Woman and Dog from The Ghost of Violet @ Reclusive Leftist 12 Jan 2008 12:57 am
Ella’s still a puppy in that picture; you can tell. Look at that face! And those ears. A good breeze and she’d lift right off.
Meredith is so proud of her, beaming big and happy, her arm around her girl. The diploma says Super Dooper Dog Training…something, can’t make it out. And the diplomate is Ella Emerson. Meredith’s doggie daughter. I bet it’s Ella’s graduation from puppy class. They’re so happy. Freeze them in that moment; keep them there forever. Don’t move.
Every time I look at this picture I cry. I know it’s in poor taste to pay too much attention to Yet Another Dead White Woman. There are a lot of dead people in this world. Lot of dead people, most of them not young white women. A whole lotta hurt in this goddamn world.
But it’s the dog. A woman and her dog.
A woman and her dog.
I’m a woman and I have a dog and I used to have two dogs and my girls are everything to me, oxygen and love and sweetness, and I’ve gone hiking with my girls in the woods and I know how Meredith felt, I know what happened, how it was out there with Ella happy and free and hi! what’s your dog’s name? and one time when I was a little younger than Meredith was when she died I was chased by a crazy man in the woods but I got away, I got away, but Meredith didn’t. And Ella barking, I can see her now, barking, Mom! What’s wrong! Mom! Mom! Mom!
I can’t help it. This picture destroys me.
Listen: it happened when I was 20 years old. I used to go hiking by myself in the state park near my house. It never occurred to me that this wasn’t safe. It was only a 10 mile hiking trail that looped around a reservoir; it wasn’t like being out in the middle of nowhere. I would park my car near the trailhead and set off, arms swinging, breathing deep, making up stories in my head about the Civil War soldiers whose bones and blood and bullets were sunk into the ground beneath me. I never once worried about being safe.
Until it happened. Until the day I needed to use the bathroom and couldn’t wait. There was no one else on the trail, but I moved several yards off the path into some bushes before I squatted down. When I stood up I saw him. I don’t know if he’d been there all along or if he’d been following me at a distance, but now he was standing a hundred feet away, staring at me. And I knew I was in trouble because he ducked down behind a tree. Like he thought maybe in that split second I hadn’t seen him. Like he thought maybe he was still hidden.
I turned back to the trail, deliberate-like, not running, trying not to be scared. Nothing very bad is happening here. I’m just going to continue on my hike. I will continue on my hike and I will drive home and I will make dinner. When I reached the trail I turned around. He was following me.
I started to run lightly, just lightly, just kind of speeding up here a little, not panicking yet, okay? I’ve just decided to jog the trail today, that’s all that’s happening. I will run today instead of hike. But I could hear him behind me. I turned around and he was running and his face was contorted and he was chasing me now, yes, he was chasing me
I ran. I put my head down and ran like I never knew I could run. I was the wind. I was an Indian brave, I was in a western from my childhood, just run, swift and silent, you’re the wind, you can do this, you must do this you will do this you will get away you can do this just run run run run run
I whipped my head around and he was behind me, thudding, pounding
run run run run run run run
I don’t know how long it took me to reach the reservoir. I don’t know how long I ran. I don’t know at what point I finally lost him. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of miles, and running at full speed it could only have been a matter of minutes. How long did it take? Half my life, at least. That’s how long.
When I reached the reservoir I collapsed on the wooden bridge. There were other people in the distance, chatting, looking at the birds, the kids bouncing up and down on the planks. I watched the woods, waiting for him to come out.
He didn’t.
Now here’s the funny thing, the reason I know that people become insane when they’re in shock: I didn’t tell anybody what happened. It was like I still had to be silent and secret to get away. I walked to my car like nothing had happened. I drove home and went inside my apartment and lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Only then did it occur to me that perhaps I should report the incident to the police. And I hesitated because I thought — I actually thought, in my crazy shock-addled brain — that somehow I had brought it on myself by squatting to urinate in the woods. Better not tell the police that. Totally insane.
No, nothing ever came of it. No, he was never caught, and no, I never heard anything more about it.
And I never went hiking alone again.
Oh, women can’t do that my sluggish brain finally processed after some 20 years on the planet. Oh. I see. I thought I was a normal person. But I’m a woman.
It was only later, when I got a dog, that I felt safe again. My Katie and I went everywhere together. We toured the national parks and deserts and wild places west of the Mississippi, hiking everywhere we could. Almost ran out of gas on Pine Ridge, me gripping the wheel on the gravel road, and Katie watching me watch the gas gauge, a zillion miles from the nearest station. I have a picture of Katie in the Badlands, facing into the giant prairie wind ruffling her fur, eyes narrowed against the blowing dust. At the Bonneville Salt Flats I worried about her feet — is salt okay for dogs’ feet? — but she liked it. Salt is cool to the touch. Still, when we got back to the car I bathed her paws with the water from our jug. She watched me wash and dry her feet, the way she watched me do everything. Patient, curious. My daughter.
She used to tell me when she wanted a drink during a hike. I’d sit down on a rock and open my little bottle of water, and if she wanted a sip she’d nudge me and sort of lick her lips. If she didn’t, she didn’t.
On the beach at Carmel Katie herded the waves. She’d never seen the ocean before and the whitecaps excited her to a frenzy. Did she think they were sheep? Did moving white things stimulate some genetic switch in her brain? Must herd moving white things. I would sit in the sand, my heels dug in, savoring a hot coffee, while Katie wore herself out, running up and down the beach, barking at the surf. Bark. Bark. Bark. She’s gonna get it under control, people would say, giggling, friendly. Strangers videotaped her. She was a star.
That was the apex of my life, though of course I didn’t realize it at the time. I bet nobody ever does. My dog, my love, on the beach of the Pacific Ocean, my feet in warm sand, long glinting rays of sunlight in late afternoon.
In the deep pine forests of the north ridge of the Grand Canyon, night fell and we were alone, but I wasn’t afraid. Even Vegas at night on the strip — it was just another hike for me and Kate. Some Lakota boys I met dubbed us Woman And Dog. Woman And Dog, safe and strong and happy.
Then Molly came along and we were three, three girls out for a hike. In the woods of North Carolina. In the woods of Maryland and Virginia. In the woods. See, when you have dogs, the world is a good place. And other people with dogs, they’re good too. Dog people are good people. You smile at each other, big expansive smiles, arms open to the world. You let your dogs play together.
Is that boy or a girl? What’s his name? Dandy? Hey, he and Ella like each other!
Grendel’s Mother struts the runway in her Jimmy Choos at the 6th century Denmark Annual Fashion Show and Mead Fest.