For the first ten minutes, she sprints across the sage-covered grassy flats, free of the van and the leash. We are at Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah and have been on the road for two weeks—and my dog is free. I am too. She’s running and leaping as if she’s in a dog food commercial.
The morning felt redemptive as the sun took the chalk and red sandstone walls and fins, lit their sculpted faces, warmed ours, and broke the nighttime’s frost. But as we walk the dirt road, I glance to my right and see small Ruby driving right toward a full-sized adult cow. She rouses not just one cow but three or four more and starts pushing them toward the ranches on the edge of the park’s boundary.
We yell. I scream. I pound my thighs. “COME.” I run toward her. She moves them farther away more quickly. I watch her nip at their ankles. I halt. My nervous system starts shattering like tempered broken glass as the initial adrenaline rush hits a wall. PTSD has left me with little buffer, little reserve for new traumatic situations. What becomes clear is that if she’s not crushed or kicked to death by a cow, she’ll likely be targeted and shot by a rancher if she’s seen doing this. She’s lost to me. My fear chews the cord between us. If she dies, she dies. My heart freezes. I go numb.
My only tactic is to turn away and shout: “I’m leaving.” She gives up on her cattle and comes back to me, panting and pumped up.
For someone else, this may have been the denouement. For me, the story careens backward through time, triggering a break down as if you threw a deck of cards in the air and a sole bullet nailed each one in turn. My whole deck bled.
The deck: I lost my health. I lost my belongings. I lost my dream of being a professor. I lost my connection to my spouse. I lost a feeling that my world was mostly safe. I lost my sense of self. I lost my feeling of empowerment and agency. I/we lost friends—three to suicide. I lost years of opportunities for creativity, supplanted by being in survival mode for way too long. I repeatedly lost my mom and regained her but then she did die. I lost my sense of being just a daughter. I lost my humor. I lost my way. I lost my heart.
It’s dangerous to be attached. What you love can be killed, destroyed, maimed, stolen, ripped away from you.
* * * *
I had dropped my camera and Ruby’s leash out there on the sage plane so I could run more quickly. When we went back to look for them, the grassy open areas all looked the same. My eyes covered over with a film of anger, loss, tears, and coldness/flatness. I was shaking. I wanted to just leave and forget about the camera.
It took getting calm for me to see. I slowed way down. Breathed. Closed my eyes. I know these tools. Come on, Chris. This took what felt like a long time … and I feared getting crushed by another wave of some other kind of trauma … verbal shame/blame, et cetera.
I looked up and my Eagle Eyes told me to go to the left and walk forward. I did and there in the grass was a black arch—the leash and next to it my camera (my mom’s camera), containing 14 days of road trip photos and a bunch from the last two years of her life.
“If you fail, back up and try again.” My mom’s words spiral through my mind.
The Trauma Mind says, “stop trying”—goes into flight or fight mode. The Calm Mind says: “re-center, quiet, strengthen, re-build from the center out, increase support, and especially: feel your connection to others, to Earth, to your internal tools, to the Love that surrounds and holds and warms you.” {More than “Mind” is involved but hang with me here for now…}
The escalation of stress that can happen so quickly after tests results show the myeloma is getting worse and the current chemo regime is no longer working—after a loved one suffers another fracture and is in wrenching pain again—after a bill comes through that is thousands of dollars more than you expected—can drive you into a state of chronic trauma mixed with frazzled burn-out. I found myself sometimes detaching from my mom and icing my heart to survive the onslaught. You just can’t care about anything anymore. All you want is for it to end and for everyone to go away.
But those days I could face the stresses with calm, I saw. I lived. I saw her smile. I jammed with her to a song on the radio. We reminisced about something from my childhood. I learned a new story about her years growing up on the farm. We communicated more clearly. We stayed on the same team when going to a new doctor, instead of stressing each other out and sitting in a silent distance buried in our magazines.
I couldn’t avoid feeling stress over Ruby’s cattle herding misadventure just as I couldn’t avoid it while in the cancer journey with my mom. But how long it lasts and reverberates through my day and how many cards in the deck it nails are spaces where I have some choice: not letting so many cards out of the box when a new trauma happens; reframing past traumas; verbally talking myself through what did happen and how it was successfully resolved; replaying what I’ve been through but with a focus on the tools I’ve gained; et cetera.
And, then, dropping the drama as quickly as possible and finding ground in Calm clears my vision so I can see the world around me, not solely my fear. When I can see, I can connect, and when I connect I can love and receive love. When in that love, I feel part of a whole—the ancient ocean bed under my feet, the moon overhead, the red sandstone cliffs radiating the last of the day’s light, my mother’s intense and encompassing love, my ex-husband's calmness and friendship, and my lover’s dedication, tenderness, and vigor. It’s not dangerous to attach. It’s not life threatening to repair that cord to Ruby. It’s not weak to stop, to reach out, to feel my way through this, to double up the support, to use and also go get more tools. It’s my way home.
The morning felt redemptive as the sun took the chalk and red sandstone walls and fins, lit their sculpted faces, warmed ours, and broke the nighttime’s frost. But as we walk the dirt road, I glance to my right and see small Ruby driving right toward a full-sized adult cow. She rouses not just one cow but three or four more and starts pushing them toward the ranches on the edge of the park’s boundary.
We yell. I scream. I pound my thighs. “COME.” I run toward her. She moves them farther away more quickly. I watch her nip at their ankles. I halt. My nervous system starts shattering like tempered broken glass as the initial adrenaline rush hits a wall. PTSD has left me with little buffer, little reserve for new traumatic situations. What becomes clear is that if she’s not crushed or kicked to death by a cow, she’ll likely be targeted and shot by a rancher if she’s seen doing this. She’s lost to me. My fear chews the cord between us. If she dies, she dies. My heart freezes. I go numb.
My only tactic is to turn away and shout: “I’m leaving.” She gives up on her cattle and comes back to me, panting and pumped up.
For someone else, this may have been the denouement. For me, the story careens backward through time, triggering a break down as if you threw a deck of cards in the air and a sole bullet nailed each one in turn. My whole deck bled.
The deck: I lost my health. I lost my belongings. I lost my dream of being a professor. I lost my connection to my spouse. I lost a feeling that my world was mostly safe. I lost my sense of self. I lost my feeling of empowerment and agency. I/we lost friends—three to suicide. I lost years of opportunities for creativity, supplanted by being in survival mode for way too long. I repeatedly lost my mom and regained her but then she did die. I lost my sense of being just a daughter. I lost my humor. I lost my way. I lost my heart.
It’s dangerous to be attached. What you love can be killed, destroyed, maimed, stolen, ripped away from you.
* * * *
I had dropped my camera and Ruby’s leash out there on the sage plane so I could run more quickly. When we went back to look for them, the grassy open areas all looked the same. My eyes covered over with a film of anger, loss, tears, and coldness/flatness. I was shaking. I wanted to just leave and forget about the camera.
It took getting calm for me to see. I slowed way down. Breathed. Closed my eyes. I know these tools. Come on, Chris. This took what felt like a long time … and I feared getting crushed by another wave of some other kind of trauma … verbal shame/blame, et cetera.
I looked up and my Eagle Eyes told me to go to the left and walk forward. I did and there in the grass was a black arch—the leash and next to it my camera (my mom’s camera), containing 14 days of road trip photos and a bunch from the last two years of her life.
“If you fail, back up and try again.” My mom’s words spiral through my mind.
The Trauma Mind says, “stop trying”—goes into flight or fight mode. The Calm Mind says: “re-center, quiet, strengthen, re-build from the center out, increase support, and especially: feel your connection to others, to Earth, to your internal tools, to the Love that surrounds and holds and warms you.” {More than “Mind” is involved but hang with me here for now…}
The escalation of stress that can happen so quickly after tests results show the myeloma is getting worse and the current chemo regime is no longer working—after a loved one suffers another fracture and is in wrenching pain again—after a bill comes through that is thousands of dollars more than you expected—can drive you into a state of chronic trauma mixed with frazzled burn-out. I found myself sometimes detaching from my mom and icing my heart to survive the onslaught. You just can’t care about anything anymore. All you want is for it to end and for everyone to go away.
But those days I could face the stresses with calm, I saw. I lived. I saw her smile. I jammed with her to a song on the radio. We reminisced about something from my childhood. I learned a new story about her years growing up on the farm. We communicated more clearly. We stayed on the same team when going to a new doctor, instead of stressing each other out and sitting in a silent distance buried in our magazines.
I couldn’t avoid feeling stress over Ruby’s cattle herding misadventure just as I couldn’t avoid it while in the cancer journey with my mom. But how long it lasts and reverberates through my day and how many cards in the deck it nails are spaces where I have some choice: not letting so many cards out of the box when a new trauma happens; reframing past traumas; verbally talking myself through what did happen and how it was successfully resolved; replaying what I’ve been through but with a focus on the tools I’ve gained; et cetera.
And, then, dropping the drama as quickly as possible and finding ground in Calm clears my vision so I can see the world around me, not solely my fear. When I can see, I can connect, and when I connect I can love and receive love. When in that love, I feel part of a whole—the ancient ocean bed under my feet, the moon overhead, the red sandstone cliffs radiating the last of the day’s light, my mother’s intense and encompassing love, my ex-husband's calmness and friendship, and my lover’s dedication, tenderness, and vigor. It’s not dangerous to attach. It’s not life threatening to repair that cord to Ruby. It’s not weak to stop, to reach out, to feel my way through this, to double up the support, to use and also go get more tools. It’s my way home.