A Dachshund + Ordinary Time
Or how the old girl reminds me of the goodness of God.
Welcome. In case you’re new here, I’m Caitlin, a writer of all sorts of things—fiction, life, the occasional poem—but lately here on The Time Given I’ve been sharing how I’m spending my days amidst grief, infertility, and midlife. Sometimes it’s slow stories inspired by my daily life, other times it’s prayers & poetry. This season I find myself exploring garden spaces, and the tension of joy & grief that it holds. Thank you for reading along.
Every day mid morning, my nine-year-old pup Daisy wanders to the back door to let me know she would like to go outside. She is what we call our sun dog, content to lay down in the warm grass, sun beams on her back until she is nearly hot to the touch.
But before she snoozes, she wanders aimlessly over to the left side of our yard, where the blackberry vines have wormed their way into the grass, and slinks underneath the makeshift arbor. She pauses to sniff the rhubarb leaves tumbling over the side of galvanized pot, then continues her wander close to my garden beds.
Lately, she comes back smelling of tomatoes, as she walks underneath the thick vines, a natural back scratcher. She is not sure of the immense zucchini leaves, however, and gives them a wide berth.
Then she is free to check the back garden, ambling around the beet beds, pausing at the edge of the fence to take notice of how many rabbits slipped in and out of their run over night.
I lose her as she traverses the compost corner but I know she’s walking alongside the garage, weaving in and out of the hammock stand. It’s only when she arrives at the lilies that she pauses again, looking back towards me where I sit on the steps, our other dachshund, Gatsby, at my feet. I turn a page in my book and call her name, yet she ambles on pausing at the other end of the lily bed where the rabbits have also dug an escape.
She sniffs for awhile, but having found no excitement, she turns and walks towards me, alongside the fence and under the tunnel of more blackberry vines that have worked their way through the fence cracks and slowly crawl towards their counterparts on the north side of the yard.
She stops at the edge of the patio, and when she notices I have yet to move, she settles down into the sun, her perimeter check complete, and rests.
Daisy and I have been participating in this ritual for weeks now as I sit in the summer months trying to find my own rest.
From the school year.
From the future that once was.
From grief.
At first, her wanderings were tedious. No matter how many times I would call her to come inside, she wouldn’t listen until she’d completed her lap. I began to wonder if she was losing her hearing, but then I would open a banana in the morning, and she’d come running from upstairs. So I thought perhaps she was beginning to lose her sight, as she’s technically a senior dog now, and was simply walking the perimeter because it’s what she knows. But then she’ll spot a fly across the room and spend hours chasing it.
Daisy is a dachshund, plain and simple, notorious for her stubbornness.
Her daily wanderings are a reminder of the beauty of Ordinary Time.
For years I have spent summer immersed in my manuscripts, drafting and revising stories as I desperately desire to pursue publishing. I am lost in my words and my writing schedule, consumed with doing as much as I can while I have the capacity to create.
While I don’t take for granted these swift few summer months that come with being a teacher, I often overlook the ordinary as I try to hold too much: house projects I can never get to during the academic year, the story draft I need to complete, squeezing in all the appointments because I don’t have to worry about sub plans, a garden to grow and tend, a new workout regimen while I have energy, but also traveling and family time while the kiddo is home from college.
I try so hard to make these swift, ten to twelve weeks full of the extraordinary I forget that this is the season of rest.
Because for too long I have thought if this is ordinary, I do not want it. What of my dreams for published stories? For babies snuggled on my chest? For anniversary voyages to Europe? For a job that doesn’t fill me with dread? For a house that isn’t constantly falling apart?
For the dreams my soul is filled with, but God does not answer.
Day 57 and Daisy walks the same yard. Nothing has changed and yet—she still does.
This life here—now—outside my back window, in front of of my feet.
Daisy’s slow walk around this place, her soft settling in the grass. She sighs and I hear it.
It is good.
This morning the summer heat has broken. While I know this is a temporary reprieve, I joyfully open every window in our house, the old wooden frames shaking as I gently set them on the dowel rods, the weights for balance gone long before we moved in. As the breeze whispers through the rooms, and the birds sing out my office window, I wonder if this is what heaven will be like? There is something of a breeze whispering through the house that makes me think of Eden. Will my gardens be bursting there? With the scent of wildflowers wafting through my windows? Swallowtails fluttering about as Daisy youthfully snips at them?
These things might not even matter when I am in the presence of my King, but for now as my fingers brush the newly budded milkweeds, eyes glancing for a monarch chrysalis, Daisy sets out on the path set before her—this very moment in the middle of Ordinary Time—and I follow.
I will keep walking for to live in the ordinary is to live out the meaning of Christ’s resurrection. To walk through the nos, and the closed doors, year after year after year. To let dreams break and shift and change and still say He is good.
New dreams will bloom, and if I am lucky, I’ll be surprised by one hidden underneath them all, more than I could have ever asked or imagined,1 just like the heavy zucchini I pull from underneath the leaves.
Daisy ambles towards the newly sprouted zinnias and I, too, take a step.
I’m Caitlin, a writer, hobbyist, and creative who believes in the power of story, and that things like nature, wonder, faith, grief, hope, and art are worth our time and attention. I write stories for young readers centered around the themes of grief, belonging, loss, hope, and found families, while also exploring them in my own life, here on The Time Given. I also write a monthly newsletter and occasionally share snippets of fiction at Lost in Story. My writing here will always be free to read, but it does take time and heart space to write. Please consider supporting the work I do by giving a one-time or monthly donation, or by subscribing to my weekly writing.
Ephesians 3:20