Forgotten Miracles
and that Encore I was promised
As a kid, I was always running straight to the top of everything. I rarely wanted to take classes, learn my piano scales, practice my tennis swing or even take a cooking class. I acted like I came pre-loaded with software. I’ll just wing the piano recital, skip tennis altogether and hang out in the park, coach others on dance costumes (I didn’t need to hoof it) I’ll move to NYC and work for an ad agency and then move to Atlanta and just open a restaurant at 28. There. Done.
My mom used to say, What are you going to do for an Encore? You never take your time and enjoy the climb.
If things came easy to me (dinner parties, decor, cooking, copywriting) I would pursue it. If I sucked? (dance, tennis, performance art, mostly piano) I quit. Immediately. I remember a fit as a five year old hating the tulle on a ballet frock and the shoes that pinched and I was ripping them off my body on day 2. Happy to watch and encourage others to dance in the jazz and tap classes, I liked my instructor, the music and to sit on the bench in the back and eat jelly beans. I’m an art appreciator. I haven’t the makeup for practice and honing of skill to be an artist. I just want to see the end result. You can’t MAKE me do anything.
Sticktoitiveness. I haven’t got.
I will not marry, I did not want kids. Those sound like long commitments. But so is a commercial lease and I found myself living out a decade in a restaurant affair I had long since fallen out of love with. Real estate too has come up to bite me a time or two.
The hubris of a couple profitable flips in the late 90s, had me thinking I could get out of anything. It’s not until you show up to a closing table, hat in hand and cut a check for $38,000 to give the keys to some strangers who “got a deal” on that estate you renovated for 15 years that you feel the sting. Humility is Hubris in reverse.
You’re upside down, the bank would say, flatly, while they bailed themselves out with generous piles of government money.
Speaking of upside down, that’s how I got here in the Mexican desert in the middle of nowhere in a town that gringos are not interested in because it lacks beauty, culture, cool condos, nightlife, regional food or any worthy services. There are no margaritas here, senorita, yuck. Keep driving. And I would have. However…
You’ll just be there a couple weeks. You’ll need to wait for the insurance company.
That was 2021. Today is Dec, 19, 2024
I’ve been paid for the wreckage but a $4500, 20 year old Toyota is a great car, just not a big payout. And I can’t just buy something here and register and toss my tags on it. It’s complicated and no one has a clear answer. And until I have a clear path on where I’m going, I’m not tossing a few thousand dollars into a hole.
We throw around hyperbole a lot these days. You were RESCUED! It’s a MIRACLE you survived! You have ANGELS! And I bristle at the exaggerations. But it is mostly true. It’s a miracle my dogs got sprung from closed windows and disappeared for days and were found. It was incredible that I walked away, literally. And although it doesn’t look or feel like the kind of rescue I’ve been brainwashed to think matters, I was brought to safety and housed by strangers in a country, not my own.
In the coming months I would start walking around this ugly forgotten town and offer water, food and tick pulling to dozens of limping and forgotten dogs. I would use the car money to spay and neuter and to bring in a vet from another town to help me.
It’s easy to forget looking at Matteo the Cattle Dog today that he was bumping into cars and trying to find my gate to eat when I found him with glued shut eyeballs. Infection? Actual glue? Blind? Missing eyeballs? Fur falling out everywhere. I didn’t think he’d make it.
But he did.
When I got a ride to the ATM machine yesterday in a big old van with a broken windshield sitting on a pile of leaves (there are no taxis or Uber here) Mattie jumped through the window so we didn’t leave him behind. The carne asada guy is my unlikely chauffeur on occasion when I can hitch a ride and he is a rare soul in town who likes dogs so he laughed and helped Mattie inside. Mattie has never seen me get in a car in the three years he’s been at the sanctuary and so he made a decision.
You’re not leaving without me.
My mom has long passed, it’s been a decade already. I laugh thinking about how this is, quite possibly, the Encore I was asked about.
May you all find peace and joy where you can this holiday season and thanks for reading. More info about the shelter at linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue