cosmiComedy
by lavinia plonka

This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you—all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a grain of dust.
-Nietzsche

I live in a loop. Or if you want to be poetic, my life is concrete proof of Nietzche’s theories of “recurrence.” When I try to read Nietzche I get cross-eyed and drift into reveries about whether I should plant a fall garden or clean the cat litter. But someone smarter than me explained that Nietzche had this idea that we just keep repeating the same thing in our lives over and over. Who ever thought existential angst would include realizing your life is a re-run? It’s not even about getting it right—it’s just the leit motif or theme of your life. This idea has recently collided for me with a Sufi, or maybe it’s a Tibetan saying, “When you live in the present, you repair the past and prepare the future.” All this has occurred because of a dog: a Jack Russell puppy named Prince.

Since I was 15, I’ve assiduously avoided dogs. Yet no matter where I am (or what I’m wearing, although they seem to prefer white), the second a dog sees me, it is hell bent on bounding towards me and jumping on me, covering me with sloppy kisses, and in the case of big dogs, knocking me down and loving me till their embarrassed owner pulls them off murmuring apologies like “Brutus has never….” Or “Gosh, Fido isn’t usually….”

Until Prince, I assumed that dogs felt my dislike and just wanted to torture me. But now, after 37 years, I understand that these were all attempts to repair the canine reputation with overcompensation. And Prince is showing me that you must accept your fate, because it is your teacher.

When I was growing up, my father used to try to bolster our poverty- stricken morale by reminding us that we are not like other Americans. “Just remember kid, you come from royalty! Your great grandfather was a baron in the Austro-Hungarian empire!” I would sport my thrift store clothes haughtily, knowing that we might be cash poor, but my blood was blue. Until of course someone scoffed and said, “Yeah, right, every Polack is a count, haven’t you heard that expression?” Although my father insists to this day that his grandfather was a baron, I have yet to track down that particular genealogical record.

One day in 1967, I came home and in the middle of the kitchen stood a large, menacing German Shepherd. As I entered the house, he bared his teeth and growled. My father appeared, a little sheepishly, behind him. “Meet Baron, our new dog! He’s a 100% pure bred German Shepherd!” Baron snarled and his teeth gave a little snap in my direction. I jumped back. “Heh, heh,” Dad giggled nervously, “He’s a little jumpy.”

“Gosh, Dad, how much did he cost?”

“Hah! I got a good deal! He was free!”

“Free? Who would give a German Shepherd away for free?”

“Well….um….the police department. They felt he was too…..sensitive.” Baron is circling me now, pushing me slowly towards the closet. How did he know that was the place I had spent many a childhood hour sobbing Hail Mary’s for forgiveness? Suddenly, it seemed like a place of refuge.

Baron wanted to not just be treated like royalty. He wanted to rule the family. When Baron wanted to sit on the couch and watch TV, we had to get off. When Baron wanted dinner at the table, we had better share our pot roast. And if he decided he liked you, he leapt into your lap, all 75 pounds of him, while you held your breath, your shaking hand stroking him as you said, “Nice Baron, good Baron, I’m so lucky.” Eventually Dad decided, “Enough is enough! He’s going outside! “ He built a huge pen alongside the garage.

But Baron was not happy with this small domain. He wanted to rule the neighborhood. He would leap the fence and maraud, enslaving lesser dogs and attacking the rest. My father created a chain and cable run so that Baron would stay fenced but still able to run. Back and forth, back and forth, Baron would run, wearing a groove into the earth, barking and snapping at anything that moved. One day, his rage prevailed and he snapped the chain, attacking a local poodle who hauled my beleaguered parents to court.

There’s a Persian folk tale about a simple man who goes to market and unwittingly buys a bushel of hot red peppers for a penny. When he begins to eat them, they burn like mad, his face turns red, his eyes tear, but he doesn’t stop eating them. When asked why, he says, “I paid for them and so I’m going to eat every last one!” To this day, my father calls himself the man with the red peppers.

Every night at 6 o clock, the fire siren would go off and it was time for someone in the family to go out and feed Baron. One by one family members were attacked as they gingerly entered the pen to set down the plate of dog food. “Heeeere you go, Ba Ba Ba Baron. Good dog.” You’d slam the fence door shut just as he would leap in the air to attack you. Finally, I was the only one left that he hadn’t tried to bite. One night as I stood up from depositing his plate, he soared through the air, his teeth grabbed my jacket and tore the entire front off my body. Shaking, I entered the house, holding the remnants of my coat. Everyone’s mouths dropped open. I still remember the bean that fell out of my sister’s mouth. “Heh, heh, well, I guess that’s it, then. I guess Baron has to go,” my Dad quavered.

Needless to say, this experience soured my potential affection for dogs, and I remain a cat person to this day. Cats are low maintenance, aloof and not easily provoked. Plus they stay small. And I put the world of dogs out of my mind.

I should have seen the red flags when my husband, shortly before our marriage 25 years ago, informed me that as a child, his nickname was “The Prince.” Naively thinking it had something to do with a story he cherished called The Little Prince, I married into another concept of royalty. But that’s another tale for after his eyesight goes and he stops reading this newspaper. Suffice it to say that Ron likes to be taken care of, and feels a deep kinship with Peter Pan.

So when the artist formerly known as Prince informed me that he had fallen in love with a puppy named Prince, and that this was a cosmic sign (in Asheville only two years and he’s reading cosmic signs, good lord), I could only sigh and say, “Just remember, he’s YOUR dog. And when he’s 15, you’ll be 80.”

Prince, whose name is only in symbols when I find poop on the rug, sits when I tell him to. We play jump, tag, fight over the toy. We roll around on the floor. I actually heard myself tell somebody the other day, “He’s like Ron. He teaches me to play.” He licks my feet when I come in the door. When he grabs my pants and tries to tear them, he makes me laugh. He falls on the floor exposing his spotted little belly. I talk in a goo-goo voice, the kind of voice that used to make my skin crawl when I heard other people talk to puppies. I wander around the pet supply store pondering squeaky toys. When I pull my pants out of the washing machine, laundered treats spill out my pockets. And the other day in class, when one of my students accomplished a particularly difficult move, I almost said, “Gooood girl! You’re so smart! Here’s a treat.” I literally had to swallow my words.

Prince is teaching me what all those barking, jumping, slobbering dogs have been trying to get through my thick skull. It’s about love! Pure and simple—love me, I’ll love you back. Give us another chance. Not all of us are Barons. And now I know, because I live with two Princes. My shattered dog memories are being repaired as I leap in the joy of the present moment. And the future I’m preparing for? I’m thinking about a dog frisbee.

 

When not teaching new dogs old tricks, Lavinia teaches humans how to move more easily and live more functionally through The Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education. [ laviniaplonka.com ]

PRINCE ~ PHOTO BY RON MORECRAFT, PRINCE'S DADDY