Click

In Januaray, I gave my digital camera to my friend, Sara (of the Star Wars Action Series fame). Her camera broke almost two years ago. She has been making do with her computer camera, which led to some truly innovative strategies and arresting images, but still, her talent is big and needs more tools, and besides (and more to the point) I’m greedy: I wanted a new camera. So.

But I could not seem to find the time nor the energy to buy this new camera. During these cameraless days, I borrowed one from a friend for a day. I also took a page from Sara’s book and used my own computer camera a few times. And I downloaded images from the Internet, gaining a new skill I needed anyway. Then, about a month ago at a dinner party, while affecting the look of a listening dinner guest, I said out loud, “I need a new camera.” My friend David responded, “I have an extra camera. It’s yours.” And voila, a free camera! (This from the man who earlier, and randomly, had expressed what I believe to be the most perfect tee-shirt caption. First he sighed, then he said, longingly, “I love toast.”)


A few days ago, I was again affecting the look of a listening friend while internally struggling to keep my new-job anxieties down to a quiet roar, when I suddenly blurted out, “I need a world map!” I had just come back from a work retreat in Antigonish where I had met my new colleagues, most of whom hail from India and Africa, and whose hometowns or work towns may as well be waves in an ocean, so unspecific are their locations on my washed-out mental globe (though I do congratulate myself for nodding my head and furrowing my brow thoughtfully during my conversations with them in a way that surely conveyed, “yes, yes, Tajikistan, yes, I share your geographic, political and cultural understanding of that place deeply.”)


“I have a National Geographic world map right here. Take it. It’s yours.” The map was sitting right there on my friend’s desk, acting like any old reference tool one uses on a daily basis, except his job does not require him to refer to a map. Naturally, I wanted to make fun of him because that’s just what I do, but my need for the map was greater than my desire to tease. I took the map, bit my tongue, and even remembered to say thank you.

This asking-and-receiving thing has been happening so much in the last four years that I have to remind myself to be surprised when it happens now. It all started in Montreal around my 37th birthday when my friend, Rosemary, gave me a book. This book is out there. I mean, it’s “out there.” Which makes me shy about sharing its title. I’d feel more comfortable discussing the quality of my orgasms on this blog than talking about this book with the faceless hoards I think of as my readers. I’m not afraid of being skewered, I’d just rather have a face-to-face with my skewerer. So, I tell you what, if you to write me offblog, I will tell you the title. And here’s another gift: you can save your expensive scientifically-backed arguments for someone who really may not know they are a flake. I know I'm a flake. You may as well tell me I have freckles. There’s no discussion to be had there because there’s only one reasonable response to that. “Duh!”


We all walk our own paths, and what arrives on them is often just plain odd, and, as my lovely guru/therapist keeps trying to hammer into me, no two paths are alike (Liz, why don’t you just make your kind of paintings instead of trying to be that painter over there?). So, I’m loath to suggest that following my idiosyncratic path will improve anyone’s life (who would jump up and down at the idea of living in someone else’s furnished apartment, making sort-of-good-enough wages, and not knowing where you will live after June because ever since your apartment in Montreal burned down, you have not been able to commit to a home?) I'm definitely not suggesting that this thing I'm about to tell you about is the solution to all your problems, or even that it works, or even that it's true. It's just my wacky experience, and I thought I'd share. That's what blogs are for ...

Before it burned down,



my Montreal apartment was the most beautiful, spacious, gracious place I’ve ever lived (on my own).



Just before Montreal, In the last week of my grad program in one of the most soul-destroying cities I’ve ever lived in, I was gathered with my tiny group of meditators in one of the tiniest apartments I’ve ever lived in.


In the middle of our quiet conversation about life, I practically shouted, “I don’t want to move back to Toronto! But all my work contacts are there!” One of my beautiful meditators asked me this: “can you stop striving so hard and trust that you will get to where you want to go?”


No. I didn’t say that out loud, but I did think it. I thought it hard. And then I thought, why not? I had nothing to lose by trusting. And trusting did not stop me from also thinking about how to find work. I could do both. Plan A and Plan B.


A few days before my grad show, I was venting all my work/life anxieties to a friend who promptly gave me an exercise to help me sort out my life choices (I was graduating from a painting program after all … hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaha!) The exercise consisted of drawing three columns on a sheet of paper and three headings: “good”, “bad” and “solutions.” I had 15 minutes to write down everything I enjoyed in the good column, and then another 15 minutes to write down the obstacles to my joy in the bad column. For the solutions column, I was given unlimited time. I was to do the exercise somewhere with good energy, like a park, or a café.

I took myself to the only café that did not serve brown crayon melted in hot water, claiming it was coffee, and set about my task. Within three minutes, I was in tears. Sure, I love painting. But who can make a living out of that? I was about to give up the exercise when I told myself that the least I could do was finish the task and get some satisfaction from proving to my friend that he was cracked. It’s not that I lack commitment. I am deeply committed to my givey-uppy approach to life. It has always proved me right. If you give up, it won’t happen. That’s a 100% guarantee. Those are odds I can live with.


But by the end of half an hour, and against all odds, I had a plan. I had remembered I had some savings (who forgets something like that? A miser, that’s who). So, with my savings, it stood to reason, I could start a dog portrait painting business. Don’t ask how I got from savings to dog portraits. The important part is that I had a plan! I am not good at much, but I can nail a likeness as surely as a toaster can make toast. Why not exploit that talent? But where? Toronto is too expensive for such a fragile enterprise. I would have run out of my savings in a month. Not to mention it's lousy with ex-boyfriends. So, what about Montreal? … MONTREAL? … YES!

At the time, I had no contacts in Montreal. I’d had boyfriend from Montreal while at university (who is still a close friend, but who now lives in New York). When we visited his family, I fell in love with his city. So, I put it down in the good column. In the bad column I put that I had no contacts and nowhere to live. In the solutions column I put that I’d move to Toronto first after graduating and from there I’d make reconnaissance forays to Montreal for an apartment. As I’m fond of saying, a gal can dream, can’t she?


As I walked out of the café, I decided I would keep my new plan to myself to protect it from naysayers. But as most of my friends know, questions are like truth serum to me. If someone asks me a direct question, I involuntarily answer it. A few days later, at my grad exhibition, one of my profs politely inquired, “so what happens now?” As if I had never in my 41 years encountered the esoteric concepts of “secret” and “self-protection,” I responded immediately with, “I am going to start a dog portrait painting business in Montreal.”

And then I cringed. But the snear I feared never came. Instead, the prof said, “Montreal is a great city! That sounds like the right place for what you want to do.” So I repeated the plan in case he’d misheard me, because who graduates from a school steeped in Derrida and Foucault and then says, OUT LOUD, to a professor who worships at the alter of every French philosopher that ever was, “I want to make dog portraits”?

“Sounds great!” he said again.

The next morning – THE NEXT MORNING – I got an e-mail forwarded to me from one of his colleagues in Montreal who was looking to unload her apartment in Montreal ASAP because she’d gotten a new job in Toronto. Within the space of two e-mails, and before I’d even had my morning coffee, I was the new renter of an apartment in Montreal. The first thing I did (after making coffee) was to send out a mass e-mail with my new coordinates. Almost immediately, I heard back from my friend, Nicolas, who I’d met while I was at grad school and he was at Stratford (up to this point, I had no idea where he was originally from), to where I drove 40 minutes a few times a month to treat myself to real coffee at Balzac’s. Nicolas wrote, “Guess what? I’m from Montreal! Moving back exactly when you are!” Turned out Nicolas’s Montreal apartment was five blocks away from mine.


To make a long post longer, the book Rosemary gave me did not reveal anything new, rather it confirmed a phenomenon I had been experiencing for a while, but for which I'd had no name. The book talks about the power of asking. So, I decided to make my asking more conscious. As I lay in bed one day avoiding my studio and all the dog-portrait commissions I did not have, I asked for more books. Specific books. Inspiring books. In the foyer of my building sat an old wooden chest, probably a steamer trunk someone left at the turn of the last last century.


On top of that trunk a few days later sat a pile of books someone, who was moving out, had left. Great books. Books I had wanted to read. I took them. When I needed clothes, there they were. Beautiful pieces, too. Once, as I was passing the trunk on my way out to replace a burnt-out light bulb in my studio, I saw a light bulb on the trunk. Seriously. Turns out it was also burned out, but still …

Last fall, I expressed a wish to do work that called upon all the skills that I love using (vs. all the skills I have that lead me to soul-crushing work), and work that would be meaningful. I had applied for a job that seemed the perfect fit at first, but between my initial interview and waiting to hear the “it’s yours!”, everything in my body said “noooooooo!!!!!” Against everyone’s best wishes for me, I withdrew my candidacy without a cogent explanation. You can’t really say, “um, my gut says this ain’t for me.” I took flack from my community, faced the void of no other prospects, and decided to just trust.

And a few months later, I got my dream job. Now, I don’t believe anything lasts forever, not even dreams, but that’s not a problem. When dreams change, all you have to do is change the asking accordingly. But you also need to be open to seeing your dream happen in ways you did not expect. To wit: one of my dreams this year was to travel through Asia. Also, a number of my friends have recently voyaged through South Africa, and their passion for it put it on my map as well. Australia is also there. I had no idea how I would undertake any of these travel plans, but I did feel it would happen. As I sat in one of the workshops during my retreat in Antigonish last week, it struck me that I was surrounded by amazing people from Asia and Africa! In other words, Asia and Africa had come to me! And yet, that’s not the whole of it. On the ride to the airport, our Executive Director informed me that in August or September of this year, I’d likely be travelling to India or South Africa for my job.

And then she asked (get this) “would you mind?”

Up to Now and Now

I love running. It’s something I came to relatively late in life, not taking it seriously until I was 34, and after a childhood of believing I could do no such thing, as well as a teenagehood of always being the last one around the track during fitness week (and long after gym class was over). If someone had told me then that I’d become a runner, I would have handed them my large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos so that I could use both my hands to grab my sides as I doubled over.


I love running for many reasons, not the least of which is that during runs I solve a problem: most often a painting problem, sometimes a writing problem, and, when lucky, a nagging suspicion about myself that, if investigated, might shed light on the whys and wherefores of my current crisis (because I’m always in crisis, it seems. I think I might love crises more than I love running because, unlike running, it’s never too cold, or rainy, or I’m never too tired, or achy to indulge a crisis . . . but I digress).


A few days ago, during a long run, and at a time when I was relatively crisis free, and, therefore, casting about for some new problem to chew on, this thought bubbled to the surface: what’s the deal with the way I sprinkle my Jewishness all over my blog like so many salty chunks of feta crumbled over everything from toast to post, even when it’s totally unnecessary and maybe even overkill?


Why this need to trumpet my cultural heritage to which I have only the most tenuous thread of connection since my parents are effectively ignorant on the subject and so were never able to transmit anything useful to me, except to let me know I was, indeed, a Jew? In typical running-epiphany style, I realized it comes down to this: the old high school saw of needing an identity, and of needing to belong.


There were exactly two Jews in my high school (I mean real Jews, not may-as-well-be-Protestant Jews, like me). Both were girls and both were beautiful and thin and clad in polo-identified gear, which I believe facilitated their ascension into the great Pantheon of Perfect that ruled the school.


During Passover, however, they suddenly became out-in-the-open Jews, munching faux miserably on their faux sandwiches comprised of two matzoh crackers containing, simply, butter and raspberry jam, loudly complaining about how much they missed leavened bread. They really did say “leavened,” scratching a verbal chalk circle around their already shining heads. My own mistakenly-made-that-morning ham and cheese sandwich on leavened bread clearly designated on which side of the circle I belonged. (Since then, I have had a bad relationship with yeast.)


(BTW, if you have never tasted the surprisingly delectable combination of dry, unsalted motzoh crackers slathered in salty butter and topped with sweet and tart raspberry jam, you need to befriend a Jew this Passover and treat yourself. That, and chopped liver.)

The thing is, despite their coveted position within the Firmament of Fab – impossibly, enviably – the Passover production propelled these angels into an ever more rareified layer of social strata, garnering them– impossibly, enviably – an even higher position among the stars. They were like two princess sisters who had captured the love of their people but refused to live among them, insisting on their pointy castle where they remained adored but touchless.


Although I could legitimately claim Jewish blood on both sides of my family, I knew less about Jewish holidays, traditions, and Yiddish catch phrases than most of my gentile friends. But don’t misunderstand me. I was not surrounded by the Goyem either. I was a girl of maybe one or two friends, usually belonging to other groups, but who had stepped outside their pack to confide in me on the sly. I didn’t so much have a social circle as occupy each corner of a social square where individuals from the four main bloodlines –preppy, stoner, nerd, artsy – intersected with me for but a moment in social time in order to scratch some momentary itch.

Looking back, however, I can see that I did perform an essential service -- enabling each group to stay its course without, god forbid, intersecting -- but no one ever seemed to notice or thank me for my function (which may explain my attraction to the editing vocation, being used to the unfame behind the curtains). I did, however, get all the empty space inside the square, which became the repository for all my longing to belong, and which also efficiently imprisoned my soundless yawp.

But here's the thing: it’s not like I naively think that my Jewishness will put me in touch with like-minded people I will unconditionally adore (and vice versa) based on our shared culture.

Amongst my Jewish friends, some of us are staunch Zionists, which I am not. Some are atheists, which I am not. Some are Buddhists, which I aspire to. And we don’t all agree on all kinds of things. And yet. I wonder if I tend to elide differences because belonging matters more. When I was in Berlin last year, I felt so invited back by the Germans in my position as a displaced Jew. I suddenly had caché, kind of like the caché certain of my colleagues have in the art world thanks to the colour of their skin and their sexual orientation. Even they would agree. And I'm not trying to dismiss their talents. The only difference between them and me is that they actually do work that deserves the credit they have earned despite their caché. Me? I have done nothing to educate myself on being Jewish, or to support/express my culture. I’ve just claimed the title and hoped no one would check the deed.


Lest I paint a skewed picture, let me admit I did belong before high school. And how! I grew up in an exclusive community of expats in Manila, where my father worked for the Asian Development Bank. My friends were from all over the world, but what bound us together was our privilege. We got superiorily educated at an International School, we all belonged to clubs with pools, and despite the cliques that formed around stoners and soccer players, we all attended the same parties and we all got very drunk at a very, very, VERY young age. We just didn’t do it in basements as I saw it done here, to my great contempt, upon my return to Canada at the sophisticated age of 13. No, we drank Singapore slings poolside with people in uniforms serving us.


In those days, I knew who I was. I was a Canadian living overseas. I had freedom of movement (mostly because my parents were too busy at their jobs, or at the club playing tennis, to notice what I did after school). I travelled with my family to exotic locations every summer, and went “home” once a year to see the grandparents. I thought I owned the world and everyone in it.

At university, I belonged again. A late bloomer, I botched most of high school until I realized that if I did not get certain grades, I would be doomed to secretarial school, my mother's greatest aspiration for me, believing that every girl should be able to support herself. Her heart was in the right place. So, at the 11th hour in grade 13, I decided to study for once in my life, and that’s how I gained entrance into Queen’s, another bastion of privilege at which I felt at home. Yet it was not the privilege with which I identified. It was with those who were questioning everything. That was something I had been quietly doing since childhood, but had learned to keep quiet about it, or be ostracized. At uni, I focused on questioning the history and politics of womens' experiences ...


... and found articulation for all the things I had always felt were wrong but for which, up to then, I had not developed a vocabulary.

At university, I found my voice. And I let her rip.


In Manila, throughout our seven-year tenure, I had never stopped being affected by the purposefully maimed children who tapped at our car window, asking for money as we sat in a black cloud of traffic.


Someone had scratched out their eyes or broken their limbs to make them look more pathetic. As a child, I understood that their lives were catastrophic, even if their limbs had been whole, that their need was beyond desperate, and that in the face of their unforgivable condition, I was helpless. The adults taught me to keep my window rolled up and soothed my tears with words that never made sense, “we can't give them money every time they ask." I never understood why not. I still don’t.

Since my high school days, I’ve definitely found belonging in a variety of groups. For instance, my running group in Montreal made up of folks of all ages, from all walks of life, with all manner of experiences and history, all coming together around our one insane addiction.

And, recently, I landed what seems, so far, like a dream job and one that has instantly expanded my sense of identity and belonging.


I am the Outreach and Communications Coordinator of an organization called Gender at Work, a not-for-profit that rights the embedded wrongs of gender discrimination that leads to social, cultural, political, economic and you-name-it gender inequalities. G@W helps other organizations develop their own best practices for improving womens' lives in their own communities (most of the work is being done in India and Africa right now), with the goals of ending poverty and domestic violence, and placing women in key leadership roles in order to bring about deep-structure transformation of internalized discriminatory attitudes and values. My job, in a nutshell, is to collect and disseminate the stories that come out of the work being done, to bring attention to the actual condition of women around the world, and to inspire more positive action and change.


You heard right: my job is to help get stories told! Hello? Pinch me!

For me, the word “story” does not designate fiction, per se. Or, actually, it does, but the word “fiction” does not designate a lesser form than so-called fact. The two things are one, equally important, and not much different from each other (just ask a handful of French theorists). And both are vital for healing individuals, communities, cities, states, cultures, and the world. I deeply believe that stories are no less than lifeblood transmissions. And they require the only naturopathic ingredient that can truly remedy any ill: people and their good will.

Once hired, I received e-mails from everyone at G@W welcoming me into their fold with such warmth that I felt we were sitting in a comfy living room, real time. I will meet them all this week at a retreat in Antigonish. This mostly virtual org (since most of us live and work around the globe) will become a flesh-and-blood org for a week. But the thing is, I already feel as if I know these folks. I know that some people find virtual communities a lesser form of community, but, truthfully, that has not been my experience. In all my online living rooms and office spaces, I have felt connected to people I don’t know as much as to those I know. My friends and colleagues online (as well as my online friends and colleagues) are legion. And they have given me a sense of belonging in ways I could not have imagined.

Even if it's Hokey

Cliché, cliché, cliché. God, I love all three of them! That’s why I am writing a book in which cliché plays the leading role, a book I can’t seem to finish for a very clichéd reason: writer’s block.




Here's an excerpt:



This story is not new. And we all know how it ends. It ends. So why do we watch the same movie over and over again as if it might have a different ending? Because we love a good middle, and our only access to the middle is either by jumping back to the beginning again and starting over (again) until we hit the middle (again), or, retracing our steps backwards from the ending until we get to the middle (again). Back at the middle, we have this feeling of safety because we know what came before and we also know what happens next. But we also half hope it won’t happen, that the end will surprise us. We tether our ankles to the bedpost so we can lean out the window and pretend to fly. And it’s this mightness for which we hold our breath, in the meantime telling ourselves we are hearing this story for the first time. We want both things. We want the story to be predictable. And we want to begin again, and to change the ending.


But it’s the not-newness of a story that I find most comforting because if the story is known, it becomes like a familiar portrait I can either stand in front of, naming the person in the picture, or walk away from until the face becomes an unrecognizable speck in my mind’s eye.


I feel the same way about stories as I do about portrait paintings, and I feel the same way about stories and portrait paintings as I do about cliché. What underpins them all is basically the same thing: a grisaille over which we glaze layers of colour and shine.


To be honest, I experience an all-out erotic frisson when cliché’s deft hand scrapes back coats of subterfuge to reveal a naked structure we all share: not flesh tone. Grey scale.


Cliché is like portraiture because it is like a face; we know its structure well: eyes, nose, mouth – always the same three, yet each feature combines with each feature in a different way each time, and each assemblage delivers an unexpected gestalt of the never before seen. So while I suspect most of us share this feeling that the world is filled with limited, identifiable face types, we still only admit to resemblances, not to verisimilitude. Even in the case of twins.


Take cliché and metaphor, for instance. They are clearly related, yet beholders too often claim superior status for the latter as if metaphor possessed a more sophisticated beauty while cliché was the plain Jane of the family.


But cliché is not a one-trick pony to metaphor’s three-ring circus.


No, cliché’s hidden power shines right before our eyes.


Cliché is what bestows metaphor with her beauty. Or, put as a cliché, you can’t grow a pearl without sand in the oyster. Trite and true.

But, like a pregnant double agent, cliché’s condition is so obvious that people have stopped noticing. Sure, we can all see she’s hiding something under her skin, but since we can’t see what the hidden thing looks like, we tell ourselves we'll just deal with it when it finally emerges. But the truth is, we fear what cliché will do to our lives when it does reveal itself. And that’s because cliché is not just a shell. It is the shell that protects a kernel. And when the shell cracks – as it inevitably will – cliché’s kernel will pop out like a stripper jumping out of a cake. And those of us watching will find ourselves pulled from the sidelines, where we were safely clapping (bachelors all of us), now forced to participate in a spectacle that puts us face-to-face with our unbridled desires.


And it is because we don’t really know what cliché will become when it disrobes that we don’t really know what we will become in relation to cliché's nakeness.


That’s the real reason we fear cliché, and why we bully it into submission, calling it names as if it was a lower life form. We want our own voices to drown out the sound of the kernel popping.


But that’s how cliché gets the job done: by tricking us into thinking it’s the side show, lulling us into believing we are merely anonymous members of the peanut gallery while it matter-of-factly yanks off our cover ups to expose the main event -- us.


Take a portrait painting: the person in the picture seems like themselves, someone you might know, someone you might even love, but do we really know them? I return to the portrait like a soon-to-be-bride in an arranged marriage, scrutinizing my intended’s photograph for clues. In the absence of the person, this image is the only thing I have with which to build the story of the rest of my life. I stare and stare, even when I know that behind the photograph there is nothing but my own wall, or my coffee table, nothing but the world that frames the picture, and all my ideas about that person, but never the person actual.


With my own story, I draw upon both cliché and metaphor to get the telling done, seducing one or the other depending on my need. There’s no question about who will be loved. They both will. The only question is, when?

What to write when you can't write

I could not write this week. What I mean to say is, I could not write what I thought I wanted to write. I sat in front of my computer thinking I would craft the next chapter of my so-called book but nothing came. To help myself get going, I watched Elizabeth Gilbert give an inspired talk on TED about the nature of genius (she said it would be more productive for creative types to think as the Greek and Romans thought: i.e. that mortals are not responsible for genius, rather we are mere vessels through which the gods speak, kind of like TV transmitters). While at TED, I decided to watch another talk, this time by a microbiologist-turned-monk who, with his delightful French accent, made charming jokes about winter camping in the Himalayas before he proved, scientifically, that meditation can remap our neural pathways (mental note: perhaps if you meditated, Liz, you might be able to write!) . . . and still nothing. No inspiration moving through me like an Aeolian harp, no serving as a vessel for anything but popcorn, and no productive Buddhist nothingness, just a whole lot of garden-variety Liz nothingness.


I have been distracted. I have been distracted by my life. This week I am dog sitting an extraordinary creature. Fink. Rat Fink being his full name. He’s a hairless Chinese Crested Terrier and he’s more addictive than crack.


Let me be clear, I am definitely NOT one of those people who likes cutesy dogs. In fact, I think of them as vacuumable hairballs. And I’d do it in a heartbeat. But Fink is different.


Loving a Great Dane requires no effort because Danes are majestic, sweet natured and they plant their asses on the couch beside you, human like, which is great if you want a sympathetic listener who won’t interrupt. And it’s adorable. Which is why you don’t get points for thinking a Great Dane is great.

Whereas it takes very special folk to fall in love with a Chinese Crested Terrier.


My so-called ex life partner put it best when he said these are the underdog of dogs. Being an underdog lover, I opened my heart wide to the first CCT I ever met, and then, ten years later, to Fink. Fink is ugly. But compellingly so. Apart from the tuft of hair on his head, paws and tail, his congenitally hairless body feels like a shaved ball sack. There, I said it. And, if you’ve never felt one, believe me when I say there is no keeping your hands off of that.

Before Fink arrived, I told the other new male in my life that Fink was about to arrive and stay for a week. New Male responded with a diatribe about our consumer sickness for investing fortunes in pure breeds, and I think he added something about it being bourgeois and a few other criticisms I can’t remember but the tone was clear: Fink was Terrier non grata by virtue of his breeding.

NM must have been feeling sheepish about his outburst because later that night I got an e-mail from him with a paste job of the research he’d done all about Chinese Crested Terriers. His apology gesture clearly did not do the trick for him, however, because first thing the next morning he called to say, “I must see this dog. I’m on my way over.”

So, how did it go between Fink and NM? Let’s just say that within ten minutes of NM’s arrival, I came out of my kitchen after putting on the kettle for some civilized tea and conversation and found NM with his shirt pulled up and Fink’s shirt pulled off, and the former pressing the latter to the former’s belly. They both looked at me askance, but they were not asking the same question. NM’s said “am I busted?” while Fink’s look was inscrutable yet loaded with subtext, I just don’t know what.

“I don’t even know which agency I should call about this!” I yelled. Neither dog nor man seemed too fussed about their entanglement, however, and later that day when I confided the event to a girlfriend she told me she’d done the same thing with one of her friend’s dogs. My options were few. I realized that it was probably better to have this happen in my living room than, say, at the dog park. I felt like one of those parents who prefers her kids to do their drinking and drugs at home.

The day before I got Fink, I suggested to NM that his daughters might want to come over to meet the dog – a good ruse for them to also meet me. NM came up with some lame excuse about why that would not be a good idea. But after meeting Fink he was all, “would you and Fink like to come over for dinner so that the girls can meet him?” Of course I went over because I honestly thought Fink was subterfuge for getting me over. But no. It was definitely not about me. It was not even about the girls. They got about two seconds with Fink and then NM hogged Fink the rest of night, leaving me and the girls to snuggle up to Harry Potter while we tucked into some cuddle-replacement ice cream I’d brought to curry favour. Casting a somewhat worried glance to where NM and Fink were snoring together on the couch, I told myself the novelty would wear off soon enough.

I was right. Sort of. The next day NM sent me this very romantic e-mail:

Title of your next book: My lover ran off with my best friend's dog

It's because his skin feels like well-written prose. That's why I love Fink. That and he was designed by a committee chaired by Kafka and Foucault.

Appropriately hopeful, I wrote back a little subterfuge of my own.

Fink wrote you a piece of prose today:

Your everywhere hands, my belly yours, our becoming. My tail and your elephant memory salve my dry hinds. Your cold fingers seek to warm, but I am the one who does the warming and all the longing that hurts melts in your cradle arms, my sleepy snore.

Love, Fink

NM wrote back to say his book title sounded more like a country song. Because I’ll do any trick for a treat, I wrote a country song:

Three hearts, my love
All on the brink
One drowned in art
One drowned in drink
One stole the dog
His name was Fink
Crossed two state lines
His eyes all pink
What love will do
It makes you think
To lock it up
Inside the clink
Then walk the line
Far from love's stink

The next night, NM came over to my place with his girls. They said hi to Fink, drank tea and asked me why I’d put one of those veterinarian Victorian dog collars on my own head in one of my self-portraits (um, to stop me from licking my wounds?)


When the girls realized they would not get access to Fink, they disappeared up the ladder to carouse in my loft while NM and Fink communed on the couch. I sat opposite, stunned, trying to get a handle on what it was I was feeling. I have spent oodles of money in therapy trying to learn how to say what I want in a clean, direct way, but last night I realized I could have saved myself a whole lot of time and expense had I just befriended an eight year old.

NM’s eldest came down out of my loft finally and stood in front of NM, who was holding Fink, and said, “Daddy, I am feeling jealous of Fink. I want you to hold me.” And there it was. This sweet statement hung in the air as long as a zeppelin made of ice cream would. Not long. It made a soft landing on a melting heart. NM immediately put down the dog and picked up his daughter and held her close.

This little girl taught me in that moment something Fink was also trying to teach me. Love is not complicated. It’s simple. NM’S love for Fink is unconditional. To say NM loves Fink because he is ugly and cuddly is adding too much story. NM loves Fink because Fink just commands love, by simply existing. And NM’s daughters love NM and NM loves them for the same reason, or non reason. Just because.

Later that night, I sent NM and e-mail asking if he’d consider trading his girls for a box of Chinese Crested Terriers. Not surprisingly, he said not in this lifetime. But he did share this with me, a poem his eight-year-old daughter wrote to one of her eight-year-old friends:

What is life. Is it the universe trying to teach us about the world around us. Is it important that we know or does it not matter. These questions need no question marks but still remain unanswered.

I wonder if she’d let me pay her in ice cream to be my therapist.