"What do you do to be present?"

This is the question a friend asked today.

I felt a little angry when she asked and she might have noticed a change in my face because she quickly added, "I'm asking myself this question, too. And I don't know if I have an answer."

I told her how I'd been walking the dogs. We have an older dog and a young dog. The older dog likes to spend a lot of time smelling things. She wanders, nose to ground, inhaling the world. She thinks about peeing. She decides it might be better to pee a little further down the way. She takes a few steps and she ponders whether this might be the spot, decides "no" and moves on.  The little dog rushes forward. He pees on everything, walking on three legs, holding the third aloft to let the stream fly. He's all about moving on.

The older dog is on one wrist and the young dog on the other and I, stand on the parkway arms stretched out like a scarecrow. This can be frustrating.

A few mornings ago, I was standing there, arms pulling out of their sockets, being pulled forward and back and making no movement at all, and I felt really angry. I was impatient to get on with my walk and, after that, the big list of things I had to do that day (order khaki school uniform shorts, return the last batch of khaki school uniform shorts, buy toilet paper, find the little plastic back to the television remote, clean out the fridge. I had a novel chapter to write and that scrapbook from 2013 to finish... there is always something.)

In the middle of my impatience, I noticed this pink cloud. It was small and the color of abalone shell. Beautiful. I noticed a batch of the tiniest mushrooms sprouting out of the lawn in front of a grey stone house. I noticed the way the Magnolia roots look like the knees of elephants lifting out of the ground. I realized I hadn't been looking at the world. This whole, lovely summer of heat and strange humid air has passed in a blur. I've been like the young dog, running on three legs, barely attending to my own needs before I zip ahead to the next destination.

I made a plan then: let the older dog lead the way. As soon as I made the plan, my irritation evaporated. She snuffled around in the grass and I stared at the sky, the leaves, the flowering trees. Flocks of parakeets squawked overhead and a radio played classical music in a kitchen above the street.

This is what I'm doing to be present. When pulled between two forces (I've got two dogs and two kids, so there's plenty of options,) I'm going to try to go with the slower one. Let's take our time, see a thing or two along the way.

I cooked dinner tonight. I looked to my old friend Yotam Ottolenghi for an answer to the cauliflower in my veggie drawer. I chopped some beautiful tomatoes, scooped sunshine that is turmeric from the jar and made a meal for my family. It was bright and quiet in the kitchen and I took my time.

The book is coming!

It's been ages since I've written here (or anywhere for that matter) and strangely, the reason for that is that I wrote a book.  Once you've written a book, it seems that all writing stops while you figure out how in the heck to get folks to read that book.  To that end, I've been making lists and calling friends and generally asking a lot of questions and forcing myself to emerge from the cozy, little hermit house where I feel most comfortable. 

Yes, it's scary. 

But it's worth it.

I love my book.  I worked my head off to get my book to look and feel like a book.  A lot of kind, smart, generous people helped in this process and I owe it to them and to me and to my book to get it out there. 

To that end, I ask that if you're visiting this page, why not FOLLOW it?
And if you already follow it, encourage your pals to follow it too.

You can click on this link to get a gander at the fancy book cover and read some of the nice things people have already said about "Leaving Tinkertown."

Thank you.  I say this a lot.  And I will continue to say it.  Thank you.

So Long, Big Dog

I remember the day my brother brought the little dog home.

"Here," he said, "Look what we got."

He lowered a squirming, velvety black puppy into my sister-in-law's arms.

"What did you do?" she asked.  But she was smiling.

It is hard not to smile in the face of my brother's delight.  He is, like our father was, prone to extreme exuberance.  As I am.

"It's always a surprise being married to a Ward," my sister-in-law said once.
"You can say that again," agreed my husband.

We are exuberant and excitable.  Our emotions run high and hot and wet.  I say this for my own self, because I don't like to speak for my brother: I sometimes don't think things all the way through.  I love a good surprise.  I love to get a reaction, but on occasion I dismiss the long term effects of this need.

My father sometimes traded work for old wagon wheels or a batch of antique ice tongs.  He'd drive up to our house with a pile of deer antlers tied to the roof of his truck and step out grinning.

"Check that," he'd say.

My mother might have wondered where the grocery money was going to come from, but she couldn't deny the simple fact of his pleasure.

My brother's little black puppy grew into a big, black lab.  Edgar, in true Ward fashion, found the wonder in his world.  He chased flashlight "fairies" and soap bubbles and wanted little more than a good belly rub and fine friends.

He will be missed, this big dog.  But he is in good company.

Help From the Afterlife

My mom wrote today to say she'd seen a coyote drinking from her pond.
"The trickster," she called him and found some meaning in his presence.  To her, he is my father -- gone but still returning on this day to say a little hello.  Dad had a kind of sly smile, a wave that said he was coming and going at the same time, so maybe a coyote is the right kind of body for him to wear on his return.  At least it is for my mother.  I think she saw a coyote on this day last year and for at least a handful of the other years between now and when my dad was still on this earth.  Over a decade in New Mexico, coyotes are always possible.  On any day.

My stepmother often sees a hawk. These big birds circle over her on this day, though my father was afraid of birds.  He might choose to return in this guise, might want to take weightless flight for a spin.  A hawk is what my stepmother sees.

Once we found a beer bottle where there shouldn't have been a beer bottle.  More than once, we heard circus music like a distant parade.  On this day in the last ten years, we have lifted glasses in toasts and eaten green chile cheeseburgers.  We have driven to the desert.  We do these things to find him, to miss him, to be near what he liked.

Today I saw a butterfly, a hummingbird, I saw the curve in my own thumb when I rested my hand on the steering wheel.  I saw the way the hair grows at the base of my son's neck, the way my daughter can't help but pick up a bottle cap, a rock, a cardboard box.

Our dryer rattles with stones fallen from pockets.  These stones are weighted with memory for me, with possibility for my children.

Today our family is out in the world, looking up at blue skies and hawks, greeting coyotes with a smile.  We are eating and drinking and breathing with gratitude for our shared time.

"Give it a little juice," he used to say. "That's the stuff."

And we are.

The help from the afterlife is the way we remember and connect and continue to travel through this world.

The help from the afterlife is the nudge that urges us to look up and out and within.  We try new things and try to be a little more and a little less like ourselves.  Coyote, hawk, butterfly, hummingbird, blue sky, beer drinker -- all of us carrying on.

Radar Ward, a Chihuahua whippet mix of unknown origin passed away on September 15, 2011.  Born in 1996 in the wilds of Albuquerque’s North Valley, he spent his formative years wandering solo until a potent combination of fate, luck and horse sense brought him to the Ward family.   

The small white dog, dubbed “Radar” in tribute to his outsize ears became the immediate friend and muse to artist Ross Ward.  The inseparable buddies spent many happy hours sun bathing, catnapping and perfecting the mid-air tennis ball catch.  Proclaimed “best dog in the world,” Radar became the subject of a series of late career paintings by the artist where he was depicted as a bright spirit of hope and once as The Pope, himself.

Radar’s dedication to the creative genius only deepened as Ward battled Alzheimer’s disease.  Whether sharing a table, a bed or a particularly warm patch of sun, Radar rarely left Ross’ side and seemed to share a freeflowing path of communication with the artist long after words had been lost.

With a bouncing step and a jingling collar, Radar brought great joy and comfort to Ward and the many other residents of the Manor Care Alzheimer’s wing. 

After Ward’s death in 2002, Radar continued to live with Carla Ward in Sandia Park, as Mayor of Tinkertown Museum.  After a full season of meeting and greeting visitors from all over the country, Radar spent winters relaxing in Phoenix, Arizona.  Vacationing in the shadow of Camelback Mountain, Radar developed a taste for organic chicken and long hikes in the desert.

During his tenure as Tinkertown Mayor, Radar was the inspiration and star of the picture book "Emily Finds a Dog," written by Carla Ward and illustrated by Megan Ward.

Radar is survived by feline friends Franny and Zooey, devoted humans Carla Ward and Eric Rasmussen and legions of loving fans.  This best dog will be greatly missed.

Happy father's day. Found myself telling lots of stories today. Wondering if my son was old enough to whittle. What my dad used to call "parking lot pine" is good whittling wood and the name made my son say, "what the ( mouthed hell) is that?" He giggled hysterically over the silent swear word and my non-reaction to it. I'm hard to shock and part of that is thanks to my Dad and that makes me a good Mom and for that (and a million other reasons) I am grateful to my Pop. I miss him still.

My own husband, the father we celebrated today, is a good man in more than name. He deserves a day all to himself. All parents do. More than one.

Happy birthday, Dad.

I spent today doing mostly things I love.  I wrote some and walked in the bright spring sun.  I tickled the kids and made up silly songs.  My daughter and I had a sword fight with cooking tongs and socks and my son laughed the high cackly laugh that lights me up like a string of Christmas lights.

It was a great day.