Tag: dog

An edlerly dog with braced legs stands on grass with trees and hills in the background, looking into the camera

Pandemic Diary: Easter Sunday

Published on by karin swann-rubenstein1 Comment

Mourning is love with nowhere to go (…but everywhere).

It has been less than twenty-four hours since we buried our dog. It is Easter Sunday. I am sitting in our bedroom with the windows and doors open, listening to a channel of chamber music I found on iTunes. I find myself in the chancel of a European cathedral where the echo of a heavenly choir coils around buttresses on its way up to the filtered, multi-colored light. I am grateful for the time to reflect. On death. And rebirth. Continue reading “Pandemic Diary: Easter Sunday” →

An elderly dog, looking anxiously into the camera stands with legs braced on snowy ground

Pandemic Diaries

Published on by karin swann-rubenstein2 Comments

Bodies In Motion

At some point, Jon woke me up. “You need to figure out what’s up with Lulu,” he said. “I took her out two hours ago and she’s up again.” I rolled over, looking out the window to assess the likelihood of falling back to sleep again after the task. Judging from the darkness of the sky, the first thought of sunrise hadn’t reached the horizon. We were still in the thick of night.

Lulu is our seventeen and a half-year-old ridgeback mix. Two months ago, she collapsed after the two-hour drive back home to Berkeley from Boonville, CA where my husband and I own a retreat center. It took Lulu two days to recover to her feet after the drive and we decided, with no small degree of sadness, we would not subject her to the car again. Lulu would not return to the hills she’d known for most of her life where she‘d bounded and raced across tall grasses, half deer, half-bird and returned to hunt lizards on the lawn for hours. Life would be simpler for her in Berkeley, less stressful at least. Continue reading “Pandemic Diaries” →