Dear readers,
When I launched “At the Dog Park” six months ago I was clueless. It was December then and I didn’t know how things would go. What, exactly, would I write about? And who would really give a flying fajita? I knew I wasn’t going to write about how to find designer handbags or give pointers on skin care regimes or the fine art of seduction in my late 60s. I wasn’t going to write about “making it” as a social media darling or how to handle paper-thin phyllo dough or being named Teacher of the Year in a flyover state famous for LeBron James, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, or the first 4-H Club.
I’m not an athlete or a rocker or a farm girl. But on the bright side, I’m not dead. Life, it turns out, is a lot more nuanced and fun and unexpected when you stop wanting to “make it” and let it happen. The only thing I’m trying to make is a life, and it’s very much a work in progress. I have my good moments and my bad, days of outrage and resignation, times when I’d just as soon go back to bed and soothe myself with a jumbo bag of Swedish Fish than confront the here-and-now. But there’s also pie and for me, pie has been connecting with you on Substack.
Today, “At The Dogpark” is six months old! That’s 25 columns I’ve shared with you since that cold uncertain day in December when I hit “publish” on the first piece, introducing myself and trying to explain what I was trying to accomplish with the column (start a conversation, find “my people,” lose my blues, connect, connect, connect). I still don’t know exactly what I’m up to with “At the Dog Park.” There is no master plan and I don’t have another 25 pieces in the hopper already written, ready to be served up hot and smoking once a week. It’s more something I feel.
There’s a poem by Leonard Cohen called “It’s Good to Sit with People” (from Leonard Cohen Selected Poems, 1956-1968). Here are the first lines:
It’s good to sit with people
who are up so late
your other homes wash away
and other meals you left
unfinished on the plate
Cohen goes on to recount old loves, regrets, and desires, memorable meals (Greek wine and olives), feeling betrayed and isolated and disillusioned, as well as exquisite moments of clarity and beauty (“My friend Bill scattered dollar bills over the head of the belly-dancer under the clarinets of Eighth Avenue”). He writes of longing—does anyone ever yearn quite like Leonard Cohen? He’s lonely for “a fast car, lonely for restaurant asparagus, lonely for a simple prince.” And at the end of the poem, after recounting his fantasies, confessing his jealousies, and occasions of dashed hopes and half-truths, it comes down to love and acceptance. He writes:
Come to me if you grow old
Come to me if you need coffee
I am growing old and I do need coffee. I want like to sit with you late into the night. I’m by myself. Alone. The past is over and I don’t know what happens tomorrow. We’re in uncharted territory, you and I. Yet here we are.
Thank you for meeting me in the Dog Park every week. I welcome your ideas and suggestions for the column.
Thank you taking on this mission and giving us a bit of joy and insight each week!
If it wears thin, sitting alone and yearning, come on over for dinner.
Gumpy