Snow in the South is wonderful. It has a kind of magic and mystery that it has nowhere else. And the reason for this is that it comes to people in the South not as the grim, unyielding tenant of Winter’s keep, but as a strange and wild visitor from the secret North.”
–Thomas Wolfe
I’ve been back in Alabama for over four months now and finally got around to attending a social event. The birthday of a dear friend in an old house downtown. There were people young and not so and margaritas and homemade cupcakes. Of course, there was fried chicken too. I forgot how important “what’r y’all gunna wear” was! I feel the need to apologize for hemp pants, clogs and a ponytail. Needless to say, it was pretty fun seeing folks from a former life. I enjoyed being asked about Maine and of course, solving an array of canine concerns, as I’m known ’round these parts as the “dog person”. I roll my eyes and pretend to hate this. The more common question asked –not only at this party, but in general– was and is, “So, what made y’all decide to move back?”. I must add here that there is, 100% of the time, a tone of “told you so” or perhaps, “you big idiot, whatdya do THAT for?”.
Upon inquiry, I give my stock answer of something to do with missing my family and lower property taxes. Perhaps I complain that I became disenchanted with Maine winters. Or that my loud libertarian views just weren’t going over well in Maine. [ Oddly enough, they don't go over too well here either. AhemBibleBeltAhem. ]
Until last week, no one has ever asked me, “When did you know you needed to come home?”. Being the ferociously defensive nit wit I am, I had to take a deep breath so as to avoid taking great offense at this question. Like, this was necessary or -god forbid- I sense the “I knew you’d come back” rolling off her tongue. Ego in check, I thought for a minute and I remembered the chain of events…
If you know me, you know I love dogs. I don’t think about too much else, besides cooking and bossing people around. I’m very good at these things. Dogs, cooking, bossing. My life partner, as I refer to him to make people uncomfortable (we are indeed, married), had this great dog when we met. A gift from a former girlfriend. His name was Bauer. I couldn’t stand that dog in the beginning, but he stole my heart after only a little while. Bauer was a black lab, who at age 11, was diagnosed in the fall of 2008 with a particularly vicious type of cancer. Being the aggressive –you ain’t stoppin’ me– type of gal that I am, I fought hard for him. I demanded more ultrasounds, accupuncture, nutritional consults, reiki, and most importantly, long walks and cuddling. I screamed at vets who seemed not to care. And, I cried on the worn shoulders of those who did. Halfway through his courageous battle, Bauer needed an emergency splenectomy. He had the tell-tale sign of the cancer progressing; after nearly 4 months of teasing us with seemingly perfect health. On new years eve-eve, I awoke in my childhood bedroom to that gut wrenching sound of my phone vibrating on the table beside my bed. Sometimes, you just know. Bill informed me of this development and, though I wasn’t due back in Maine for days, I swiftly packed and headed north to Pennsylvania for the night. The following morning, I headed east on I-84 in a record breaking blizzard through the snowbelt of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Cars were sliding all over the highway. The sun set while I was driving through Massachusetts and I was driving in a full-tilt blizzard on New Year’s Eve. No one was on the road and the snow plows seemed to give up. I couldn’t see the road and was increasingly disoriented. I pulled off the highway in York, Maine and gave up. I was sobbing and scared and I thought to myself, “this is just so f*****g stupid. Why am I fighting this hard to be so far away from the support system? Why is it all so far apart? ” I was so scared I wouldn’t see him again and so very tired. Tired of having no safety net when things go wrong. 100% exhausted. I still didn’t admit to myself that my time in Maine was drawing short. Something in the depths of my spirit knew, but I didn’t. Not yet.
Bauer recovered from his surgery and in true Lauren fashion, I pulled up my boot straps and dove right back in my job of caring for my own dogs and about a thousand others in a small town in Maine where I owned a dog store. The snow began to melt and I was too busy to notice the gnawing in my gut. A feeling that I wasn’t quite where I was supposed to be. Yet, we were attempting to build or buy a home and we also signed a long lease for a new location for our store. Setting down roots, something we weren’t very good at. We are so very stubborn.
Bauer died at home on April 24th, 2009 and broke my heart into tiny pieces. I had learned from my customers that a great way to honor a labrador is to get another one! We decided to quickly add another labrador to our lives.
I ventured back home in May to visit a labrador breeder over in Mississippi to make sure we wanted to buy a dog from them. My ever-supportive father drove me over to visit the kennels. In four years of visiting home from Maine, I made a big deal out of not venturing out. I would hide at my parents’ house like a psychotic hermit. So, this lil’ adventure in Mississippi was important to me. We were greeted with such humble generosity. These people deal with the upper crust of American hunting society, a veritable bourgeoisie, and they made me feel important. I met amazing dogs and I met the kennel owner, who had been on the cover of Forbes just a month before. He is a simple, yet clever Southern man and as we shot the shit that day, I felt a kinship with him. We talked dogs and business and the dog business and at one point he calmly and confidently said, “Y’all need to get on back down here.” I’m certain my poor Daddy froze in fear that might jump off on some pontificatory soap box of the culture towards animals in the South or perhaps that Maine is superior in every way. Instead, I thanked him for his time, got my deposit down on a pup, and left. As we bumped and jostled down that Mississippi road, I smiled and knew…I needed to get on back home. These people thought they were selling us a huting dog. Little did they know, they sold me something I now know I already had. My home, the South.
Good night.
This post is dedicated to Whiskey, another wonderful dog. Thanks for layin’ your big ol’ head on my shoulder that day.
