Diary of a Real-Life Veterinarian: September 2022

It is a cancer within me. I cant un-see it, un-want it, or banish it. I made it mine and so it is.

Droog Shelter Alexandria Ukraine late April 2022

I suppose it is a cancer of a conscious that won't let rest. Dismiss it as too far away, and not mine to feel parental guidance for. It's another place, other people and even that isn't a clear enough choice to eradicate it. Preserve the self for the necrotic within.

Triggers. Todays was a full two page list of the collected phone calls tapped by Ukraine as Russian soldiers called home. Will America read them? Will they share my disgust and dismay? Can a cancer have a community of witnesses to grieve as one? Isn't humanity supposed to have kicked in by now. Like sometime in the tweens after AD occurred?

A street dog in Ukraine. A small act of kindness within a country at war.

How are we still so tolerant of such aggression and egregious acts? I'm going to assume that these phone calls are legit, and I am going to say that I, from the little I saw when I was there, believe them. I just cannot feel much more than shame and empathy. Shame that madmen still walk among us and no one will step up and take down that plane before it hits its target and annihilates another thousand innocent civilians, and empathy that two countries children have to fight, die and witness what war turns people into for that same madman's ego.

Where are you going to fall in the course of history that marks our species? What cancer eats at you?

For more on this see Uproxx

For The New York Times article go here.

For more on my trip to Ukraine please see these previous articles;

The best recap I have on my experience is the podcast with Brendan Howard, The Veterinary Business Success Show.

Recognition, Resolution and Restitution blog

Better Left Undone

Purgatory

Walking Away

The Faces and The Ghosts, Coming Back from Ukraine

The Compound

My personal note,, to those I left behind,, two and four legged,, I think about you everyday. My heart still beats within Ukraine. I will be back.. there is too much left undone.

Storm. Relaxing in the last moments of Summer 2022.

Captured and captivating. Not the same thing but seriously kissing cousins. I have been chasing this one moment my whole life. All 52 trips around the sun,,, and finally I am happy to exclaim; I am here. This one moment. The one to outshine and oust all those before it. And, here's the real kicker, I am alone. (Who saw that one coming?).. Well, not totally alone, I have a cat, Wren, grooming and purring beside me, and two dogs curled at me feet. I am never truly alone. Another decision of complete choice. I couldn’t imagine being completely alone, ever. (Who would want to be that? Isn’t it just dark and claustrophobic there)?

Waiting for me to finish laundry, and keeping an eye out for squirrels.

I spent my whole life to be this one solitary thing. This singular being. The only person I ever imagined myself wanting to be. A veterinarian. I suppose some women want to be mothers, wives? (Maybe? Right? Isn’t that who we are supposed to want to become)? Well, me, nope, just a veterinarian. I put so much importance on that one thing, that one place of being, that it blocked out all of the light and choked out the life of everything else. Lucky for me that it also afforded me pets. I could have as many as I wanted. The quintessential polygamist of pets. No rules here. I can't be accused of neglecting them anything. I could be my own Dr. Doolittle-zoo-style. And who is going to challenge me? Yep, not one single soul. I set it up this way. If I knew more about pets than anyone else I could have free reign to have them all if I so wished it. How perfect is that? For me, the spinster of all else, it was everything. It's all I wanted to be, and here I am, there.

The back porch workspace

Sitting in this one perfect moment.

Wren keeps me company, (or I keep her warm, I never know which applies), as I write.

What does it look like? An Aperol spritzer. My drink for summer 2022. I really do this. I pick one drink I want to try and then if it works I ride that spritzer all summer long. A warm kitty purring her hearts desire out next to me on our porch couch. Her name is Wren. (All of my cats are named after birds; Magpie, Oriole. The most sensible way to assist the too numerous cats is to have a theme from the get-go. The dogs also have a theme; Fripp and Havana Storm. There was Charleston, Savannah before them). She always has to be near me. She is the most affectionate, reliable, and heart warming girl. Always has a paw on me. A reassuring hand to let me know she is there. Beside me and supporting me. In bed she sleeps on the pillow above mine. I pet her all night until we both fall asleep. I will wake up and she will be laying on my hand. The heating pad to her heart and the adoration to my slumber. She is my second feline who stole my heart. There was D.C. before her. My guardian and salvation embodied in one little 7 pound ball of demands and fur. The pups lay at my feet. Always with me inside the house or out. They guard me as much as follow. They never want to be left out of the activities and stay close by so as to not miss an opportunity for an adventure. This house. So grand in her country manors. So noble in her stone façade that has stood here nestled in the woods for over two centuries. The birds all squawk and bellow around us. They are the subtle reminders that the seasons change and the populations shift. Winter is approaching and the song birds have started their own snow bird migration to warmer skies and distant shores. The jays and chickadees stay. I reward their loyalty with seeds and thick evergreen trees. I have this one moment caught between summer departing and fall clamoring in with its vibrant colors and sweater adorning chills.

There is warm cider, hot tea and blankets to remind me that I am still youthful enough to face her cold days. And the warmth of the memories tucked in every corner of my home to keep me company as the long days emerge.

The den and the dahlias

I never thought I would get here. The place where the moments hang suspended in the hopes I had for the days that I would be old enough to slow down and admire them. And yet here I am, resting on the laurels of a life that is upon its tipping point between already been there and done it, and don’t want to be pestered by that burden anymore, and the leisurely admiration of the beauty that surrounds me without me wishing it to be anywhere and anything else.

I'm going to pick dahlias now. The third grand bouquet of the weekend. Just to place them beside my pillow for my beloved Wren. The cat I refer to as royalty in the home that a castle would be envious of. In the midst of the towering dahlias of all shapes sizes and colors twists the cherry-red tomatoes. volunteers from last year that somehow made a stronghold in the garden we have to re-till every year as we replace the giant tubers of dahlia zygotes we dug up in late fall the year before. These tiny bursts of sweet eluded the genocide of all of the other plants we forced out to let the dahlias thrive. and yet they are so deliciously insidious I cannot feel anything but gratitude for their perseverance and abundance. i picked them twisted around the steel cages the dahlias require for support, spine serpentined, arms outreaching, tiny berries that fall with any degree of disruption. I placed them in handfuls into the small antique basket my mom had purchased at an antique show many years ago. I remember it held antique chicks nestled on their tissue paper shredded grass. She, like me, never wasted a thing. She could see me now, all those many years after, using this basket in my imperfectly glorious garden, and she would tell me the same thing she always did, "this is the most perfect day."