OG Clyde
Clyde was from Colorado.
I wonder how many of you actually know that?
Just days after Gatsby died in a snowbank in my arms (I really thought I'd have Gatsby forever, until I got Clyde), like maybe three days I think, Than showed up on my sister's doorstep in Provo, Utah with a weeks old black lab mix puppy he had adopted for me. It probably surprises no one else but me that when my very best dog (up until that moment he really was) died in my arms I sought refuge in Utah, but that is exactly what I did. I bolted from Steamboat Springs where I had been living with a gaggle of boys on the side of a snowy ski mountain and wailed into a pillow under the covers in her guest bedroom in the dark.
Until Than showed up to retrieve my heart and carry me back to me, back to Colorado ever so gently on the four paws of a black lab.
At another time in my life, another time when I felt that perhaps the Universe just wasn't actually hearing me, or I wasn't listening to what the Universe was saying is probably more the truth of the matter, I was on the precipice of abandoning my community in Santa Cruz, literally stepping into what may have been my last road trip on this planet (for all I know, honestly) to move myself to Boulder. Things just were that unhappy and sad and not good for me and I was certain that a geographical fix was going to be the perfect answer. That Clyde and I should call Boulder home.
A phone call, a last minute dream about furniture placement, changed all of that and instead of Boulder, we both ended up in a small cabin in the woods in Bonny Doon.
It is impossible to know what might have been.
I did live in Boulder, once. In a hobbit house. I also lived in Colorado Springs, quite by accident, for all the wrong reasons with all the wrong boys doing all the very wrong things.
That was before Clyde.
Clyde was from Colorado, but he never actually lived in Colorado with me.
He lived in all the other spaces and places. Until he decided that it was time to graduate and we all remember how he glowed, literally, and transformed and took his final breath and moved through me and and then…
Then there was Buddha. And Stella. The dogs that changed my whole world. Turned it from upside down to right side up even if I was uncertain that I had been living upside down to begin with, the dogs knew how to right my world and fix things that I never understood needed fixing.
They were superglue for my broken heart. Mending it with dog slobber and keeping me on this planet, right here, often when I was certain I was going to float away like small particles of dust. Those dogs. Both of them with separate and unique purposes. Those dogs. Forcing me to face all that I never knew I actually needed to be and should be in this world.
Buddha and Stella
Those dogs. Repairing me. Showing up for me and teaching me exactly how I need to show up for others in this world. If you’re not going to actually show up heart first, what is the point of showing up at all? If you’re not prepared to love like it’s your job, your only job, you might want to re-think why you’re choosing to love at all. These were the lessons those dogs, Buddha and Stella, taught me best over the last 14 years. We walked thousands of miles together and found ourselves, somehow, in Utah, the place where Clyde had found me and with my own heart and soul mended and love found, Buddha and Stella also graduated to their next grand adventure.
I will admit I didn’t believe I was ready. I am never ready. Not for that goodbye. Not to be the girl who lost both dogs. The dogs who taught me to love fiercely and first and with my heart bare and always ready to give. To give all the balls back and share all my sandwiches with whomever asked. The girl who would now always say yes because that's just what we do. We say yes because yes allows for all the possibilities.
I also wasn’t ready for what happened next. I am uncertain even the very best of us who love dogs the most would be ready for what happened next.
Clyde came back.
Clyde B.
Because of course he did.
I know it’s difficult to believe it. You’d have to be full of *woo* and understand a dog’s purpose. Their hearts and souls work in familiar yet mysterious ways. Sometimes we’re meant to travel together in life for specific work and lessons. Love lessons. Life lessons. Lessons only a dog can provide.
Clyde found me last Sunday. Just two days after Stella graduated. He has been on quite a raucous journey of only the kind CLYDE could ever have just to find his way to me. One that has included escapes and narrow misses and destruction of property and the insistence that he BELONGED with me.
My professor drove me 10 hours round trip to go retrieve Clyde on Friday. I can assure you that LOVE looks like the man who will drive me ten hours to retrieve the beautiful crazy puppy I insist is my reincarnated dog.
I know it all sounds preposterous. I also know what I absolutely know and what Clyde knows, as well.
We’re a team. We’ve always been the very best team.
I’m just so grateful that he’s home.
