D O G P O E T

I had a dream last night that Jennie started blogging again, which gave me mixed feelings as I had told her (in real life) that I wanted to write a sort of tribute now that she’s gone and retired with such grace. And by blogging again she would subvert the power of this tribute. But I’d get over it eventually because she’d be writing again and it would make me happy. Which is not the point, really, because sometimes people figure out when to leave the party and I’ll admit that I’ve rarely been one of those people. Usually I’m the last to join the party, if I ever leave the house at all.

And my first few attempts at a tribute turned out mawkish, like I’d shoplifted a really bad Hallmark card and tried to pass it off as original. And that wouldn’t do. Because Jennie is never mawkish, which is one of the things I love about her, that I can be all dramatic and sentimental in a late-night e-mail and she’ll write back and delicately put all my drama in perspective.

I didn’t know what to write. So I spent an entire day last week going through her archives and culling some of my favorite bits, because rather than telling you how great she is I’d rather just show you. I could paste thousands of her words here but instead I’ll just paste a couple of things and then recommend that you check out certain posts, such as the one about a preadolescent Dungeons and Dragons game where the half-elven ranger paladin and the thief and the mage-warrior ended up in a gang-bang. Which sounds horny and offensive but then it takes a turn and she’ll write a line that devastates you: “I kiss her gently until she wakes up and bandage her wounds.”

And you should really read the post about the other life she imagines for herself, a life that both creeped me out and exhilarated me because I had imagined something similar.

And you should read the post about a day in New York one year after 9/11. And the one about dharma talks and yummy muffins. And you should DEFINITELY read the one about the locker room confrontation. Seriously.

And I love it when she describes New York:

It happens mostly on the subway, or anytime I’m physically in transition. When my head is silent (never silent. I pray 24/7) and I am in the massive throbbing heart of New York travelling from point A to B. The emotion is kindness. What I’m describing is the bassline of the city’s hum. The fugue on to which the counterpoint of the city rests. I tend to feel it more in the cold months when everybody is wrapped in wools and overcoats and snuggle together on the trains. when everyone is a fire worth standing next to. During spring and summer it has a more erotic tinge to it, but it’s still the same thing. It’s kindness. Get safely to where you are going. You can see the animal looks of hurt or stalk returning as everyone files out on to the street. The agoraphobes in many. god, alone again under the sky.

Last night, on my way over to the triangle building on 14th, there was a guy sitting on the church steps talking to someone urgently, fiercely. He was talking to a banana. Phoning someone or whatever from a banana. Do you see the extremes we do? Anything that works. Make contact, please. Save yourself.

And this one:

Dad, after his *Near Death Experience* (the “*” approximates twee new age flute music), 1 whole week later or so; I have been getting nonstop chat calls from dad. At work. On my celly. On the subway. In the bathroom. Before bed. In the Morning. After work, During Dinner. Conversations are him talking at me about his daily routine, bandage changing, doctor’s visits, phone calls he has received, who called, when they called, phone calls NOT received, and when said cretins didn’t call. movies he’s watched, things he’s thought about “it was almost my time; i feel like I have a new lease”, a recap in detail of the fateful day, the days up to the operation, final thoughts before he went under general anesthetic.

I yell at my brother out the window “They cut me like a COW.”

And the one that sort of wrecked me for the day:

I was coming home from work and there was a young woman, about 27 but she looked 14. It was a large empty car and when we got on she took a seat right next to me. She wasn’t particularly noticeable for any reason, in fact if you scanned around the car she would have blended in with the drab mauves and oranges. She was real hunched and felt… tired. exhausted. She was like a little bird. I was totally preoccupied and couldn’t think past “why is she sitting on top of me” which she practically was. There was nothing sexual about it; it was more one of those moments when you flash annoyance when someone comes a little too far into your hula hoop. so i switched seats to the other side of the car. She looked heartbroken. I mean when i really focused on her she looked so frail. I felt so bad for adding to her shitty day that I started crying. I can be so cruel it’s mind-boggling.

And finally, this one:

…sara got into the truck with ranger bob on lonely highway 21. it was only 15 or so minutes but it irrevocably changed me. take nothing for granted. not the stars, not the dog sitting next to you, not the soft sounds outside and down below on the river, not the horses nickering when i went out to see if they were okay, and especially not the girl who disappeared around the bend and into an unknown night.

take nothing for granted. Not the feeling, that creeps up so quietly, so finally, as the deep comfort of life all around, cradling me. Not the feeling that two horses needed care and calming and speaking to in low voices. In the deepest part of my worst fears, that’s life too. Love is even in the black high darkness of a cool night, in phobic terror, That Malcolm was even more flipped out by Sara’s sudden disappearance than I was, and in the deafening sentience of the darkness. I could almost hear the soft, low chuckle of whatever: silly girl, so this is lonliness. I hope that explains something. if nothing else, maybe something about me. Oh, of course we were going to get back to Boise, all of us together, and we did by 9 o’clock the next morning after Ben came by at 4:30 in the morning in the marrakesh express van, with tofu pups and cheese and water and coffee and most importantly, again at 7 am with 4 spare tires… but if you listen, like I was forced to, for the 15 minutes that Sara was somewhere else where i didn’t know and couldn’t get to, you can hear the sounds of the world, and they fill you and hold you and even tell a joke or two. and it tells you in no uncertain terms what your heart is and who (the stars, sara, the river, the animals, the people who helped us, the world) you serve.

Maybe you can see now, what I was up against, trying to describe how I felt about Jennie’s site. I came to it like a desperate, dusty pilgrim to a shrine off the trail. On whose walls were written words; mysterious, ecstatic, and wholly original. And sometimes they confounded me, and sometimes they gave me comfort.

And the day I pored through her archives reminded me, sometimes, of past conversations.

jennie: what did people do at work before the internet?

michael: that’s when they were photo-copying their butts.

No, seriously. It can be lovely, seeing yourself set down in memory. Jennie is the friend who says things about you that you remember for the rest of your life. The friend who describes you in a way you want to live up to. Which is a selfish thing, on my part. But sometimes it’s like that, we like the people who make us feel more important than we fear we are; important like we secretly hope we are.

And sometimes when I write I imagine specific people, and I write for them. Because I want them to like what I’m writing, because what they think matters to me. And Jennie is one of them. Or rather, the one I imagine most often.

And if I’ve written something here that sounds like a really bad Hallmark card then I offer my apology. Some people I can’t articulate. I could never do them justice. Some people, I just give up, and I thank my lucky stars. Make contact. Save yourself.