate half submerged in water to make sure it is just that he has moved again, and not that he has gotten up, bumped into something and hurt himself.
I know I am like my mother—I say that with not the least bit of shame—and I did not need the separation of the Atlantic Ocean to discover this. However, this separation has led to a series of events that has shed new light, perhaps a small one to people with actual children, on what it’s like to be a mother.
It turns out Beaugarde did just shift again, but I feel it is my fault. He had fallen asleep under the illusion I was lying next to him, which originally had been the case. I had tried to fall asleep, having finished two books today in my dutiful stand-guard, and started a third. Restless though, I decided maybe I’d feel better if I bucket-showered and clean up the dishes.
Beaugarde start acting “strange” a week ago. I have been calling my mother on any inkling he might be sick. It is funny I worry more about the things that can happen to Beaugarde by living in Africa than I have ever considered for myself. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong exactly.
“His eyes are bugging out,” I said.
“What you mean?”
“Like a cartoon character.”
Since Beaugarde was little he has laid out on the ground in refusal when going on walks. He was doing this same thing, but he was doing it just when we’d walk from my house to my neighbors. Then on Friday it became clear. Beaugarde could not see well, it progressed quickly. He is now blind.
“Il ne voi pas,” I say to my neighbors.
“Il ne voi pas?” They don’t believe me, so I have to show them how he stumbles around into things as evidence of his malady.
I call the vet when I get home from school. He administers an antibiotic. He tells me to put some stuff in his eyes and suggests maybe he ate something outside—I have not let Beaugarde roam the village in three weeks; I have seen everything he has eaten. He did not charge me for the shot; I thought maybe he knows my dog might not make it or maybe he just doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do and is taking a stab in the dark. Beaugarde does not get better. His stomach started convulsing and he did not sleep at all Friday night; neither did I. During the day it is drawn to my attention that he can’t walk very well and not just because he can’t see. He reminds me of a cat my parents had briefly, called Chance. He couldn’t use his back legs, they just dragged behind him. Beaugarde isn’t dragging his feet, but he is tumbling a lot and when he falls it is always with a slight whine and he looks around knowing how vulnerable he has become.
Today is Sunday. He received another shot today and they think he is getting better. I am not so sure. I am hopeful because he still is wagging his tail, but I feel so sorry for him. He is so helpless. I have to pick him up and take him to go to the bathroom. I set him down in his usual spot and he tries to pee and falls down. He stays lying down until I pick him up so he stops pissing on himself. I can’t help but laugh a little. It is less funny though that he is afraid to go poop. I can tell he needs to because he is crying a little. He knows he can’t hold himself up to do the deed, so I hold him up myself.
It is as I have finished washing off a plastic plate in the green plastic basin and proceeding to clean it off once more in the clean water I have set aside in a clear bucket that I hear cries. I know he must be moving again, but leave the plate half submerged in water to make sure it is just that he has moved again, and not that he has gotten up, bumped into something and hurt himself.
I know I am like my mother—I say that with not the least bit of shame—and I did not need the separation of the Atlantic Ocean to discover this. However, this separation has led to a series of events that has shed new light, perhaps a small one to people with actual children, on what it’s like to be a mother.
It turns out Beaugarde did just shift again, but I feel it is my fault. He had fallen asleep under the illusion I was lying next to him, which originally had been the case. I had tried to fall asleep, having finished two books today in my dutiful stand-guard, and started a third. Restless though, I decided maybe I’d feel better if I bucket-showered and clean up the dishes.
Beaugarde start acting “strange” a week ago. I have been calling my mother on any inkling he might be sick. It is funny I worry more about the things that can happen to Beaugarde by living in Africa than I have ever considered for myself. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong exactly.
“His eyes are bugging out,” I said.
“What you mean?”
“Like a cartoon character.”
Since Beaugarde was little he has laid out on the ground in refusal when going on walks. He was doing this same thing, but he was doing it just when we’d walk from my house to my neighbors. Then on Friday it became clear. Beaugarde could not see well, it progressed quickly. He is now blind.
“Il ne voi pas,” I say to my neighbors.
“Il ne voi pas?” They don’t believe me, so I have to show them how he stumbles around into things as evidence of his malady.
I call the vet when I get home from school. He administers an antibiotic. He tells me to put some stuff in his eyes and suggests maybe he ate something outside—I have not let Beaugarde roam the village in three weeks; I have seen everything he has eaten. He did not charge me for the shot; I thought maybe he knows my dog might not make it or maybe he just doesn’t have the slightest idea what to do and is taking a stab in the dark. Beaugarde does not get better. His stomach started convulsing and he did not sleep at all Friday night; neither did I. During the day it is drawn to my attention that he can’t walk very well and not just because he can’t see. He reminds me of a cat my parents had briefly, called Chance. He couldn’t use his back legs, they just dragged behind him. Beaugarde isn’t dragging his feet, but he is tumbling a lot and when he falls it is always with a slight whine and he looks around knowing how vulnerable he has become.
Today is Sunday. He received another shot today and they think he is getting better. I am not so sure. I am hopeful because he still is wagging his tail, but I feel so sorry for him. He is so helpless. I have to pick him up and take him to go to the bathroom. I set him down in his usual spot and he tries to pee and falls down. He stays lying down until I pick him up so he stops pissing on himself. I can’t help but laugh a little. It is less funny though that he is afraid to go poop. I can tell he needs to because he is crying a little. He knows he can’t hold himself up to do the deed, so I hold him up myself.
Mix V – Premier Mix of 2010
Baby (Eat a Critter, Feel Its Wrath) by The Blow
Mango Pickle Down River by M.I.A.
Closer by Kings of Leon
C’mere by Interpol
1,2,3 Goodbye by Elvis Perkins
John Henry by U.S. Royalty
Blossom by Ryan Adams
Track 09 by Flying Machines
Heart in a Cage by Chris Thile
Cold Water by Damien Rice
Not Over Yet by Kevin Devine
How’s Forever Been Baby by Elvis Perkins
Mango Pickle Down River by M.I.A.
Closer by Kings of Leon
C’mere by Interpol
1,2,3 Goodbye by Elvis Perkins
John Henry by U.S. Royalty
Blossom by Ryan Adams
Track 09 by Flying Machines
Heart in a Cage by Chris Thile
Cold Water by Damien Rice
Not Over Yet by Kevin Devine
How’s Forever Been Baby by Elvis Perkins
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