what we do for love

the honeymoon phase. you can’t stop us.

bath time

ok. update. i'm not sure what is indeed charming about owning a sailboat in maine in the winter. let’s be real, having a boat attached to your deck is something like the coolest fort ever and the biggest metaphorical poke in the side every time you glance out the window. feed me, your time your love and all your money.

but we wanted to. right.

it was mild that december day we gave gracie a bath. say in the 40’s and pouring rain and as you can (or can’t) see, dark, so we set up the spotlights. i see now the Edison bulbs upstairs give the photo a gentle, festive air. aha. nope. and the power washer, so loud. and the smell, think abandoned fish market. and the mud.

this was perhaps still the honeymoon phase.

and then we pulled her diesel engine off. yep. best night of the honeymoon.

but it was, ok maybe not the best night, but we were determined. you can in fact walk right from our deck onto gracie (super rad); you can’t see her in her full glory because we built her a house. yes her very own house. i’m pretty sure mother nature has been trying to rip it down since we finished it on a frigid january day around 9pm. no ma’am. you can’t stop us.

but. we do love our boat. her bathing needs, her no engine, her house, and perhaps most of all,

her potential.

admittedly we haven’t been working on her as much lately. cold will ruin any honeymoon. then again, sometimes you just need a little sunshine, and our electric propulsion system arrived on monday! that’s right,

gracie’s going solar

so yea, for real. . . it’s expensive, time consuming and often overwhelming. but it’s also what we do for love. with determination, grace, goodwill and compassion. what we do is our future. our potential. . . our evolution, if just one part.

and maybe one dream, one boat, won’t make a difference. but i love this fragile life, this fragile earth, and

. our house is still standing .

change

the . new . girl

revolution . evolution

get . drunk . bear . down

fierce

showing a heartfelt and powerful intensity. wild

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front porch

she’s your dog

he says to me when she’s wild.

uncontrolled or unrestrained, especially in pursuit of pleasure

she listens and she defies. they all do.

she’s fierce. i say.

a direct reflection of her human.

i have not posted on this site since the fall of 2017, after we almost lost bean. i suppose i have lost and found myself a few times since then. often abandoning this project. re-dreaming it. contemplating what it is. what it isn’t. then reaffirming why i ought not justify everything. that its ok to wish you could text your dead dog. or hug her uncontrollably.

or write her letters. unrestrained

this is toulouse on the hopson plantation at the shack up inn in clarksdale mississippi. where Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson played the blues on their front porches after they farmed cotton for the military. i finally had this photo printed and cased. it arrived yesterday while i was drafting this; it now hangs over my desk.

the drunk bear was a project inspired by my life with touls. i think, when i don't think too much, our stories and aspirations are still fueled by her spirit. our memories. what my life was like then, and perhaps, what i wish it was more like now.

fierce and wild, intense and unrestrained, for all the right reasons.

but… pandemic. unemployment. social-political climate. fear. misunderstanding. we could go on. and on. and on. while we fell in love with the south, the owner of the shack up inn said ‘people used to be more like y’all, now we have to tell them to stop throwing their beer cans on the lawn.’ what?

but i get it now.

so i begin again. not in my van, but at my desk for now, to be more like toulouse, navy and bean in their intensity and compassion, their unconditional love and endless pursuit of happiness. until we hit the road again. challenge accepted. catch you on the flip side.

write. share. inspire.

poetry

stayfierce. staycurious. staywild.

hugyourdog

getdrunkbeardown

the miracle dog

love. determination and the fight to save bean. poetry in progress

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the quiet life

me and bean. cape cod. sept. 2012. 

his broad freckled chest now has a gnarly scar 

where he was stitched back together 

twice after the porcupine when

they cut his sternum bone in half 

again to remove the right front lung

lobe after they found

twenty-four quills in his heart

three in his lungs, forty

removed the first time

they performed open heart open 

lung surgery and he still 

didn’t heal nine days later

we brought him home in

critical condition after two 

nights of opioid torture in

the hospital parking lot we slept 

at a campground until he was stable

enough to make it home

where he could not be left

alone and his medication 

schedule was a short story

and his stitches became infected

the laundry constantly going to

rotate his t-shirt supply 

to keep him clean and his harness 

dry his sister constantly

by his side and

he healed as we 

fought against odds not in our favor to

keep him alive

after thousands of quills were 

pulled from his body they nicknamed

him the miracle dog

where we went for five weeks 

for check-ups and eventually it

was summertime

and he slept on the deck

sprawled on the couch his 

heart beating his lungs inflating

with salty air where he

swam and napped under 

the apple trees

where life re-formed

every breath no longer a fight 

but a reminder of

the value of the beat

the sigh and the light.

getdrunkbeardown

hugyourdog

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may 12, 2017      recovery