{my attempt to capture 52 photos that represent trust – my word for 2011}.

if you had seen atlas on that bridge – belly low to the ground, unhappy face, movement slow, staring through the slats at the water below every few steps, you would know why this photo reminds me of trust. (or perhaps it should be the lack thereof.)

if atlas could give me one piece of (photographic) advice, this would be it.

if you're going to take a picture, just take it and be quick about it. if it works out, then it works out. don't try to make me do something for a picture. i'm a dog. i don't pose.

not that i am always very good at listening, of course.

here, we were at bonneville dam. i was hiding inside one of those little stone towers with gun holes. atlas jumped up to find me and he looked so cute peeking at me that i decided i needed a picture. look how well that worked out.

(you know what i really want to do someday? i want to do a not-a-william-wegman photo shoot – one where i have to dress up in ridiculous costumes and atlas just gets to be himself. it feels like appropriate restitution.)

i suspect that anyone who visits my online home or meets me in person learns immediately that i have a puppy and that i adore him. i do. beyond reason and measure.

but here is the hard and painful truth – i need him. i need him to be here and well.

this is why i have such a hard time when he's ill: part of me jumps into the past, to the time when he was ill and they didn't know if he would live; part of me jumps into the future, to the time when he will leave me. even as i am taking care of him, worry and panic are swirling around in my head. 

i know that this is not particularly healthy – for me or him – but it is a hard pattern to untangle. in the beginning, i knew how much it scared me to think of losing him, but i didn't know why. eventually, i realized that it was because i needed him, but i still didn't know why.

until the moment i did.

i've written about my struggle with worth – a deep core belief that i am worthless. i couldn't have articulated it for much of my life, but it was always there.

when atlas came into my life, he showed me that i was worthy of love. not when i did the right thing or was the right person, but even as i did the wrong things and wasn't the right person. i still didn't believe it, but he was always there to show me.

he was with me through a number of increasingly harder and sadder years that i never told anyone about. i was the person who was always happy and smiling and how does that person tell someone that something is terribly wrong. especially when she doesn't know what it is.

he was there when i found reiki and began to listen to myself and slowly learn what was wrong – and he was there as the healing began.

he was there for all of it.

now, there is a part of me that believes that all the good in my life is attached to atlas and it will go when he does. that is why i need him. because that part of me believes that if (when) he leaves me, not only will i lose my beloved puppy, but i will lose all the love and the joy and the goodness along with him.

intellectually, i know this is not so. i know that i am not the same person i was then. (well, that's not entirely true. i am the same person. i am just becoming more and more me.) i know that the common thread is not atlas but me. but i don't know it – really know it – yet.

this is a big part of why i chose trust as my word for the year. because working with this pattern is a big part of my practice.

i must confess that i am not entirely sure why i feel moved to share this. it is hard for me to admit this to myself, let alone to others.

i am afraid that if i share it, people will laugh and think less of me. but i also suspect that i am only afraid of this because i have an internal voice that laughs at me. "he's just a dog." "get over it already."

at the same time, i suspect that we all have needs and desires and fears that we are afraid to admit. we are afraid that people will judge us for them. we are afraid that people will think less of us for them. we are afraid that people will stop loving us for them.

maybe if i share one of mine, someone else will feel a little less alone, a little less afraid, a little less unsure.