Brand New World

I’ve been reading many books to sooth  my unsettled soul, since September2017,  and my favorite was this:

Neko Case, a killer musician, and awesome animal advocate wrote the introduction.  She was playing in the small NY city suburb that I work in, in a theater the community has rallied to make as awesome as it was as a movie theater in the 1930’s.  I was hoping I might get her autograph in the book, but it didn’t work out.

After Gerry became my canine companion in the clouds, I rediscovered the book and began to read it.

I can’t make any animal inquiries this summer.  Two vacations and a new dog don’t mix.

I’m wondering if I shouldn’t look for a dog, as described in this book.

My capacity for sorrow is  seemingly endless.

I want to make the life of a senior whose owners have had to let him/her go feel WANTED.

This feels very important to me.

We’ll see what happens in the future.

I recommend this book to ALL of you.

The day of the week I have always dreaded was Sunday.  In youth, it was because school was the next day….that’s never really changed.

These days, I awake and realize that I haven’t taken Gerry out and that he must REALLY need to go, until I wake up just enough to realize that he isn’t downstairs waiting for me…..if I’m lucky I go back to sleep, but usually I just spend the rest of the night thinking about him and 100 other things that are there to fill that space.

I wish I had been proactive enough to take photographs of my students today, sharing  the  poems that they picked out,  of over 30 anthologies and single books I have from teaching , college, and life.   POETRY was my LIFE in college.

I went in thinking I was going to master the “communications” field, as per everyone’s opinion that I should b the next Barbara Walters.  Then I got there,and didn’t like it at all.  I’d look at the semester catalogs,and wonder how I could take all of the English classes that I wanted to.  By my sophomore year, I realized I could ‘change my major’.   So, creative writing it was.  I understand that these days, they are taking away that major as it isn’t profitable.  they’re not wrong.  No one would pay me to read my poems either.

THANKFULLY SOMEONE SUGGESTED I BECOME A TEACHER THE LAST YEAR IN COLLEGE, AND THAT IS WHAT IV’E DONE EVER SINCE.

Needless to say, this was/is my favorite dorky poem day I get a year!  Here is one of the poems I had in my pocket. I read it at Gerry’s eulogy.  It is written by Mary Oliver.

“IF YOU ARE HOLDING THIS BOOK”

You may not agree you may not care, but

if you are holding this book you should know

that of all the sights I love in this world –

and there are plenty–very near the top of

the list is this one: dogs without leashes.