Little Barks

Yesterday, I was "being pulled one way by my emotions and another by logic" according to tarot.com's horoscopes as the moon moved into my possessive emotional water sign of Scorpio and the sun hangs in protective, smothering, mothering Cancer. Today, I'm "trying to reinvent myself," led to change through "a vision" rather than "objective facts."

There is a part of me that is embarrassed of my behavior yesterday because it was uncharacteristically impulsive. However, it was characteristically passionate and visceral, and subjectively necessary. I didn't really want a reaction, I just wanted to react loudly and most of all, I wanted to boast my instinctual accuracy. 

However, I'm shady about the actual facts. Rather than admitting defeat in a game played with balls when all I was given was horseshoes, I'll just apologize for my impulsive accusatory indirectness. My logical brain doesn't know the facts.  I just felt an emotional hiccup. Sunday, he calls me after he finishes his day's activities and doesn't know why he's calling me. It feels comfortable I assume. He treats me like I am his own. But this is not new. It's not new that he's thinking about me in my absence. And it's been addressed. It's been thoroughly discussed. We have been at an impasse for a long time. I just gave up and lied flacidly out of control a few feet away. Perhaps this was part of the process. I thought I was the pet. The rescue, fighting her adopted family, certain that they would be like the last; I'm a small dog, and cautious and getting closed in by arms of an adopter who will accidentally crush my bones. It's not that I don't appreciate his zeal, it's just that I'm scared to death of him for my mortal safety. But who is the pet? Who's taming who? Now, if I should break the leash, he would come calling after me. For days, weeks, maybe months. I broke the leash before. I survived. And he quit calling me home after a bit. But he outwaited me. I got in range and he snagged me up again and took me home. I resisted a little, but exhausted from the stupid game, I lied there hoping he'd pet me.  For 6 hours he petted me and we played and talked about the future. But he said it was a 6 hour short circuit the next day. He didn't mean to pet me. And so he was simply sorry. But now I was back in the yard, fenced in, where we could happily coexist in close proximity, lest I disappear again. But I was tired, and I just lied down to rest.

And then suddenly we began pulling weight together. Working. Writing. Making. Equals. "Two footstools together make a staircase." he said. I glowed a little. And then he rolls over for me to pet him. Who is the pet? I wonder...  but he doesn't pet me. So who is the pet and who is the animal? For me they are the same. For him only one person is the animal, the other, the master. There is no petting. Yet he rolls over in my lap.

So I go on an adventure. I pull my leash as far as it can go and give it a tug to see if he notices I'm gone. He doesn't. So I tell him. I feel too guilty and disloyal not to. But he doesn't care what I do. I'm just an animal in the yard and if someone wants to pet me that's fine so long as it doesn't take me out of the yard.

The leash is invisible. Or I've fabricated the leash in my own mind. Or there is no snap to indicate the severing. Nothing. Wind. Air. Meaninglessness.  I like the foreigner whose home I've adventured to, but only because he pets me. Literally and physically, he pets me. He doesn't pull weight with me. We are not a staircase... he just... pets me. But I return with full confidence that I am lovable and adorable. I am your pet, and you must pet me if I roll over...

No...  I lie there with my belly in the air and he complains. I cry and leave with my tail between my legs... I don't know where my home is. He gets all Buddhist - home is an idea. Something the ego clings to. And to cling is to suffer. Perpetually. Forever.

I'm resolute. I'm a big dog. It doesn't matter. We have pulled weight together. We are a staircase. We have somewhere to climb to. We are equals.

We write... our minds drift to separate places... we are not equal. We are looking to separate suns. Why does he call me? Why does he think about me? Why am I part of his routine? Like a pet, I suppose, I just wag my tail. Such a small, insignificant thing. But I do it every day and I never grow tired of it. I laugh because he makes me happy. He laughs because I make him happy.  But I don't bark now. So he doesn't realize he has a pet.

But the hiccup occurs. Things don't add up. He interrupts our routine. He interrupts his routine. He takes time off work... and cleans? He's sleeping during his time off? I can believe that... but I ask, for who? With who? Do I have the right to know? I am not his pet, so no. I am just an animal, unbound, unleashed. But I barked 7 months ago because I would eventually show my teeth if he kept me as a pet and a stranger walked in. Little you? Little tail-wagging you? No. Never. He can't believe it.  So I bark, and he says hush. I break my leash and he finds me. So I just wag my tail, because well... at this point that's just what tails do. But there it is, a hiccup. A stranger. I smell her. I don't know who she is but the smell is so pungent and I feel so angry, the clues point me to a spectre from Cincinnati... he has mentioned her. Is my assessment accurate? I assume so. But I could be wrong, logically wrong. Either way, I am your pet because you keep me on a leash in the yard. I've smelled something that has a menacing odor. I trusted you. Not because it was logical or because you asked me to trust you, but because you made me your pet. You kept me as your pet.

So impulsively, I bark, loudly, viciously, jealously. Who is with my boy? What is she doing to him? But no, he's not my boy. He has no pets. He is just a man... I'm just a woman. And I'm fine when I wag my tail, but not so much, if I bark. I don't want to bark or show my teeth. I never did. And I told you I would a long time ago. I barked then, when I was still a woman. Now I'm your pet, and I don't understand when you don't come home at night. And I am terrified of losing what I never had. And I forecasted all of this 7 months ago.

So now he tells me he doesn't listen to me. He hears me but is not always present when I speak. 7 months later he decides he wants to understand me. So where did all my breadcrumbs disappear to? Who has he spent 7 months acquainting himself with? Who does he think I am? Who is this person he likes? She is not his pet, nor has ever been and she has known this, but wagged her tail anyway and barked, hoping against stupid hope to be seen or heard anyway. I sigh as I ask.. aren't tails meant to wag?

At this point, I feel, more so than I think, which I did long before my heart could catch up, that I'm barking up the wrong tree.  I'm a guard dog between the feet of he who I've sworn to protect, while we both scuttle about awkwardly trying to keep him from stepping on me. It's so impractical.  He'd rather a cat to claw him.

And what use is a tiny guard dog with a tiny little bark... menacing, right? I will no longer create needs for myself where there are none. I'm rather pointless here. And there's no leash anymore than there is someone at the other end of it.  The world is full of useless, treacherous adventures for little dogs with no where in particular to go. I'm itching with doctorate programs like fleas to find and conquer... there are too many things I could expend my useless energy scratching at.

The toy schnauzer above is Horatio. He was a rescue and is a very Good Dog.