Remember a few posts back I wrote about how Truckstop at long last caught a rat? And how I sort of admired her easy-going pride around the whole event? Well, okay. Things have changed. In the past week she has caught, killed and eaten not one, not two, but three gophers. To be fair, or, I suppose, to be honest, we are in the midst of a gopher population explosion. Twice in this same week I’ve stumbled across a hawk just sitting on the ground (the ground!) with a gopher in its talons, looking all hunched and greedy and suspicious of its own good fortune, like the not-wicked wicked old dust man from Our Mutual Friend. Mr. Hawk! Redeem yourself.
These are awfully small gophers, and awfully dense, since they don’t seem to have figured out the main fact of gopher life: it takes place underground. Also, this particular group survives on the roots of dune grass and iceplants, which don’t seem like they’d be very nutritious. When I think of ice plant roots I think of mint jelly, which falls into the same category of almost-food as gummy bears and tapioca pudding. I love almost-food because it seems composed partly of plastic and as a kid I always wanted to eat silly putty, red egg and all.
Huh? Oh: the murdering dog. I feel about ten things at once when she eats a gopher. Pity for the animal, though it all happens very, very fast; relief that there are too many gophers in California, not too few; creeped-outness; interest; skepticism about my own motives: how is it that I have allowed this to happen more than once? What sort of dark experiment am I running? Which last question leads me to my most prominent feeling: murky pride.
I like it that my dog can fend for herself, and that she takes what the land provides, and that eating the gophers doesn’t make her sick to her stomach. The Wysong Maintenance Diet, the special armpit shampoo, the endless inquiry into her emotional state (are you sad? are you worried?), the resourceful projection (you’re sad we didn’t get the job, you’re worried about moving), has not stopped her from being an animal.
I think I’m hoping her self-determination is contagious. Being without a paying job is weird, because it means you really are what you do. When you have a job-job you often have to do things you wouldn’t freely choose, like call someone up to ask them for money or enter something into Excel, which means you can always imagine another version of yourself, your real self, doing something different. That different activity is the thing that defines you, but it isn’t a thing at all, is it? Only a fantasy of a thing. This comes up all the time with writing, of course. When I have an office job I imagine an alternative self who, given no rules and no limits, would build a city. Instead I find myself with a heap of preliminary sketches.
Work-work can be a dispiriting grind, but it’s also the thing that lets you off the hook for failing to lead an outstanding life. You could be doing anything right now I sometimes tell myself when I am doing precisely the thing I did the day before, usually something involving my pajamas and a cup of coffee and a laptop. For someone who spends most of her time in the present wondering about the future (except when I am writing, which is why I can never give it up), I am shockingly unprepared for the future when it actually hits.
I’m moving at the end of the month. Goodbye ocean. Goodbye crows. Goodbye surfers. Goodbye man with bandaged feet outside the Sea View Inn. Goodbye iceplant alley. Goodbye organic co-op. Goodbye filthy 7-11.
My street runs north-south. There’s a sign on the street that runs perpendicular to mine, east-west: Tsunami Evacuation Route. I lie in bed sometimes and think about how I’d get all the animals out if we had to evacuate. Would I have time to stuff the cats in their carrier? How far and how fast could I carry them? Should I keep the dog on her leash? Should I let them all fend for themselves? I never imagine a car in this scenario. It’s gone already, towed off by another current, and it’s just us on our feet. Do I carry them? Do I let them run? But this is not an escape. I’ve had plenty of time. I packed everything. The world is flooded but the ark floats.
