Bill bo' blanksy

It’s hard to write about a feeling that seems so inherent in humans. And it’s even harder to recognize that this feeling exists, considering it comes so naturally. I’m searching for the best word to describe this feeling and I’m having a hard time picking one, so here…

My husband and I got a puppy over Christmas. He was only seven weeks old, fur-balled and wobbly, soft as cashmere with gigantic floppy paws. He peed all over my husband Stevie, on the car ride home, burrowing his moist black nose deep into the armpit of his sweatshirt. The anxiety of leaving everything he had ever known in the straggly hay corner of a massive wooden barn, his fox-red mother and six siblings still finding their way to the food bowl together like a herd of sheep.

Bill was a rather independent puppy. The first few nights we had him, we took turns getting up every few hours he cried, carried him down the steep back steps of my parents’ house, groggy-eyed and stumbling to the back door so he could step outside into the calm cold of early morning, tinkling as he faltered onto the frozen grass. But, he learned very quickly to sleep through the night and was fearless when it came to exploration.

Stevie immediately commented on the maternal instinct in me, always checking Bill when he napped to make sure he was still breathing, googl-ing the color and consistency of his poop to make sure it seemed normal. This was technically my first puppy (my parents had raised a Bichon when I was in college), and even I was unsure of how I would behave. I was surprised at how effortlessly I “rallied” to take care of something much smaller and more confused than me, willing to interrupt my vacation night’s sleep, walk through the woods in the rain, wipe up every pee-piddle that meandered throughout a room, just to create a happy world for this little life that I felt utterly responsible for.

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman, or maybe it’s because I want to have babies, but I never stop thinking about Bill’s mother, how we picked him up from his litter, snuggled him into our necks and took him away. I feel like I owe it somehow to his mother, to nature, to take care of him the best possible way I can.

He is five months now. Growing like crazy, long and lanky and still unsure of his own body. He wakes up full of piss and vinegar and goes flying into the wall with energy, ready to climb a mountain or swim a mile. His soft-smitten cry wakes my up every morning, ready to pee and ready to poop. He forces me to get up and go outside, to that wonderfully pristine moment just after daybreak when even 5th avenue and Penn are so silent you can hear the trees bend. I can’t imagine now what it would be like not to have this life in mine.

Thank you Bill, for waking me up early. Thank you Bill, for providing me with responsibility. Thank you Bill, for reminding me of how important it can be to devote your thoughts and actions to someone else. Thank you Bill for spinning next to me as you search for the perfect spot, plopping against my leg, your lion paw resting tenderly on my thigh.