
Ella is curled like a fawn, her legs tucked under her tawny body. She is laying in a hollow she created on the couch cushion, parallel to my shoulder. She occasionally swivels her bulby copper eyes to mine and sticks out her tongue. This is how she says hello.
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I’ve been couch surfing for five months now. Into every temporary home, the Humans have welcomed me with soft blankets, hot coffee, gentle conversations that expertly hover between light chatter and deep concern. We use words to gently negotiate the elements most homes navigate unconsciously.
Them: How do you like your coffee?
Me: Strong enough to eat the spoon.
Them: Um . . . would you like a chair?
Me: I like to sit on the floor.
Me: May I turn on more lights, open the windows?
Them: We like it closed up.
Me: Can the dog sleep with me?
Them: She would love that!
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Ella won’t eat her dog food until a Human has shared two bites of their own lasagna with her. Two bites. That’s all she needs. Then she clatters over to her own bowl and inhales the kibble of the day. I am now fixated on this exchange. I’ve learned she loves cheese and spinach, but is deeply offended by peas. We often sit side by side on her patio, sharing yogurt.
I own a house nearby. I lived in it for 17 years with two people who love me.
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Seventeen years ago I signed the escrow papers as I signed my job description for Wife and Mother. That house became my calling. My mission was to turn that house into what ever would support and launch those two people. As my family grew up, I made that house a toddler’s wonderland, an audio engineer’s recording studio, a tween’s laboratory, a man’s business headquarters, a teenager’s escape pod. I made that home for them, filled it with color and food and art and tools to inspire them.
But the yard was mine. I painted the walls, grew herbs and eucalyptus. The main elements here were light and air and Animals.
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I’ve been floor and garden surfing for five months now. Into every temporary home the Animals have welcomed me with cautious optimism. We use hands and paws, noses and eyes, sounds and spaces to gently negotiate our relationship. The giant block headed pit, the ballerina kitty, the skittish tuxedo cat, the slender blond setter. Each interviewed me for two full days after their humans made up the sofa bed for me.
We played cribbage and exchanged recipes on the kitchen floor, on the living room rug, in the dirt by the tomato plants, on the dusty patio planks where only Animals sit.
Them: You smell like a Human. But you feel like an Animal. What’s up with that?
Me: I’m a bit of both. Plus some other species I can’t identify yet. Sorry for the confusion.
Them: Would you like to see the secret place where I hide things from the Human?
Me: I would be honored.
Me: May I untangle that fur mat behind your ear?
Them: As long as I get to suck on your shirt at the same time, yes please.
Me: Do you like to be touched or just be near one another?
Them: I’ll reach out to you when I want touch. Come outside and sit in the sunny spot next to the hose with me.
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In the time before now, in my own house, we agreed the Big Black Dog would be a dog, subservient to Humans. In my own back yard we agreed that dogs and cats, squirrels and crows, finches and rats and hummingbirds and potato bugs and moths and mice were my friends and neighbors. I built homes for them. I made giant feeding stations with branches and swings and ropes and hiding spots.
For two years the rats who used our back fence as the highway between the Cuban Bistro and Dear John’s tavern had to pay a toll to The Big Black Dog. For seven years, the mellow Old Man Cat and two hyperactive squirrels argued passages from the Old Testament. I listened in as I drank coffee in the backyard, wrote in the back yard, painted in the back yard. I slept on the thrift store couch in the back yard with the Big Black Dog and Old Man Cat. All three of us had one paw on the other.
I can no longer do this. I no longer live in the house that holds everyone I love.
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I go to my house once a week now to pack books, to sit on the indoor couch with my own young Human. I try not to touch the Old Man Cat or the Big Black Dog, because I'm afraid my heart will fall out one of the open wounds only they can actually see and they will fall upon it, shred it and devour it like starved beasts. And I would let them.
This little condo on Overland Ave is the fifth lilly pad I've leapt to as I try to keep from drowning. Four weeks ago, when I brought three ragged boxes and four canvas bags into Ella’s house, the Humans welcomed me with homemade macaroni and cheese. Ella did not.
She met my eyes with a low growl, her tiny spine hunched and her black lips curled up.
Ella: Who the hell are you? Who said you could be here?
Me: I’m a friend of your Humans.
Ella: I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. You need to go now.
Me: But I’m a nice Human. Please give me a chance. You don’t know how badly I need to be here. Your Humans have decided I can stay a while.
Ella: Well there’s not much I can do about that, is there? Apparently we are both at their mercy. I guess that means I can’t bite your face off. But I don’t have to like you.
Me: I get it. But if I ever needed an Animal to accept me, it's now. I think your Humans are like me. I think they are wild beasts trying to blend into the Human world too. I actually took some dresses out of a box and hung them in a closet today. You have no idea how hard that was. I was shaking just like you. You’ve been inside all day. How can you stand it? I’m going for a walk. Please come with me. I need company.
Ella: Fuck off. Don’t touch me. I’m a chihuahua. I’d rather pee right here on my Human’s bed than go for a walk with you. And you know what? If I did, my Human would send you back to the pound before she’d send me. I should do it, just to get rid of you.
Me: You don’t understand. I miss my family so much I feel like my skin is melting. Please don’t send me away Ella. Everyone keeps telling me that I’ll be fine and that I’m not a horrible person but I’m afraid I am actually a wretched Human being. I have no idea what home is supposed to look like anymore, but I think I might be able to stop shaking here.
Ella: Not my problem. All you Humans talk talk talk around your behavior. Dogs don’t do that. I don’t care about your reasons for what you did. All I know is you abandoned the Big Black Dog and the Old Man Cat. Make up any story you want but I guarantee your Animals aren’t buying it. And neither am I.
I gave the tiny dog a wide berth for two weeks. She sneered at me from across the room.
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One day I went to my own house, when none of the other Humans were there. The Big Black Dog turned himself into a pretzel and flopped on the floor seven times, crushing my ankles and gasping. I pushed passed him.
The Old Man Cat looked at me from the blue chair then laid his head back down. I walked into the other room. I packed another box then went into the familiar kitchen and made coffee.
Then, drawing a steadying breath, I stepped into my back yard and finally let myself truly see the weeds, the broken squirrel climbing structure, the empty bird feeders, the untended graves of two beloved cats and one bird. I wonder where the finches are holding their book club now. The thrift store couch is gone. Where do the Old Man Cat and the Big Black Dog nap with a Human now?
After touching every neglected plant, I walked through the prayers I used to do every morning, saying thank you to every living thing that shared my space. I cleared the weeds from the graves and rearranged the stones and told my old friends I would not be able to say prayers over their bones anymore.
As I knelt on the bricks sucking air and clutching a fistful of dead rosemary, the Old Man Cat and the Big Black Dog silently appeared on either side of me. I finally told them everything. They listened. The Big Black Dog leaned on me and gnawed on my wrist. The Old Man Cat wedged himself under the Big Black Dog and poured himself into my lap. They did not tell me I was going to be fine. They neither condemned nor forgave me. They simply touched me while I wept.
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Later that week I took Ella's leash up to the mountain of pillows where she sleeps all day and poked her.
Ella: What the hell are you doing? Can’t you see I’m sleeping?
Me: I’m going for a walk and you’re coming with me.
Ella: The hell I am. Poke me again. Come on. Poke me again.
Me: Snarl all you want, lady. We’re both alone in this house all day. It's not good for either of us. I need some light and some air. Don’t you?
Ella: Wellll, maybe, but I’ll wait for my Real Human to come home and take me.
Me: We both know that’s gonna be a while. I’m gonna put this leash on you now and I’m gonna pick you up and you’re not going to bite me. Deal?
Ella: DON’T TOUCH ME DON’T TOUCH ME OH MY GAWD YOU’RE TOUCHING ME!!
Me: Oh get over yourself. I’m not hurting you and you know it. OK. Leash is on and I’m picking you up and you feel like a very large potato.
Ella: PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT! I DEMAND YOU PUT ME DOWN OR I WILL PEE ON YOU SO HELP ME GOD.
Me: Go ahead. I’ve sliced my own heart in half. Your little tantrum can't hurt me.
I set her on the ground as soon as we were outside. She looked at me like I just ate her babies. But we walked. All along the path that winds through my new neighborhood, we argued about who was actually in charge. But once back home, she accidentally wagged her tail at me before darting back to her pillows.
The next day we did it again, and again the day after that. And after a week, she actually came to find me as I sat in a puddle of sunlight on the patio. She approached like an apology. I rubbed her knobby little head.
Me: Good Morning Ella. Shall we go for a walk? I'm certain you need to pee.
Ella: Ummm . . . . you know that new red rug you put under the piano?
Me: Really!? What kind of a dog are you?
Ella: A nervous dog. You know that. But I’ve decided that I’ll sit in the sun with you in the mornings. I think we both need it.
Me: Thank you Ella. Would you like to meet my Old Man Cat and the Big Black Dog?
Ella: Lets not get ahead of ourselves now.
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