Friday, May 7, 2010

Blast from the Past: Dogs and Writers

This is actually excerpted from an article I wrote back in 2005, when I was arts editor of the University of Southern Maine Free Press. I was in grad school for Creative Writing at the time, living in an apartment in a bad part of town with my sweet, now dearly departed old Moonshadow. Though my process is a little different with two pups, the sentiment remains the same, and it seems a fitting ode to dear Moon.

It starts out the way any of my writing starts out: I'm pacing the apartment, music blaring, talking to myself, while my giant, nine-year-old mutt Moonshadow looks on. The big dilemma this time out? What's a suitable topic for Lifestyle this issue, since your favorite columnist and mine, Miranda, is taking a well-deserved week off?

Lying on her side, sprawled half-on and half-off of her dog bed, Moon watches me pace. Gauging her reaction, I list possible topics.

"Being an arts editor."

She doesn't blink. She's right: too dull, and far too self-serving. What else do I know?

"Writing."

Moon averts her eyes, clearly pained at the thought.

"The decay of the English language. The decline of education in the face of standardized testing?"

Moon yawns. I've lost her. And then it strikes me: This is my column. Moon, and writing. Writers and dogs.

I shoot off a casual e-mail to my mentor, Lewis Robinson. Lewis has recently rescued Maggie, a sweet old Australian shepherd mix, and so I ask him: How has Maggie changed your routine? Does she help or hinder your writing? Within the hour, I get my response:

"I have to take (Maggie) out four times a day, and while the walks I take her on are endlessly fascinating for her... for me, they're really boring. But it's good for a writer to trudge around. Staring at square after square of sidewalk pavement forces you to clear your head."

Lewis refers me to someone else who might be helpful. Intrigued at his timely and insightful response, I send off another e-mail, this one to all the writers I know. Responses begin coming back almost immediately; some are just one line, some are lengthy diatribes, some are stories, some are poems. Lyman Feero, currently in his second semester of the Creative Writing MFA, writes of a dog that he once had named Grizzly: "Writing is a very solitary business and Griz kept me company... I could always count on him to just sit there and listen as I ran over some plot point or other."

Moon shares similar responsibilities. When I read aloud, she is generally at my feet, listening until I'm finished. She's well-accustomed to my pacing, to the random bursts of music when I'm stumped, to the frenetic schedule and the similarly-minded writer friends who come around. And as for my responsibilities to Moon, the few that there are must be stringently upheld. While Lewis and Maggie have four walks a day, Moon and I are just fine with two - one late in the morning, one in the early evening.

The morning walk is a casual affair, but the evening walk is serious bonding time. It's also the time when I've come up with some of my best story ideas. Every night, no matter what ungodly temperature it might be, Moon and I patrol the neighborhood. When the weather is particularly brutal, I make up scenarios to keep things interesting: I'm a Russian spy, Moon is my tracking hound; I'm a zoologist, Moon's my grizzly bear; the list goes on. Those walks connect me not to the mechanics of being a writer, the act of sitting down in front of a blank computer screen in search of the words, but rather to the essence of what drew me to writing in the first place. They are about imagination, and play, and remembrance that every corner is worth sniffing, every snowbank is there just for the roly-poly pleasure of fresh powder.

So, what is it about writers and dogs that seem innately compatible? From Ernest Hemingway to Alice Walker, there are essays and stories about the ways dogs ground us, reminding us of the need for balance. If writing is, as is often suggested, a quest for meaning and significance in the universe, dogs remind us that there can be meaning, and there can be significance - but there must also be naps and snacks and rolling in the snow.