Rules of Engagement
Shakespeare Herbert Joy, Corgi
A few weeks ago my girlfriend arrived at my home with a corgi puppy in tow. She’d picked him up from a shelter in New Jersey where he’d been abandoned, then spent a day training him to like his travel carrier. Next, she stepped on to a long haul flight, puppy snuggled at her feet, all on the day before Thanksgiving.
On the busiest travel day of the year it was inevitable that the flight was delayed, and so by the time she arrived in Oregon with the puppy it was past midnight. We stood outside Portland International Airport as Thanksgiving Day rolled around, urging the excitable puppy to pee on a shrub. He politely declined. After several minutes of fruitless persuasion we scooped him up, stumbled our way to the car, drove home, secured the puppy in his new crate, and fell into bed exhausted at around 1am.
Have puppy, will travel
At 4am I woke up to some very energetic puppy kisses. Shakespeare Herbert Joy, as my new charge was now known, had busted out of his crate, found his way to the bed and started licking my face. Eager to avoid the inevitable accident, I scooped him up and took him out to the backyard in the dark—our first real interaction together—and to the sound of an owl hooting in the trees as the moon ducked in and out of the clouds above, he finally took care of business.
As instructed, I made sure even the neighbors could hear what a good boy he was!
Later that day I posed with his adoption papers while my girlfriend grinned at the camera. What I didn’t know at the time was that the puppy, to her, represented a commitment I could not fully appreciate until two days later when she opened a sparkling ring box under my nose with a fat pink sapphire nestled in a bed of diamonds, and asked me to marry her. The ring was secondary to the puppy of course, a formality if you will. As a passionate and lifelong advocate for animal welfare, giving me a puppy was a nod to a sentiment that traditionally rings don’t cover. I was good people in her eyes, and once I realized the gravity of the situation, that knowledge shined brighter to me than any gemstone ever could.
Sleeping Shakespeare
We’ve never been conventional. Both being of the female persuasion I guess that fact could be considered obvious, but I’m here to tell you that particular fact matters little. When you are true to yourself, desire speaks naturally and forcefully. By contrast, not showing up as yourself is a foreign and taxing effort, requiring way more energy and sacrifice to stay in the socially scripted story you’ve inflicted upon yourself. It’s that simple. Life is harder if you deny your knowing. And if you worry into other people’s business, and what they make of you, life is harder still.
I try not to make a habit of worrying if me being my best self takes the lustre off of anyone else's contentment. I believe happiness and acceptance fractals outward from the source like a pebble being dropped into still waters, and the best thing I can contribute to creating a better world for other people is living a transparently open and honest—and therefor happy—life myself.
That said, my girl is not the engagement ring type. So I promised to buy her a gun instead. As future farm owners I’m fully endorsing this endeavor, even if I’d never envisaged myself buying anyone an engagement gun. My support for the licenses, and trips to the gun range, and various educational classes one can and should take are testament to my devotion, I think, perhaps even on the level of an animal activist giving a girl a puppy, one might say.
The next few months will be busy, as you can imagine. The details are muddy but the intention is clear, and the mystery certainly doesn’t dull the excitement we have for our future, and for each other.
(And just in case you were wondering, it was a hearty “yes” from me!)
Sunset walks
