while keeping atlas company on the couch, i am amusing myself by writing tiny stories.

since this week is a holiday week in the states, and i know many children are on vacation, i thought i’d share one of them. it’s about a boy named jack and a wandering tree.

feel free to read it yourself, read it to children you love (or have them read it to you), or pass it along.

children, you know, are the original wide-eyed wonderers.

click on the link below to open the story. it’s in a nice little pdf, ready for reading or saving or printing.

jack and the wandering tree

no words. just images.

just when i think atlas can’t get any more adorable, he goes and does. just look at him.

i think the splint is supposed to slow him down. atlas’s opinion: “i am just as speedy with the splint on as i am with it off!”

there is a fine line between feisty and ornery. the line depends on the current mood of the observer.

atlas’s new nickname is thumper. can you guess how he acquired it?

unfortunately for atlas, he is starting to develop rubbing sores so i am having to curb his enthusiasm for speed and limit his walking and movement. (i was good about enforcing no running, jumping, or playing. i was not so good about enforcing no movement. that seemed like a lot of no’s for an energetic pup.)

the amount of attention atlas receives seems to have increased exponentially.

when this is all over, i am going to have to post pictures of all his splints together. they are so colorful. the last one had bright yellow tape with green dog bones. the current one has aqua tape with navy stars.

a perfect october afternoon: a hike with a friend in forest park followed by lunch at st. honore.

a perfect october morning: urban iphoneography followed by coffee (or, in my case, a vanilla steamer) with a friend at barista.

have i mentioned how much i love portland?

“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself.”

– from A Course in Miracles

i am happy to report that the atlas and elizabeth house is more peaceful. atlas is adjusting to his splint and we are adjusting to our new slower mode of life.

after the first day, which was horrible, and the second day, during which he tried to remove his splint every time i went upstairs for more than a second (i finally asked a neighbor to come and sit with him so i could take a shower), he seems much more tolerant of it.

astonishingly, a week of inactivity has also been tolerable for him. he seems neither terribly depressed nor terribly saucy. i have been giving him lots of massages and playing brain/mental games with him and i think he is enjoying all the attention.

he is not, however, a very good invalid. he keeps stomping around with his splint and running around the living room and whenever i decide we’ve walked enough and try to turn around, he tries to tug me in the opposite direction. we went to the park for his potty walk the other day (it’s practically right next door) and he kept trying to run off into the field.

the hardest parts of this involve the stairs and the bed.

after two attempts to sleep downstairs on the couch, both of which worked well for atlas (besides the fact that he doesn’t like to sleep on the couch at night – nights are for beds) but not so well for me (the second night, he slowly took over more and more of the couch until my entire lower half was dangling off of it and i decided i might as well sleep on the floor), he is allowed upstairs once a day at bedtime. if he has to go outside in the middle of the night, we sleep on the couch for the remainder of the night and do not go upstairs again.

after much trial and error, i finally figured out a way to make getting on and off the bed safer and easier by creating stairs out of pillows. what does atlas do? he ignores my stairs and leaps over them as usual. this is not so bad when getting on the bed, but it is terrible when getting off. twice, he got around me and leaped and landed and his face instantly contorted in pain. now, i have to be very stern and make him wait and lead him off. (i tried lifting him off the first couple of nights. let’s just say that didn’t go well.)

going up the stairs seems fine. it’s going down that’s the problem. he does not know how to go down slowly. i tried carrying him down a couple of times. (again, let’s just say that didn’t go well at all.) the best way i can describe my current method is to say that he tries to race down normally while i stand in front of him and block him and hold him back by pushing on his chest. this does slow him down, but it takes him forever to start because he does not understand what i am doing and why i am in his way. i actually think it would work the best if he sat on my lap and i slid down the stairs, but he refuses to try this.

of course, there are blessings in everything. i am learning to ask for help and support and to receive it. i have a rich and warm community. and i am appreciating the opportunity to slow down and take care of atlas in a new way.

last night at bedtime, atlas was lying next to me on the bed – quietly snoring, his tummy rumbling, his head on my pillow, his cast resting on my heart and whacking me every once in a while – and i was overcome with gratitude and love.

i see you.

you: light, radiance, a bright spark.

you are trying to hide yourself under a dull grey cloak.

you don’t fool me.
you don’t fool any of us.

did you know that your cloak doesn’t quite fit?
did you know that it has holes in it?
did you know that it is so old and worn that you can see right through it?

when you move, when you breathe,
the light dances through the holes and around the cracks and edges;
it sways back and forth with your breath;
it showers sweet blessings on everyone and everything in its path.

you are radiant,
like the sun after the rain,
like a golden yolk nestled in the white,
like the first bud in spring.

you can deny it, you can hide it, you can run from it,
but you cannot escape the truth of it.

we see you.

we see your light.

well, folks, atlas is in a splint. doesn’t he look sad and adorable? i am counting my blessings that, considering how very active he is, this is the first time we’ve gone through something like this in our nine plus years.

we went hiking on wednesday with friends at the sandy river delta. he was racing down the path and slipped on a patch of mud and limped all the way home. it got worse instead of better, so i took him to the vet yesterday.

apparently he fractured a weight-bearing toe and the splint is to help him keep weight off of it. (i don’t know how long it will last. i think he would stay quieter without it.)

the vet said that he is supposed to stay quiet – no running, jumping, or playing – for at least two months. can you imagine it?! atlas goes stir-crazy after a day of no activity so we are being super diligent for a while in the hopes that it will heal quickly.

he does not know how to go up and down the stairs slowly, so i have blocked off the stairs and we are living downstairs. the couch is the new bed.

in the interest of being honest, i will say that yesterday was horrible. he was sad and confused and stumbling. he would not lie down or stay still and stomped around with his splint and whined and whined and whined. i was mad and frustrated and sad and scared. in order to get him to stay still, i was not particularly nice, because he wouldn’t listen otherwise. i felt so ashamed of myself for behaving horribly to my dog when he was feeling horrible. i felt like the worst dog person in the history of dog people. i could not find the kind and patient version of me, the one who usually shows up when my beloved puppy is not well.

in the middle of the night, he came on the couch next to me and fell asleep.

today is a new day. he has forgiven me. i have forgiven myself. we will figure this out.

if i am more quiet than usual, this is why. i am downstairs with my silly pup, loving on him. (plus, he does not like it when i am upstairs and he is downstairs. right now, i can hear him at the bottom of the stairs, whining away. oooh. i think he’s attacking the splint. time to go.)

it seems like i find a new funny series of atlas photos whenever i look through my archives. this is the latest series that got me to pause in my search for photos in order to click back and forth and back and forth. notice how he slows down as he gets closer, silly pup.

i was practicing being, not doing, when i came across this quote, which seemed like a beautiful reminder. apparently it is a zen proverb.

“Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”