The Way according to Chip

Dad was here, packed and left

Momma Wende too, I checked

Auntie Cheri came, it was fun for a bit

Where’s Dad though, I’ll watch and I’ll wait

Went walking, my fav!

The cicada songs loud

Summers eve when the sun is still long

Folks wait moments fore last light to mow lawns

The park, ducks, trash cans and weed all smell

As we’re passing trees and skeleton tea’s

The quiet momma Wende’s home

She’s still gone, I checked

My things, my treats, cool water, my bone

I’m a good boy or so I am told…I still feel alone

Dad and Wende be back soon (so she says)

What I know your’re my heart and true home

My good friend Cheri recently led one of our Mindfulness groups. It was a great experience, one where we journaled, meditated to music, feasted on watermelon, and were drawn into childhood memories.

Sitting in my backyard on a sunny Tuesday in July, I’m thinking about this and many other things. Just a few hours removed from returning home from Cedar Point amusement park, one of my favorite vacation getaways, I’m watching Chip run, play, and lounge in the summer afternoon, reunited after he nearly knocked me over when I walked through the door.

It’s one of those summer afternoons, the kind where it’s sunny but not too hot, a warm breeze rustling through the trees and grass, giving off that lingering sense that this is a memory I’ve known before but can’t quite place, much like one of those endless childhood afternoons I once knew.

I experienced many wonderful childhood memories at Cedar Point, and I could easily say that going to this peninsula playground on the shores of Lake Erie is one of my favorite things because it conjures up these childhood memories. But let’s face it, I’ve got a problem and it’s called roller coasters. And Cedar Point, in my humble opinion, has the best coaster lineup in the world (with Top Thrill 2 taking my personal top spot for the best of the best). Throw in a hotel on the beach, especially as I’ve gotten older, and it’s easy to chalk up as a mostly healthy addiction I practice today.

But, yes, there are childhood memories that will always linger like ghostly silhouettes on that beach and boardwalk, within the walls of the hotel, and in the lines for many rides, despite how much the park has changed over the years. Even as I create new memories on each trip, knowing that age is eventually going to win as I survey the pains and aches that grow a little more with each passing year, I can still pause to take in the beauty of youth I knew in so many of those early life trips.

And it also gives me a chance to pause and realize how lucky I was to have the childhood I did, one that didn’t involve significant trauma.

That’s an interesting point Cheri brought up after our recent Mindfulness class. While our group took the delve into recalling childhood memories fairly well, she also noted that sometimes when she has led that particular meditation, prompting us at one point to dive back into our childhood rooms in the summers of our youth, participants couldn’t finish or had a less-than-stellar reaction due to the memories that were conjured up.

I’m also thinking about something else right now that Cheri did with our meditation that day, something else that has stuck with me.

She guided that day’s meditation reading from three different books. When she pulled out one of the books and said, “this is taken from Chapter 11 of Lucy’s Way by Mark Saluke” it was a truly cathartic, full circle moment for me. As she read the opening quote of “Balancing Act” and went on to read the first section of that chapter, it was the first time I heard someone other than myself read out loud from the book. It was a cocktail of mild anxiety stirred with adrenaline, much like a roller coaster. But more importantly, it was an honor, a full circle moment realizing my words could assist a meditation group (and realizing that Cheri just might get the job for reading the Lucy’s Way audio book).  

This moment also reminded me of the importance of continuing to get the message of Lucy’s Way out to people.

So while I’m starting to slow down with the amount and timing of events as I think of other ways to spread the message of Lucy’s Way, I’m not stopping them. Every single new person I meet, who engages and talks with me, even if they don’t walk away with a copy of Lucy’s Way, meeting them in and of itself is still a win.

And this weekend is going to be a new experience when I visit the Elwood Public Library for a reading and signing, and here’s what makes the day a win before it even happens: the Elwood Animal Shelter will be on site with a few of their furry friends and I’ll be donating $10 of every book sold to the shelter! You can talk with the shelter to learn about opportunities to volunteer, foster or adopt through the shelter. So, come on over and hear me read from Chapter 10: A Sheltered Life, buy a book and maybe head home with a new best friend.

I think often of my days working at the Marion-Grant County Humane Society (side note: you can buy copies of Lucy’s Way at Pipe Creek Animal Shelter with $10 of every sale going back to MGCHS as well) and how I gained a greater appreciation for shelters and the work they do as well as a greater appreciation for Lucy, who was a shelter dog for the first few weeks of her puppy life. Giving her a chance to live a wonderful and awesome life, as most of you know, was the greatest blessing of my life.

And now there’s Chip, another great blessing, but one in which we’ve already experienced our first overnight separation in this short journey together.

We needed someone to keep an eye on him for this short, two-night excursion. The family Chip came from offered to watch him anytime (and Dave and Michelle, if you are reading this, I do still plan to take you up on this offer at some point 😊) but I didn’t want him to get confused so soon after his rehoming, wanted him to be in his new digs, in his comfort zone, all the things.

Hi again, Cheri. And if the poem opening this blog, which we received from Cheri on the first night of our trip, doesn’t spell it out clearly enough, then maybe saying it this way will: Cheri was the perfect pick, and clearly smitten by Chip. She’s already on board to do it again.

People sometimes enter your life at perfect moments, and this is so true with Cheri. I’d met her a few years ago and Wende has been friends with her for a while, but when she joined our mindfulness group our friendship immediately blossomed to where it is today. It’s good to have friends like Cheri.

This also leads me back to Lucy (yep, more full circle stuff). In Lucy’s Way, I wrote about the grief that grew on me when I left her for vacations as she grew older, and the solace that it provided me when Cindy stayed with her when I went on that final vacation to Cedar Point in August, 2020 before hunkering down with her for the final four months of her life.

Just as I immensely missed Lucy while I was gone, I felt those same feelings starting to stir as I prepared to leave Chip recently. Cheri certainly helped ease these feelings, just as Cindy did with Lucy.

And Chip says he is fine, as long as I never go to Cedar Point again as he highly disapproves of the no dog policy. We’re going to have to negotiate that one with some treats and extra belly rubs.

On the night before we returned home, this text dropped in just as we were finishing up our night ride on Top Thrill 2 (looking down on the lit up Cedar Point skyline from 420 feet in the air after dark truly is sublime):

The Way today according to Chip

Long night

No Dad

Nor mum

Had bone

Ate food

Another walk

Walnuts, wildflowers

Peacocks scream

Tree pee

Play friends?

Said no

Again today

That’s dumb I sit!

Go house

No pull

Good boy

Eat treats

Slurp ice

She’s nice

Sleep sweet

Tomorrow come

Family home…

Obviously, Cheri wasn’t only a great choice to stay with Chip. She’s also got a pretty darned artistic soul.