Oliver!

     When I was a very young teen, one of my favorite movies was "Oliver!"  Years later, when I first saw "August Rush," I loved it, too.  I guess this is not surprising, since both movies are basically the same story.  I just watched August Rush again, and was reminded of my love for both movies.

     The child in me has been longing for something I will never have, and this need is my biggest flaw. 

     Here are my favorite songs from each movie:

Oliver

August Rush

A dog named Jasper

Today I watched a slide show that included the story of a dog named Jasper.  Jasper was rescued, and deemed "dangerous."  He was a small mixed-breed, with a coat covered in mats, and eyes that conveyed fear.  He did not like to be approached or touched. 

Some rescue folks I work with took the time to clean Jasper up, get him fixed, and eventually gain his trust.  One woman in particular was very good at understanding how to approach Jasper, and she and her own dog were a big part of helping Jasper learn how to become a well-socialized dog, who ended up being adopted.  This woman wiped away a few tears, as we all watched the slide show.

This same woman is someone who has noticed, on occasion, that my mind does not always learn things or understand instructions the way most people seem to take in information.  In clinic situations where I am not knowledgeable, she seems to instinctively know how to say something in a way my mind quickly comprehends.  I have a feeling this ability of hers is directly related to her ability to work so well with dogs like Jasper.

I do not believe that any of my clinic co-workers have ever read this blog of mine.  I kind of hope they never do, just as I would rather my kids, and my mother, never do.  I do not want any of my clinic co-workers to start wondering if I am a "bad" person, somebody who is going through too much to be a part of the rescue world.  I am keeping very close track of how my mind is handling the stresses of driving transport and assisting at clinics.  When I first sit in the van, and start a 16-hour day with a group of cats, my mind focuses immediately on the souls I am about to be responsible for during that whole time.  The ones who belong to families are precious to me, because I know how much each of them means to their humans.  The ferals or strays who belong to no one are precious to me, because I am now a part of the current few humans who have probably ever tried to be kind and helpful to these beings.  My mind remains focused on this, as I drive, and as I help at clinics. 

I try very hard to always be honest with myself about my motives, my focus, the state my mind is in.  (This is not something I can say I have seen many humans do, but it is very important to me.)  I know I am not at all in a good place, right now.  My mind is in the worst condition I have ever experienced. 

If I ever get in that transport van, and cannot feel my mind focus on the critters on board, I will know it is time to give up my work in the rescue world.  I cannot say this is not going to happen.  I have no idea what will happen as my mind disintegrates.  But I am watching very closely for it, and will be honest with myself and others if/when it does happen.  Regardless of what anyone may think or say about me, the last thing I want to be is a danger.

Jasper was kept in a tiny kennel and abused by a human for the first years of his life.  What people saw as "dangerous" behavior was simply Jasper, trying to survive.

I'm trying to survive.

Jericho Brown

A poem I had to share:

Bullet Points

This face

It has been a long week.  Hell, it has been a long two years.  Truth be told, the 50 years of my life has been long.  I have no idea how I am still here, getting up each day, doing what I do.  But this past week, I had a moment where I was reminded very strongly about the current "why."

I wish I could dedicate my whole life to the animal rescue world, but that is not feasible for me.  Instead, I spend only a portion of each month driving transport vehicles to spay/neuter clinics, so cats can be fixed, to help lessen the number of stray and feral cats who are suffering. 

This week was not easy.  I am in a rather difficult place, emotionally, right now, which means I am not handling all of life's challenges as well as I should be.  I had one moment this past week, though, that helped me stay on track, kept me from crumbling completely into the million pieces my heart has been reduced to recently.  Late Wednesday, I sat down next to a crate holding 5 tiny kittens.  These babies were found all alone, and are now being bottle-fed and cared for by a loving human.  The 5 of them all looked up at me, with such precious faces, but the one in the middle could not see me well, because its eyes were crusted and mucky from the effects of URI (Upper Respiratory Infection).  That kitten caught the broken pieces of my heart. 

I took a few pictures of these kittens, to keep on my phone so I have a tangible reminder of why I have committed myself to helping fight the plight of homeless animals.  The picture I share here is not good quality, but that tiny little face is the reason I do what I do, regardless of anything else going on in or around me.  That face is why I will continue to encourage everyone to spay or neuter their pets.  That face is why I will do my best to remain a part of the animal rescue world for as long as I am able.

Moses

I wrote this story a few years ago.  Every year, on Aug. 16, I think of Elvis, Moses, and Curtis.


                                                                        Moses
                                                                           by
                                                                    Judy S. Lentz

     Curtis Martin gave me my first kiss. We were standing next to each other, straddling our bikes, when he leaned over and our lips touched. He turned beet red and took off on his bike, while I stayed there, feeling the hot breeze mark a cool wet spot left on my bottom lip. It was the summer of ‘77, in a trailer park on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona.
     When I first saw Curtis, I thought he looked like Elvis. He had dark hair, blue eyes, and dimples when he smiled. His family was from Texas, so he talked with a southern drawl and wore cowboy boots everyday. We were both eleven.
     Our families moved into the trailer park around the same time, in early June. Curtis and I met while riding our bikes, and we spent that summer cruising around the dusty gravel roads separating the single and doublewides. Sometimes we ventured outside the park and hiked through the surrounding desert, looking for tarantulas and scorpions. Occasionally, we snuck out after bedtime, to meet behind a carport and smoke discarded cigarette butts. We would stare up at the stars, picking out constellations we convinced ourselves we recognized, and following the Milky Way path across the night sky. Curtis had a small transistor radio, and he would bring it out if the batteries were working. Curtis liked country music. I liked rock. But we could always agree if we found a station playing an Elvis song.
     We talked about a lot of things. Curtis had a soft voice, and I loved his accent. Both of our families moved around a lot, and we discovered neither of us enjoyed these moves. We both loved animals, and Curtis had spent years trying to convince his mom to let them have a dog. There wasn’t a certain moment when it happened, but it was soon apparent to all the kids in the park that Curtis and I were boyfriend/girlfriend. We were inseparable.
     One day, as a bunch of us played together on somebody’s patio, a girl from a neighboring trailer park climbed through a hole in the fence and approached us. She was crying, and proceeded to tell us how her father had put her dog and its pups into a garbage bag full of water, and tossed them into a dumpster. Curtis and I took off toward the hole in the fence, with all the other kids trailing behind us.
     We followed the girl to a large dumpster, and tried to figure out the best way up and in. Curtis pushed a box over to it, and we both climbed up to look down into the smelly mess. We couldn’t decipher anything from there, so Curtis gave me a leg up over the edge. I sank into the garbage a bit, before I got my bearings. I started feeling around, trying to find the bag with the pups. Sure enough, on the top, toward the back of the dumpster, I discovered the heavy bag. With all my might, I hauled the bag over to the edge, where Curtis helped me lift it over the side, onto the box. It was leaking water from some holes created by all this movement. I jumped to the ground and ripped open the bag. Water gushed out, and I reached in, hoping to feel life. Instead, I felt cold, slimy little bodies, all mangled up together. I gripped one and pulled it out. I held it in my hands to see if it was breathing. There was no movement. So I did what the paramedics on “Emergency” did. I put my mouth over the tiny, cold nose and muzzle, and blew air into its lungs. I tried this a few times, and heard one of the watching kids say, “Gross! Why is she kissing it?”
     “SHUT UP!” Curtis hollered at the kid, and nobody said another word. I silently handed the lifeless puppy to Curtis, and he gently placed it on the ground while I reached back into the bag. Once again, I performed CPR, and once again, no luck. I repeated this scene a few times. As Curtis took each little body from me and lined them up next to each other, I was getting sadder and sadder. When I took out the momma dog, the little girl cried so hard it broke my heart. I willed that dog to breathe as I blew air in its lungs, but it did not. Curtis took it from me, and I reached back into the bag. One more pup remained.
     I pulled out the tiny white pup, put my mouth over its nose, and blew. I did not expect anything to happen. I gave it a second breath, and that’s when the tiny body jerked in my hand. The kids all jumped back, startled. The little pup’s mouth opened a bit, and I held its head low, so the water could come out. I kept rubbing it and talking to it, and it moved more, and started to breathe more. Curtis took off his shirt, and I wrapped the puppy up in it, to try and get it warm.
     “We’ll take it to my house,” he said.
     Curtis helped me through the hole in the fence, and we walked toward his house, hoping we could convince his mom to let them keep the puppy. When we got there, she opened the door and looked at the crowd of kids on her patio.
     “What do you have there?” she asked, and a chorus of voices explained what had happened. She listened for awhile, and then reached down to take the bundled pup from my arms. I watched her eyes as she held the little pup up to her face, and suddenly I knew she was going to keep it. Curtis knew it, too, because I heard him sigh with relief. She ran us all off, so she could take care of the pup properly, without us all underfoot. We dispersed, and Curtis and I went to their shed to get a shovel, so we could bury the other pups and their momma in the desert. As we took turns digging the hole, we tried to think of a name for his new dog. We settled on “Moses”, because we had rescued the dog from the water. We said a prayer as we buried Moses’ family, then took the shovel back to Curtis’ house, and went to play with the other kids.
     A few weeks later, Curtis and I shared our first kiss. The day after that kiss, Elvis died. Curtis and I snuck out that night and listened to the many different stations playing Elvis’ songs. We held hands and laid on the ground, looking up at the stars. We stayed there until the batteries in the radio died, and the sky in the east was starting to turn pale.
     A few days later, my father brought a bunch of empty boxes into our living room. I ran from the trailer, down the road, and into the desert. I did not want to fill up anymore boxes with me, and move somewhere else. I did not want to leave this desert, with the prickly pear cactus and tall ocotillo stalks, the dry brush and the rattle snakes, the tarantulas and the scorpions. I did not want to leave the momma and pups’ grave.
     A few days later, I sat in the front seat of the moving van, looking in the side rear-view mirror at Curtis. He stood in the middle of the dusty gravel road, holding a wriggly Moses in one arm, his other arm raised in a final wave. I watched as his figure grew smaller and smaller, and the dust stirred up by the van finally swallowed him.                                                       End

Words

When I was 14 years-old, in 8^th grade, I had an English teacher who I did not appreciate at the time, but who did a lot for me, in ways that I only saw later. He once gave my class a challenge to write a paper that would explain to someone else the instructions to tie a shoe. He said that anyone who wrote a paper that could be followed to the letter, and end with a tied shoe, would receive an “A” for the quarter. I relished the way this challenge made me think intensely about every word I put on paper. I tied a shoe, stopping at every step to write down what was being done, so I could use written words to describe the exact process. I knew I was incapable of vocally describing such an act to anyone, but I was comfortable in believing I could successfully describe such a task on paper in a way that would help another human understand what I was trying to convey. The teacher had different students come up in front of class to try and follow the instructions of every paper written, as the papers were read aloud, to see if the instructions in each paper could help someone tie a shoe. A student named Monty was the one who followed the words of my paper, as it was read. At the end of the reading of my paper, Monty had tied his shoe. I was the only student in that class whose paper ended this way. I knew something very important at that moment:  if I could find a way to convey something real in written words, I could successfully communicate with another human.

This same English teacher made us write daily journals. He had us name our journals, the way Anne Frank named her diary “Kitty.” I named my journal “Sigh Lentz,” and told my teacher this meant I was supposed to remain silent, so I did not need to keep a daily journal. He told me that the name was great, which meant I needed to write “Two” pages a day, instead of just one. I still have some of those journals I wrote many decades ago. I look at them now, and can hear my teenage self, testing the waters, trying to see if anyone would listen to the words dying to leak out of me. I was too young, and way too messed up, to write the things that I truly needed to release, but I did get to use those journals to learn quite a bit about written communication. I already knew that I was meant to write things, I just had no idea who would ever be safe, and trustworthy enough, to read such words.

I have written a lot, ever since I wrote my first poem (http://sighlentz.blogspot.com/2015/09/fiction.html) when I was around eight or nine. Most of those words had never been seen by anyone.  Unfortunately, my childhood education was severely stunted by the stress I was under, so my ability to convey English in its proper written form is far from correct.

Starting 8 years ago, I took some college courses, including a handful of English classes where a wonderful instructor taught me a lot, and got the first story I wrote for her class published. The experience was amazing, opening a new world of communication for me, and giving me quite a bit more knowledge about the horribly complex rules of written English words. (I SO wish I was fluent in a language like Spanish, because my blog would be full of a lot less mistakes if I could write it in a language that made any damn sense...) 

[Edited on Sept 5, 2023, to say that while taking this college course, it was assumed I had learned the basics about the English language.  After all, I did graduate high school in 1984.   My English professor was later surprised to realize I knew nothing about sentence structure, and couldn't identify nouns or adjectives or anything to do with the basics of writing.  For me, writing is like playing guitar.  I play what I hear, but can't read a damn note. End of edit]

This past year, I shared some of my darkest words with another human.  It did not turn out well. 

Technology is dicey, and written words about dark truths can be dangerous. I always knew my darkest words were not something that just anyone could hear. Monty could tie that shoe way back in 8^th grade, because he was totally open to just listening to my words, and no one else was interfering. Real life is not some classroom. It is humans, each of whom is dysfunctional in some way, doing their thing to accomplish whatever they want to accomplish. I think this is why I like communicating with other species. Human communication is too complicated for me to ever grasp.

I love words. I love writing. I hate words. I hate writing.

Written words saved me. And destroyed me.

A bit ago, I stepped outside to watch the space station fly over. I have signed up for notifications from NASA (https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/signup.cfm) so I can watch as various humans orbit our earth, in a dance that involves very important communication between human-created machines, computers, and instruments, as well as an understanding of physic's laws that humans have discovered and communicated to others over centuries, and communication between those handful of humans on the space station, and a ground crew willing and able to listen and communicate in response. I think of each human up there as I watch them fly over, and wonder who it was in their lives that gave them the support every human requires to accomplish anything good humans are capable of accomplishing. I wish everyone could be supported, and communicated with, in a way that brought out the good each human is born capable of accomplishing. Humans are capable of so much good. And so much bad.

This past year has healed me. And devastated me.

And written words will always be the only release I know.

Talking to animals

Kittens from yesterday's clinic

A deer who communed with me as I left for yesterday's clinic

A critter that spoke with me this week

White rabbit on my hillside.

The bird who talks to me.  Its nest is under that eave.

One of our recent conversations.

I love animals.  I always have.  I am blessed to be able to try and help critters with some of what I do in my daily life.

I am not an animal whisperer.  Hell, I cannot even communicate successfully with most humans, much less other living creatures.  But every day, I am in contact with all kinds of critters, and the contact I have with species outside of my own is very special.

Along the road I drive to get to my home in a tiny rural town, there are feathered critters I call "Surfing birds."  I am not a birder, and know nothing about identifying specific kinds of birds.  But since moving here in '92, my kids and I discovered that every spring, a weird thing starts to occur.  A certain kind of bird would swoop down in front of our vehicle and fly in front of it for awhile, then fly away.  This occurs throughout spring and summer.  The birds seem to have a Swallow-type shape, but are smaller than the Swallows I can identify.  After about three years of witnessing this strange behavior, I recognized something familiar about what they were doing:  they were catching, and then gliding on, the wind currents that sweep up the front of cars.  These birds were riding wind waves.  I have ever since called them "Surfing birds," and I truly believe they behave this way for the simple pleasure of it, as it serves no other purpose I can see.  I have never found proof of this in literature or online, but because I have witnessed this phenomenon faithfully for the past 24 years, I am quite sure it exists.  Some birds know how to use the creation of cars to hang ten.  I love it when they choose to surf my car.

A couple of days ago, a praying mantis spent time on my hand, looking at me whenever I spoke, and joining in with me as I surveyed the fields and trees around us.  We spent about 6 minutes together. 

Two herons used to fly over my home, back in the early '90's when I first moved here.  They flew over our place often, specifically on some days that were especially hard for me, and this brought me some comfort.  A few years later, the female of this pair was shot by someone on the river walkway in town.  After that, the male would sometimes fly over my home, on his own, in heartbreaking solitude.  His flights became a kind of prayer for me, a prayer for my children, and a prayer for him.  I do not know exactly what he was feeling as he flew over alone, but I'm quite sure he grieved the loss of the one who once flew beside him.

Two birds built a nest under my back eave this spring.  One of them started to "talk" to me on a regular basis.  This continued throughout the incubation and raising of the birds' offspring.  I would step outside, and this bird would whistle, and wait for my response.  Then we would talk.  I recorded some of our "conversations" on my phone.  Now that this bird's babies are raised and gone, the nest has been vacated, and we no longer have daily conversations, but the bird does come back once in awhile, and speaks with me. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was present for the last moments on earth of a cat who has meant the world to me the past few years.  I spent time with this cat often, and talked to her a lot, even though she was deaf.  I knew her eyes heard me.  She was a beloved member of a beautiful family, and it was a simple quirk of fate that brought us together as she passed on.  There was a moment, soon before her passing, where she and I awaited the test results that would decide her fate, and her head suddenly leaned against my arm, and rested.  That moment will forever remain in my mind, a connection that surpasses words.  

Early this past Sunday morning, a white rabbit appeared on my hillside.  I wanted to get close enough for a good picture, but I did not.  The rabbit was back that evening.  I wish this rabbit luck, as it survives the rural area where we live. There are plenty of coyotes who would find this rabbit easy to spot at night in our terrain, and make a quick meal of such a critter. 

I am blessed to drive transports of cats to a spay/neuter clinic in a nearby state.  During the loading of the van, I do not get a chance to meet every cat, but once on the road, there are often certain cats who start to vocalize.  I respond to each of them, and get to know their voices.  Once we arrive and unload, I start to get to know the many furry souls who just spent time with me on the road.  I also get to connect the various voices I had communed with to the faces that go with the specific voices I just spent road-time talking to.  I love these trips, and the talks I am blessed to experience.  I cherish getting to know these beings, in both pre- and post-op.  I just finished one of these trips a few hours ago.

My communication with creatures thought of as "animals" means more to me than I can put into words.  I am thankful, every day, for these beings.  I would give anything to see humans learn to communicate with each other as well as some animals have communicated with me.  The world would experience much less violence.

Dancing with Giants

On the morning of August 7, 1974, when I was 8, a human being did one of the most amazing things anyone has ever done:  he danced with giants.

I vaguely remember knowing that someone had once wire-walked between the Twin Towers, but I do not remember knowing any other details.  In 2009, my daughter and I watched a documentary called "Man on Wire," and both of us were enthralled.  Philippe Petit's story is amazing, and in 2015, a movie about his historic feat, entitled "The Walk," was released in theaters. I watched this movie for the first time a couple of days ago.  While I enjoyed the documentary a bit more, this movie was beautiful to view. 

Philippe Petit experienced something with those towers that no other human, before or after, ever came close to experiencing. While never touched on directly in the movie or the documentary, the pain Philippe went through on 9-11 must have been excruciating. The actions of others destroyed the giants he had danced with, and destroyed so many other humans in the process. There always seems to be humans who love to destroy.

To me, the art of that moment in '74 is as powerful as Picasso's Guernica, or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Philippe's ability to find trust for the towers, the steel cable, and himself, in order to perform such a dance, is beyond my imagination. I think that the reason humans continue to exist is because, while many attempts to accomplish difficult tasks fail, sometimes a human does achieve the impossible.

I find something oddly comforting in knowing that at a moment when I was 8-years-old, another human was briefly dancing with giants.

Public Bathrooms

I am going through a lot, right now.  I have no idea how I will deal with any of it.  But one thing has been troubling me recently, and I have finally had enough.  So, I'm blogging my thoughts on this subject.

This whole transgender bathroom issue is such bullshit to me. My step-mother, and her female camera-carrying friend, used public restrooms to take photos of children in a lot of places. No one blinked an eye, as Pam and her friend were exploiting children. They were women, in women's restrooms or changing rooms. They caught nobody's attention. Predators do not have a certain gender or appearance. They know how to do what they do in the least obvious way possible.

The human being who is trying to accept and live with their own mind's gender is not at ALL the person you need to fear.

Most predators are blending in and will not be visible to you at all. They are in your neighborhoods, your churches, your schools, and yes, even your families. My answer to this whole bathroom issue is simple: make sure you or someone you trust takes your kids to public restrooms until they are older, and teach your kids that any person who enters their private space for any reason, without permission, should be told “No.” Let go of these damn beliefs that transgender humans are the ones who are a danger to children. PREDATORS are the danger, and trust me, the majority of predators who daily misuse/target/traffic children, know very well how to blend in and remain anonymous. This whole bathroom issue only spreads bigotry and hatred, while doing nothing to protect children.

Gift

T-shirt, stub, and confetti from 2004

For my 39th birthday, my sister got us both very good seats for the Rose Garden concert during Prince's Musicology Tour in 2004.  Other than one performance given by my daughter, this is the best concert I ever attended.

The teenager in me is devastated at the loss of this amazing artist. 

Thanks, Kid, for the gift of that concert.

RIP Prince

RIP Pat Conroy

“The safe places could only be visited; they could only grant a momentary intuition of sanctuary. The moment always came when we had to return to our real life to face the wounds and grief indigenous to our home by the river.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“I take account of my life and find that I have lived a lot and learned very little.”
― Pat Conroy, South of Broad


“Hurt is a great teacher, maybe the greatest of all.”
― Pat Conroy, My Reading Life

“The tide was a poem that only time could create, and I watched it stream and brim and makes its steady dash homeward, to the ocean.”
― Pat Conroy, South of Broad

A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal. Pat Conroy
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pat_conroy.html

"A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal." ― Pat Conroy

A recipe is a story that ends with a good meal. Pat Conroy
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/pat_conroy.html

“My own tears seemed landlocked and frozen in a glacier I could not reach or touch within me.”
― Pat Conroy, Beach Music

“But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.”
― Pat Conroy, Beach Music

“A story untold could be the one that kills you.”
― Pat Conroy

“I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing.”
― Pat Conroy, Beach Music

"When mom and dad went to war the only prisoners they took were the children” ― Pat Conroy

“A family is one of nature's solubles; it dissolves in time like salt in rainwater.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides


"I still get weepy when I see a father being nice to his child.  It so affects me." ― Pat Conroy

I still get weepy when I see a father being nice to his child. It so affects me. Pat Conroy
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/patconroy660909.html

I still get weepy when I see a father being nice to his child. It so affects me. Pat Conroy
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/patconroy660909.html

“And in that instant was born the terrible awareness that life eventually broke every man, but in different ways and at different times.”
― Pat Conroy, The Water is Wide


“Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.”
― Pat Conroy, Beach Music