On Friday morning we awoke to snow, a sweet surprise. I pulled myself out of bed but kept quiet to let Anthony sleep, because I knew he’d struggled all night to get any rest, thanks to a bad head cold. I was struggling myself, but at least I had slept. I quickly pulled on leggings and socks. After the excitement of the day’s first greeting, Henley and I climbed the stairs to the outside.
Henley is my parents’ dog, and for a few days he is in our charge while they visit my sister’s family way down south. (I have one sister down south, and another sister way down south.) It is more of a delight than a chore to take care of Henley, because he and I have always been great friends.
In fact, I am the one who bought Henley for my own seven years ago, right before my freshman year of college. He came from an Amish farm, and he was the smallest of the litter and the only brown puppy. Secretly, I believed he might have been a random stray that they threw in, just so they could get rid of him easier. “He looks different, doesn’t he,” the Amish man said when I pointed out which one I liked best. How different, we’ll never know, but I easily made my choice. He was brought home and thereafter initiated into the family as the first Inside Dog we had ever had. This hadn’t exactly been the plan, but it was hard to resist. He was such a cuddle bug. I named him Henley after Don Henley of The Eagles, and from then on he became a significant character in our lives.
Henley went with me many places in our first year. He came to dance class, friends’ houses, and he stubbornly remained an Inside Dog who slept on the couch even after he wasn’t so tiny anymore. He learned to shake and always used his left paw to do so. His fault became noticeably that he disliked small children, and he howled whenever my sister practiced her violin.
This is beginning to sound like an epitath, but Henley is yet alive and well. In fact, he’s sitting beside me, on our couch this time, because his charms are still as strong as they ever were and I am unable, still, to resist them.
In his second year, I deserted Henley, and I justified it because I was going to college. He became my mom’s dog and latched onto her with a fervor you don’t want to mess with. Henley was kind enough ro visit me at college, but he didn’t care for the 120-pound Great Pyrenees and was generally overwhelmed by the dozens of chickens, ducks, and guinea hens that lived around my landlord’s yard.
A lot of ties were broken during the two years I spent studying at college. I wasn’t really studying very hard. I spent most of the time feeding calves, going to parties (not the kind you’re thinking), working for farmers in exchange for produce, and playing open mic nights. Though I missed my family, along with my beloved puppy (who wasn’t so much of a puppy anymore), I had claimed a new little town as my home. From that touchstone I made travel plans, first to Alaska. Henley, needless to say, would not be coming with me.
I never made it to Alaska, but by this time the chips had fallen and landed. Henley was no longer my dog, though he remained my good friend. He, like my parents, would always welcome me warmly back into their home. After college was over I entered into a time of semi-meditated exploration, and after Alaska didn’t work out, somehow Ohio became the second choice. And then I married, and now I live here.
In this era, I think a lot of us live uprooted lives. Compared to centuries ago, moving is actually pretty easy, and it can be difficult to feel content in one place because of how easily you can change your circumstances. When I uprooted from the Great White North and came to the Midwest I was surprised at how many people I met who are not “from here.” In those first few months, when conversations often began with “where are you from?”, I realized it was not so much that people could tell I was a transplant, but because so many people here are transplants themselves. So many of our friends here are “from” someplace else. Everyone has their reasons, and while it often makes me sad, I of all people should respect the decision to pull up your roots from one place and make the decision to begin tenderly coaxing forth new growth in another.
And yes, I do have friends here. Good friends. After almost three years, I am beginning to feel the comfort of having a history in this new home, however simple and brief so far. That history includes the many interesting people I have met along the way, from the attorneys I work with in high-rise buildings to the ladies at the library, who know that we’re currently blazing our way through The Office. Beyond those casual interactions, I really have been blessed with some real, true friends — new friends.
However, as we all know, there’s nothing like old friends. Having Henley here with us for these last several days has reminded me of this.
Old friends are hard to come by — in fact, you can’t come by them. They have to be cultivated, aged, like fine wine or cheese. You have to invest in them, and that is sometimes difficult and painful, but always worth it. I am so fortunate to have old friends, but mostly these days we communicate by letter, text, or phone call, as they all live too far away for a joint trip to the grocery store or a last-minute dinner invitation or bonfire. This is a sadness to me, but the exciting thing is that if I am able to make new friends, they might one day become old ones.
Henley and I have walked around the woods and along the fields, and I’ve gotten to tell him, this is where I live now. He has formed a deep, almost worshipful attachment to my husband, which really makes me giggle. Having Henley visit this particular weekend, while Anthony and I found ourselvces fighting bad colds, turned out to be perfect timing indeed. Not only did he insist on getting me outside several times a day, his presence served as a comfort and source of amusement while we were stuck on the couch (all three of us.)
“Why did you do all this for me?” he asked. “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.” “You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing.”
E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web
Threshing Floor Kitchen 