Really this blog post could be just one giant question mark, because no matter how long or often I contemplate this mystery, it never seems to get less opaque and unsolvable to me.
In a previous blog post, my dog gave me some advice on a matter of the heart. He even followed up a few days later, enquiring solicitously about my progress. I think he fancies himself as an undersized fluffy off-white therapist now. The thing is, his advice is sound and he’s almost always right. This makes me a little crazy.
We were driving up Pine Mountain to go for a hike and I told him I had thrown down the gauntlet, after my fashion. Buddy asked me to explain.
That was your gauntlet? He said when I had finished. That doesn’t sound like a gauntlet to me.
It’s a metaphor, I said. It means -
I know what it means, Buddy said patiently. But a gauntlet? You throw it down in front of the other person. You say, here’s my challenge! What do you think of it? In relationship terms, that would mean you said hey, I really want to hang out with you for a variety of reasons, principal among them being that I like you. Do you feel the same way about me? Or are we just going to pretend this is some vague getting together of friends for a bland mutually enjoyable activity?
There was silence in the car. I looked defensively ahead, quietly wishing I was just going for a solo drive, without ever having offered to take my stupid dog for a walk. Bland mutually enjoyable activity? Who did he think he was anyway?
But of course, he was right. My gauntlet was still lying in the dust somewhere, having been completely missed by the person I thought I had quite obviously thrown it down before. We had engaged in a mutually enjoyable activity and gone our separate ways. I wanted my gauntlet back! Buddy suggested we drive out there and retrieve it after our hike and some treats and snacks and a nap.
It’s okay, I said. It really is just a metaphor. And anyway, it failed in its objective. Which is fine. I mean, it wasn’t like the whole thing was...I trailed off.
More of a big deal than anyone could imagine? Buddy finished gently. He even reached down onto the floor of my car and came back up with a tissue stuck to his wet nose from the box I store there for emergency crying events.
Oh PLEASE, I said, laughing in spite of myself. How did you even...That’s just weird. But yes. What you said.
Buddy nodded. Or maybe he was just trying to get the wet tissue off his nose. Then he sort of sneezed a couple of times, which confirmed to me that the tissue thing had been a mistake for him. I reached over and detached the tissue.
Thank you, he said. So it didn’t really work. The gauntlet.
No, I said. And that is because it is not really meant to be. So can we just focus on our hike and the snacks and nap thing?
Buddy looked contemplatively out the windshield at the road ahead.
You’re an optimist, right?
Hopeless.
So nothing’s ever over till it’s really over?
Where are you going with this, small white rescue dog of mine?
He did that thing fluffy dogs do where they bite their own paws, suddenly and savagely, as though they have just been attacked by killer bees. Then he resumed his contemplative stare ahead, as though nothing had happened. I don’t think you should give up, he said.
There was a heavy silence in the car. We had reached the pullout at the fifth of the Seven Sisters, and I had cut the engine. The sun was hanging low and pendulous over the ocean, spreading its heavy purplish-orange wash of colors across the sky and throwing the land into a relief of dark greens and black. It was dusk, and the possibilities of life and love and time, you could almost reach out and touch them in the light that was fading over the ocean. You could almost watch your dreams slipping down into the horizon in a last flash of green.
Don’t give up, Buddy repeated, so quietly I wasn’t sure I even heard him right.
I reached into the back seat for his leash and harness. The minimalist tail wag he had been doing turned into a full body wag. He had to go stick his head out the car window he was so temporarily insane with happiness. We were going hiking! It was this lust for life, this innocent joie de vivre that somehow made me trust him all the more on the advice about my non-starter love life. I mean, if you can’t rely on your rescue mutt for direction, then where can you turn? I slipped his harness on, but I didn’t make him go on leash. We headed out through the tall dry sage-smelling grasses and a million burrs instantly got stuck to his fur and he looked back at me with his silly-happy dog grin and I realized that yes, my 17-pound rescue mutt was right. Until it was clear that all hope was undeniably and irretrievably lost, there was no way I should be giving up on the possibility of love.
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