Up, down and all over
Some summer moments, by bike and boat, and in the midst of transitions.
A group of people — a toddler and two school-age children, their parents, another young couple — have surrounded the two especially big, hairy dogs attached to leashes held by their owners. They all want to pet the fluffy creatures and clearly these canines are used to the attention; they’re patient and friendly toward the people who rub their backs and pat their heads.
I look up from my book and watch the patio scene from my spot at a picnic table a few steps away. But something else comes into view, in my periphery. I swing my gaze to the right, where behind this small crowd of dog lovers I see a tiny puffball of an animal, cradled in the arms of a woman standing next to a two-top near the restaurant’s open garage-door entrance.
I can tell from a distance: she’s holding a puppy. A long-haired dachshund puppy the color of a s’more.
I return to my book and continue eating my nearly finished food truck lunch of chicken quesadillas and street corn. But soon enough, I am looking back toward the puppy I’ve decided I need to go see.
I place my book into my backpack, zip it up and begin walking toward the table, dropping my cardboard lunch plate and utensils at the recycle/trash bins on the way. A second woman is seated at the table and is now holding the squirming puppy.
What begins with me saying hello and asking if the puppy is in fact a dachshund — “Yes, I think so? She is my friend’s puppy, she just went to get a drink” — turns into one of those unexpected and delightful conversations with strangers. I end up sitting at the table.
“Can I hold her?” I ask after a few minutes.
The black-and-tan puppy is angora soft and super small, a mini-dachshund like our own two. “Can you believe how tiny she is?” the woman says to me as she gives me the bundle of fur that fits perfectly in the open palms of her hands.
The puppy — her name is Rennie Taylor, the middle name a nod to the owner’s older, much larger dog that recently passed — curls up like a croissant on my bare thighs. She closes her damp eyes, falls asleep. Her tummy rises and falls beneath the smallest of harnesses. I’m smitten.
“She must know you are a dachshund owner,” the woman says, smiling at the tiny bread loaf on my lap. “She wasn’t that comfortable when I was holding her. You have the touch.”
Soon enough, the other woman returns, holding a pint of golden ale that shimmers in the late-afternoon sun. She sits with us and I learn more about the 8-week-old puppy and how she likes to sleep at night in the crook of her owner’s neck. I also learn that these two friends, in their 60s and also Traverse City residents, have known each other since grade school.
“I was thinking about it the other day — we’ve been friends for almost six decades!” one says to the other, and I can feel their affection for each other and their long shared history.
I stay for a few moments longer, slowly running my hand over Rennie’s backside and thumbing her velvet ears while talking with the women about the joy and heartbreak of having pets, lifelong friendships, the beautiful day. I thank them for the chance to hold this sweet puppy, and the conversation, and then I head to my waiting bike and begin to pedal toward home.
Fueled by lunch and connection, I zip through leafy neighborhoods to reach my city’s in-town paved trail that will take me to the east side and the massive hill I’ll need to climb to reach our house.
Sometimes, when any of us are feeling less than enthused about tackling this hill that’s a little over a mile in length, we’ll call or text and ask for a ride. “Pick me up at Walgreen’s, please?” we’ll say, referencing the carpool lot at the bottom of the hill next to the store.
It crosses my mind that this could be an option since I am pretty sure Alex is at home. And it is very warm and humid. But I also know I can do this, that I should do this. That saying — there will come a day when I can’t do this, but today is not that day — runs through my head.
So I climb. Slowly, steadily, stopping to sip my water at the ski hill halfway up. And an idea begins to form: I am planning to stop by my dad’s, to bring him some soup I’d made the night before, and how delicious would a dip in the lake feel? The decision is made, and soon after making it — finally — to the flat roadway lined with pines, around the final big curve and up one final hilly stretch to our driveway, I quickly throw on my bathing suit.
Summer is beginning to speed up, as it does after the Fourth, but I’ve also caught myself at times thinking, it’s only June 24. It’s not yet July. We still have a lot of July left. There’s always August.
We’ve had a few bigger family things happening, including helping Emma move into a new place in Grand Rapids, a house she’s sharing with two friends for their final year of med school, taking Alex north for his three-day orientation at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, and celebrating Emma and Andrew’s one-day-apart birthdays at the end of last month.
In between these things, and during this next month or so before family stuff ramps up again — notably helping Alex pack up and move north for his first year at NMU in late August, seeing Emma off for a monthlong medical rotation in Brooklyn, NY — I’m doing my best to be outdoors as much as possible.
This means also finding motivation to keep moving while outside, whether that is pushing myself to ride my bike instead of drive my car, get on the trails for a run/walk, even when it’s sticky-hot and I know I’ll be a sweat-drenched mess as a result (I remind myself: I do in fact feel grateful for the cleansing feeling I experience having gotten out there), or pulling down my stand-up paddleboard and doing more than simply sipping a cold drink when I’m on the water.
Speaking of which, we’re making the most of any gorgeous weather day by getting out on our pontoon boat that stays at my dad’s place on a lake a few miles from our house. (A boat update: after five years of renting for a few days each summer, we decided to find a used pontoon we could use all summer long. As I wrote a couple of summers ago, I have become a boat girl.)
Interestingly, having a boat at this stage of life has also revealed just how much parenting has changed for us — and continues to evolve seemingly on a daily basis. While our kids have been on the boat at times, it’s more often Joe and I, and sometimes our dogs, enjoying the time together on the water.
“You’re childfree!” a friend commented when I posted a few photos of Joe, my dad and me on the boat one evening last week, listening to a live music event that happens every July 3 on Spider Lake.
I’m holding both sides of this within me: the wonder (and gratitude) that we’re doing these kinds of activities now without young kids or even teenagers, and also the stones-on-my-chest feeling that shows up sometimes when I think about being past this stage.
In the midst of all this summer stuff, there’s also a lot of swirling thoughts in my head — thoughts that I’ll likely attempt to explore here in this community. Things like:
What does “home” look like when your kids do grow up and leave? More specifically, does it look like staying in the house you’ve lived in and where you’ve built your family for 20 years? Or does it look like something else entirely, like selling and downsizing or renting out your home and RV’ing or … staying and seeing what may unfold here? We’re not anywhere near retiring (whatever that might mean these days) but we are having some conversations around home and what the next few years could look like.
My growing appreciation for connection (with strangers, like the ones I met and talked about earlier in this newsletter, and with new and old friends) and what I want that to actually look like in this next phase of my life.
My ambition — with the professional work I do, with the growing want to give back in meaningful ways, with my desire to keep moving my body (should I get back into racing more, with triathlons?).
Are you having similar thoughts as these? Or other life transition thoughts? Any advice for me? 🙂
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Upcoming:
I’ll be sharing another issue of Things to Love, my occasional list of writing, podcasts, TV shows and films that I enjoy and think you’ll like, too. I’ll also give you all a behind-the-scenes look at my book/running talk I was part of in Grand Haven last month.
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More soon,
Heather
XO
I love reading your posts Heather. I read many things on The Stack (Substack) that are politically based. I love reading what you write about because it is a break from the craziness of our world and gives me a sense to step back and take a deep breath!
I am a collector of quotes. This one will be added to my collection. "There will come a day when I can’t do this, but today is not that day." It reminds me not to wait, but to do it when I can. Thank for this. The importance of movement is vital for mental health. I am riding my bike a lot these days and this helps me to keep moving! Blessings to you :)
I am like you! I love to pet and hold stranger’s dogs. How nice you could share in the beauty of their friendship!
My running partner and I always say, “We get to go this!” Even when it is hard, we are thirsty or tired, we push each other to do the work. We are given this one life and we need to make the most of it. On that note, spending that time with your father is priceless.
If I start to talk about my college son and how little I see him, on my soon to be high school senior, I will be in tears. I love the people they are becoming but it also makes me so sad that I am not needed (except for laundry and food) and they are with friends and girl friends. I am not a priority. I feel a lot of the same tho ha you’re feeling.
We moms need to stick together and support one another. It’s all going to be all right. ❤️