Inkhat Meets Another Ghost Dog!

This weekend I drove home, a six hour trip through mostly flat farmlands with intermittent shopping malls looming like bandits over medieval back roads. I was shocked how easy it was for me. Perhaps a sign of growing up, not the Truth of the World growing up, but the type of simply maturity that allows me to leave the highway without the fear that I will never find my way back on. A weird and simple bravery that allows me to step off the path once in awhile. It was rather encouraging.

After hour 4 I realized that I felt no sense of importance in this journey. I had lived on my own for awhile, but had never gone this long without seeing my parents. It should feel important. It felt routine. How strange, I thought, that something so new felt simply like part of my day. It wasn’t until I passed over the Hudson Creek Bridge, half an hour from my parent’s house, the familiar dip after the pylon bouncing my car, that I finally found the expected nostalgia.

It doubled as I turned off the highway, snarling silently at a minivan with a Novi sticker who wobbled uncertainly across the two turning lanes. I had the right to complain. I was a local. I knew how to navigate the awkward intersection. I passed the corner where I wasted late nights and early mornings in the one 24 hour diner, which was now a Starbucks. I passed the ski hill, a tiny dirt hump the city was obnoxiously proud of.

(In the parking lot was a small dirt hill with a few charred stumps sticking out. It turns out, I would learn later, that someone had decided it was a wonderful idea to remake Red Dawn, a decision which I believe immediately qualifies them for extreme psychological help, and possibly incarceration).

I noted, with some amusement, that they had also smoothed the railroad crossing, but had done nothing to the pockmarked corner save erect a yellow sign reading, “Rough Road Ahead.” Lovely.

The wedding I returned for was beautiful, but I felt an almost awkward sense of normalcy as I walked around town, visited friends, even as I wandered over to MSU and walked the campus. Nothing at all. I ran into a professor. She shrugged my sudden appearance off. It was very nice to see me. A state away I had worshiped her and used her confidence in me as guidance through my most stressful days, and she had moved onto other students. Why did it bother me so much that everything had moved on? Did I really want to say a small hole in Michigan where I once was? Yes, dammit. That would have been nice.

That’s selfish, I admonished myself. People move on. They have their lives. You have yours…sort of. You know, that bit of time between writing and grading papers and homework. Yeah, that bit right there. You shouldn’t care what happens to your old stomping ground.

But I do! I do! I want them to need me the way I need them. I think about my professors and friends, my cafes and bookstores. I miss the places like the people. I missed the memory of location like an inside joke; a reference only a few understand. Yes. I wanted that to be reflected in my world. But it wasn’t. I drove back to Ohio.

I went out the night I came home. I couldn’t stand in the empty house alone. I glanced down the dark, brick lined alleys off State Street on my way uptown, and stopped when I noticed something looking back. It was half way up the hill, thick and furry. I could see the reflection off its eyes, though they didn’t glow like a cat. A dog, then. A tail wagged slowly, carefully behind him. Instinctively, I clucked, an encouraging noise for horses. The dog turned and wandered into the bushes in response. His tail wagged lazily behind him. Honest to God. These things happen to me.

Alright then Ghost Dog. Tell your friends I’ve come home.

Inkhat Meets The Ghost Dogs!

Today I drove to nearby Lancaster, a good-sized town about an hour away. My GPS said there was a Borders there. My GPS lied. As every other major book store was an hour and a half to two hours away. It was one of the places in my life I went to just be, to wander; to look and make lists in my head of all I wanted to read, do, go; see. I used to go there late at night because it was the only place in Brighton that was open late. I held a period of mourning in my car. It was like leaving another old friend.

Yesterday I pulled into the stable and there, by one of the bends in the drive way, was a dog. He was black with brown accents around his face and chest. He was obviously a lab mix, but only about knee height. He moved in long, fluid strides that brought up visions of a dressage pony. I got out carefully, and presented my hand. He licked it, and I figured that was about the best greeting I could imagine. He followed me to the pasture to retrieve Tristin. He followed me to the ring where I let my horse wander around and I sat down to read. He sat next to me. From time to time he would get up and wander away; jogging across the field to touch base with the trees, or startle a flock of birds into flight. I tried all sorts of names for him, Boris, Constantine, Bingo, Fido. Nothing at all worked. So, I called him Random Dog, which he actually responded to. “Whatcha doin, Random Dog?” I’d ask, and he’d loll his head back at me and smile.

Finally, without warning, Random Dog jumped off and jogged across the pasture. When I looked up, he was gone. 15 minutes later I became curious. Where had Random Dog gone? I watched a small red tailed hawk circle the field. Had Random Dog been content to make friends with me than abandon me to lick the hand of someone else? Was I so much chopped liver? I felt entirely cheated upon. So, I slipped under the fence, carful not to bump the electric wire. I set off through the wet grass, following my canine guide.

I was glad to see that, among the more familiar daisies and Queen Anne’s Lace, a few Amaranth stretched their purple heads out of the grass. If I had to name a favorite flower, it would probably be Amaranth. They’re a strange flower. They’re rather fluffy, either in a cone shaper or a ball. Usually they’re ignored for their own beauty and used as edging; almost never in bouquets. They symbolize the immortality of love. I’ve always found them charming.

At the edge of the field there was a line of thin trees against the wire fence. On the other side, a dog watched me, but not my dog. This dog stood in the endless field beyond, a beautiful painting perfect bird dog in brindle and white. Beyond him, a charcoal black gray hound looked into the distance. The bird dog looked at me steadily, as an aristocrat meeting an equal. It was becoming clear to me that Ohio had decided that all my stories would be animal stories. It was also clear to me that I would not name these dogs. If I was to name every ghost animal that the Ohio wilderness offered me, I would never be done. I took a few steps, losing the dogs behind a tree. When I could see the field again, they were gone, no doubt called back into the sky, or sucked into the grass.

As I climbed back up the hill, I caught another glimpse of Random Dog, running along the lake. He slipped through a bush, and was gone. Maybe this is the land’s way of meeting me, in these tiny agents. Maybe this is her way of saying, “I do not have the things you left behind. I do not have book stores or tea shops. I have these flowers that last forever. I have the ghost of cats and dogs and birds with red tails, that guard me, that watch for me; that like you.”