Inton...

... for Knots in the String.

(In memory of Gavan, a good friend)

So easy, isn’t it?

To just throw one’s best plans aside and sink back into the doom-scrolling, the naysaying. I’ve done that this week. I had a need to find out more of what my American and Canadian friends were facing. Of what Ukraine might face after Zelensky visits Washington today. Of the new alliances across the world that my agitation tells me must happen. And all this while the Chinese had live-firing exercises in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand without giving the requisite 24 hours notice to commercial airlines who were flying across the Ditch at the time. And that at the time of writing this, 3 Chinese warships are 260 kms from my home being shadowed by Australian military surveillance planes.

Lordy! No more! I splash my face with cold water and resolve to do what the Japanese call ‘Inton’.

I load Bear (nicely labelled today because he’s being such a good boy) into the car and we head to the river where the tide is ebbing. We walk through the warm-ish water, spray splashing up the back of my legs and the water wetting his little pink and brown dappled tummy. He stands stock-still as he inspects seagulls and in the spirit of Tom Ryan Author…

… I try to teach him ‘gentle’, so that he can co-exist with other beings (a metaphor for life?). That’s hard for a terrier, like asking me to give up chocolate. He meets some Westies – one’s nice, one couldn’t give a fig and one snarls. Win some, lose some. He almost shrugs as if to say, ‘Ha! Your loss!’

He's different since having a day in hospital – more loving, settling against us, sitting in a corner of the kitchen as I cook. It makes observing Inton perfectly acceptable with my husband in the house and the pup by my side. I don’t feel the need to be a part of society particularly. Oh yes, I know, for my mental health I should socialise and join ‘community’– but I weigh that up with the comfort of just being.

Is it bad to retreat? Given what my friends are going through overseas?

I’m of little use to them as taut as a wire here on the bottom of the world. I can be of more use by giving them something to escape to, even if momentarily. Like the other night.

Let me share…

It’s summer dusk, smoky because of two fires burning – one on the coast a little to the north and one on my beloved hearthome, Maria Island. The sky is pale indigo overlaid with a smoky taupe veil, heavy thunderclouds here and there, great puffs of threatening white, and it may be that those are the cause of the fires – dry lightning from an early hours’ thunderstorm.

This is the Puppacino’s last sortie of the day and the one he seems to love most. We go to a shell-grit beach which he also seems to love best for excavation. He’s a funny little digger. Frenetic and then diving with his two front paws onto whatever he’s digging and filling the hole again. Accidentally-on-purpose? Who knows? He stands with his nose pointing to the sea and his rough Jack Russell coat, still puppy-soft, streams like a telltale on a boat. The other week it was pennoncels, this week it’s bannerols.

We should strip his coat and trim his ears, so I’m told by the breeder. But truly, I love his wildly windswept look. Mind you, as small as he is (almost 4 months and half- grown out), people ask ‘What is he? A papillon?’ And I explain his pure Jack Russell antecedents. They look unconvinced as he shakes his hairy, butterflied ears.

He meets gulls and oystercatchers and there’s a hunting glint in his eye and so I say ‘gentle’. Heavens knows if it works but he stands long enough for the birds to fly away. He grabs seaweed and carries it. The odd shell.

I too find miniscule, patterned shells and my poor husband, the pup’s dad, limps along as best he can with plantar fasciitis.

As we walk, we notice that the little V for Victory sign on the pup’s nose has actually transformed into a heart. It’s a sign of some sort, I think…

We return to our garden. I listen to the seawind weaving through the threads of wafting willow and see the big liquid amber at the front gate colouring with patches of ruby and garnet here and there. The other liquid amber is true to its name, dropping the odd honey-coloured leaf. I sit in peace. Drifting with the wind and the leaves and finding a measure of calm away from the turmoil ‘out there’. I hope you’ve been able to drift with me – just for one moment cocooned by Inton. Or if you prefer, stepping through the wardrobe door into the best of Narnia.

Music this week? I may have played it many moons ago. Not sure. But it fits today’s contemplation…

Oh and PS: the pup transmogrified into a sabre-toothed tiger cub. Again.

My arms and hands look as if I am either into self-harm or a victim of assault. Tick both boxes! All four groups of pup-parents turned up at Puppy Class with wounds and the instructor addressed the issue. I’ll let you know if frozen carrots, ice-cubes etc, work. I still think chain mail is best…