Beautiful Days

I didn’t know what I needed was a friend. One that loves you regardless of who, or what you were. It didn't matter if I had been mean, selfish, cruel, inpatient, or insecure. Not that I wanted to be any of those things, but sometimes I was. Those were ugly days. I felt ugly. I was ugly. Those days made it impossible to be around another person, another human. Yet, being lonely only compounded how long it took to dig out from under the shame and guilt from having behaved that way in the first place. Humans can forgive, but they still keep score.

It's in their eyes. The stories and the history always remain. What happened five years ago can be reflected back at you as if it were a mere five minutes before. It never leaves your heart, and that is painful enough. Seeing the hurt in the eyes of a person you love, but wounded despite that love, can instantaneously rebury a soul in all the suffocating ugliness they thought was behind them.

There are special creatures inherently different from humans. Their eyes are capable of expressing the entire range of emotions from joy to fear. Yet, they only ever reflect the present. They can't deceive. They aren't capable of such. Despite the past, be it minutes, hours or days, they will always come back to you with love in their eyes. It might be restrained love, hesitant love, but it's always love. They give it, and it's what they seek. As soon as they see the same in your eyes that's all they know, or remember. They could have been abused, neglected, left unfed, or in horrific conditions, yet all those memories can be forgotten once they find what they seek. They can forgive, and forget.

I wasn't abusive or neglectful. I wasn't looking for a creature that would come crawling back to me regardless of my lack of concern or love. I simply needed to know that there were souls in this world that didn't expect me to be in a perpetual state of contrition for being nothing more or less than human. I needed someone, or something, that wouldn't mirror my past ugliness back to me every time I looked into their eyes.

That thing I needed was a dog. I didn't go looking for one. I didn't know I even wanted one. Nor did I understand all that they are, are capable of, until I had one. It was simply a matter of knowing that like me, there was a being in a state of flux. My situation wouldn’t change by bringing him in, but I thought I could change his.

He had been dumped in a park with two siblings. A call went out asking for a temporary home. That’s exactly what I had so I answered. He came directly from where they found him. We met outside, and when I kneeled down to greet him he crawled right up in my lap. He didn't stay there long. He was full of anxiety, and couldn't walk without his bottom nearly dragging on the concrete.

He came muddy, unmannered, hungry, and tired. In the time it took to carry him from the front door to the bathtub I was nearly as dirty as he was. Never having lived inside, much less having had a bath, it was traumatic. You would have thought he was in extreme pain for the screaming like howls he produced. The spray of water and scrubbing surely felt like an assault. Afterwards, he slept next to me for nearly five hours. He was supposed to be short term. I was unsure of anything that even resembled permanence. However, a few days later when a home had been found, I couldn't let him go.

It wasn't ideal, not in timing, in economic certainty, not even in our housing situation. All of that was interim at best, so the responsibility of a living thing other than myself seemed too overwhelming to think too much about. So I didn't. It just happened and I just let it. He interrupted everything. I am a creature of habit, of routine, and suddenly I had none. He was a dog who had lived outside since he was born and didn't understand needing to wait when he had to go. He was incredibly intelligent and had learned to ring a bell when the need arose. I however, was not used to answering to a dog, much less the ring of a bell, on a moments notice. It didn't matter if I was taking a bath, he cared not. Was dinner cooking? Either I turned off the stove or I'd be cleaning up more than spaghetti noodles that had over boiled and stuck to the pan. Pasta was about all I could afford so wasting it in any way wasn’t an option.

I was working a temporary job. It's all I could find during the pandemic. It was low wage with no benefits. We were living in an apartment owned by friends of mine, who also due to the pandemic, couldn't find paying renters. I could pay the utilities, help with the yard, and do some basic repairs. They would pay for paint. I would slap it on the walls. It wasn’t hard, and not nearly as time consuming as it could have been with not much furniture to move, and my art and pictures still in boxes. The boxes I hastily packed when my husband and I decided to separate. I had no husband, no real home, a food budget that bordered on scarcity, and a dog.

A dog that needed food, and a vet. A dog that required a collar, a leash, and toys to play with. A dog who never had a home but eased right into my temporary one. A dog that looked at me with no accusing history in his eyes. Even when I yelled at him after cleaning up what felt like the thousandth puddle of pee, he still looked at me in anticipation of the next belly rub, with joy when he brought his ball, and contentment nestled against me on the couch.

The ball was as much as I could buy him in terms of play so he had to succumb to my way of scrounging entertainment, which meant taking advantage of anything that was free. For the two of us that equated to lots of walks.

His favorites were during snowfalls. He had remained a slightly anxious creature, and suffered from severe separation anxiety. He would jump when my phone sounded. In the snow, all of that faded away. His black snout would be peppered in white as he snuffed his way through drifts. He would pounce on the clumps of snow I kicked in front of me as I walked. He cared about nothing other than being together and that the snow was falling.

It was a Saturday in January. His snout was plowing through the snow. He stopped to sniff more intently. After what seemed sufficient time I walked a few steps ahead and waited. He paid no notice. I called, he didn't come, or even look up. All I saw was black, which was expected as the paths hidden under the snow were asphalt. When he starting pawing at the ground I came back to his side to urge him along. Except, he wasn't pawing at the asphalt. He was digging up a little black book.

The snow was the light, fluffy type that sparkles in the sunlight, not the heavy, wet snow person making kind. So when I picked up the book it wasn't sopping, merely damp. It naturally fell open to somewhere in the middle. I started reading. After the first sentence I stopped and immediately closed the book. It was impossible to guess exactly what was in my hands. I wouldn't inspect it farther to know. Someone had once read my journal. The justification was that it was in their house therefore it was their right. I found the act to be one of the most intrusive and violating moments I'd ever experienced. It had been as if someone had taken my soul, my words by force, and used them however they saw fit. They didn’t exploit me sexually, but it felt no different. They had used what belonged to me against me. My own words hurled at me like weapons.

I opened just the front cover, and as I hoped, there was a name and phone number scrawled inside. The few lines I had read were so utterly, intensely personal that the thought of actually handing the book back to its owner was akin to having this stranger invite me into their home in the middle of a private, personal act and having me watch. Instead, I used the information to locate an address and mailed it back. Along with their book I included a letter. It was important that they understood that the contents had remained theirs alone. As well, I wanted to give credit to my dog. The letter was only meant to be a short note, but when it was finished, it totaled three pages. Three pages of how my dog had found their book. Three pages of how I came to have a dog, why I kept the dog, how I had thought I could provide for him, but yet how I had found myself receiving. I don't know why I wrote it, and considered not sending it. Nonetheless, I folded into a large envelope, along with the black book, and we walked it to the post office the next day.

A week later my temporary life showed how sharp the teeth of a tentative existence could be. My friends found a paying renter, someone who worked in tech and had a high paying remote job. They loved me, but love does not exchange for dollars. As well, my stop-gap employment was coming to a complete halt. At least I had never unpacked my few boxes, and my dog, well, his only worry remained in the ball he currently couldn’t find.

I had been here, not knowing where I was going, or what I was going to do. This time it wasn't just me. I had my ball hunting, snow loving, couldn't stand not to be next to me dog that I had to worry about too. On our way back from a ramen run, we had downgraded from spaghetti to save a few meager pennies, we checked the mail. There was a large envelope with a return address and a name I'd seen before.

Once the water for the ramen was on the stove we opened the envelope which had been addressed to us both. There was a letter. The text in that black book had been meant for no one but its owner, and what was in the letter was meant for no one but the two of us. It was as intimate as the few lines I had read in the park. With it was a black book with an inscription. “I know your heart. Do as I ask in my letter. Afterwards, come see me.“ Paper clipped to the cover was a check for $20,000.

We ate our ramen. Then we packed my boxes, and his ball, in my slightly rusty, definitely dented, but mechanically solid wagon. We slept our last night in our temporary apartment, lived our last night of temporary lives. We played in mountains full of snow, we chased balls along shorelines of sand and crystal waters, we roamed in open fields vast enough to hold the past, present and future. We stretched that check into a years worth of time, and thousands of miles. We filled that black book with photos, leaves, pressed flowers, maps, and memories. When we had just enough left to get us back, we turned around. We had someone to meet.