Sunday Scribblings Prompt: My Oldest Friend
This is my Maya in one of my favorite pictures of her that I have ever taken...and there are so many, as well as so many sketches of her. These days Maya isn't looking so sharp witted though she still tries, and does a pretty good job of it. Maya will turn fifteen years old this November. She has been my companion since she was two months old. I wrote an article from her perspective once, that I thought would work well for this prompt. I have been struggling for the last few years in accepting her increasing frailty, hearing loss, and back joint pain. The new addition of a puppy in our lives has helped revive Maya's stamina, her desire to play and her reawakening to being an active participant. It has helped me accept the dog side of her and to unleash my hold a bit. But it doesn't change that little by little she is leaving me, us and this world...she seems to be waiting only for me to be ready.
My name is Maya- Lee Diaz, I have two humans; a female and male. My female human believes that just as Gods used to appear on earth disguised as peasants to test the character of humans in Greek Mythology, we dogs serve in that same capacity today. Therefore, I am treated like a Queen. I’m not about to burst her bubble!
I don't know what it is about me, but I am treated with great respect and regard by almost everyone I meet. In fact I’m often called Miss Maya. At night, I sleep between both of my humans with my head on a pillow and my body under the covers. I lift my head only to take a sip of water from my oversized ceramic bowl that my male human brings to me in bed. It is at those moments prior to falling into the deep sleep that consumes me, that I realize, 'damn I got it good'. They don’t know I rather sleep on the floor (and I actually do, once they’re too conked-out to notice).
My life hasn’t always been so easy. I’m a Scorpio for one, born on November 17th and us scorpions ...well lets face it we have attitude problems, we're way too independent to have others constantly pawing us. I’m a Samoyed Shepherd mix and don’t take kindly to being called a mutt, since I know exactly what my heritage is. In fact I'm so independently minded, that I'm bit on the bossy side. I’m so bossy that at this very moment, I’m actually leaning over the keyboard facing the laptop screen while I dictate this narrative to my slow-typing female human.
I began my life as I know it, at the age of two-months alongside of my female human. I was born in Springfield, Ohio, though all I remember of Springfield are metal bars and gawking humans. The smell and sounds were absolutely horrifying. If only you people knew what it was like to start life being yanked away from your biological parents and placed in small cubicles. I don’t know about you, but personally I don’t like to be forced to relieve myself where I have to sleep. There I was in the midst of the sounds, smells and sicknesses of yearning dogs stacked in rows of kennels in the inside of a Springfield mall pet store, when I saw her for the first time...who knew she would become my oldest friend?
Luckily for me, I found the right human. I can’t say the same for all my cell mates. She said I looked like a giant cotton ball when she found me. She moved me out of that God-forsaken, confined space into a small town, where I began the early days of my life, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Sounds idyllic don’t it?...for a dog to live in a place called Yellow Springs, but that’s really what it’s called! Yellow Springs: a wonderful, small, progressive college town, with lots and lots of grassy fields, acres of woods and noble souls. A town where everyone knew everyone and I used to frequently pass by my sister’s house. Things were good those days. I remember my first rooms, my first kitchen, the first 6foot floor plant I knocked down, decimated and destroyed all over the kitchen floor. Most of all, I remember my back yard. Oh, and being let off my leash on any one of the many fields at all the parks around and running wild-twenty-miles-an-hour circles around my human! Ahh, If only the days could have stayed like that.
Unfortunately around a year later, I learned my human was a bit on the ‘unsettled side’ of life. So we had to move. And boy did we move!
First to Miami, Florida; where I got to enjoy early morning walks on the beach. Then we moved to Baltimore, Maryland; where I chased more mice than I’ve ever experienced before and where I first met my future male human, only he didn’t know it yet. I have even traveled to Puerto Rico! twice! Rural Puerto Rico, a place where to see a dog live like I do, is to truly see royalty. Then the joy ride was over and we moved to the most obnoxious of all the places I have ever lived in my whole life...New York City.
Talk about country dog vs. city dog! I’ll never figure out what that city’s hype is all about! I quickly ran out of dirt squares and trees to do my business and let’s just say concrete is not my idea of a relieving station. Thankfully my female human is a native New Yorker and took me to all the rare, chlorophyll-filled, emerald bathroom spots she knew of; but seriously that ain't much. Concrete, concrete everywhere and not a branch to toss and chase! “No dogs here!”, “Hey you make sure you pick that up!” screams from across the street and traffic so loud, big and vibrating, that it caused me to walk in a constant state of paranoia with my tail curled between my legs. I get shivers just thinking about it! As though that weren’t bad enough, our apartment was the smallest of spaces I have ever been in, with the exception of my cell back in Springfield. But the absolute worse part of living in NYC, was that I couldn’t reach the window to watch my human leave everyday.
Luckily, I made sure my human knew that I travel well. I actually like long Uhaul truck rides and when my human bought her first car we went everywhere that we possibly could together, even Bombay New York, seven hours North of NYC! That trip was when my male human came into our lives and I started to appreciate life in a new light. He changed my perspective on everything...even NYC.
I had never noticed all that city had to offer before, like little corner restaurants with dog fountains, long Central park walks, the frequent visits to the local video store. I fell so in love with my male human, especially the taste of him! I love to lick his balding head and face as though it was my personal bone! Then came the very best move...we left the city and moved to Piermont, New York in Rockland County.
There my female and male humans got married and I didn’t need to buy a dress because I’m already white! In Piermont we had a deck facing the Hudson River that I laid out on all spring and summer long. We were very happy there but it still wasn’t a place we could call home...because quite frankly I still didn’t have my life long dream of a yard of my own.
When I turned ten years old my humans started to discuss something called a ‘penultimate home’. All I know is that what happened next was priceless. We moved into a whole house and left that world of temporary spaces. I have a large picture window all to myself, pet doors in all the right places, a leather couch that I have christened right in front of a large fireplace, a half acre backyard, a hot big black boyfriend named Tiger who lives right next door and plenty of rooms to call my own. Now, after a decade of waiting, I am living like the goddess I am.
This past November I turned fourteen years old…things aren’t as easy as they used to be. I’m becoming a bit more clouded. It has become a little difficult to hear what everybody is talking about. Not to mention my back-end is rebelling against me, making my step-climbing quite difficult. Last year, I all but gave up; I was so tired I started losing interest in getting up off the couch. That all changed when my female human brought home some over-sized-rat-excuse-for-a-dog! Can you believe that??? She betrayed me with this little male macho adrenaline junky pest who likes to lick, jump, hug, clean my ears and imitate my every move! Well, there was no way I was going to let this guy take over my kingdom; I told him “Just don’t jump in my face 'cause I’ll put you in your place!” I was forced to defend my honor, and so I got up off the couch, started celebrating my human’s arrival again, started hearing a little better too (of course with all that ear licking he does!). After, a while I started warming up to the kid, especially when he likes to sleep huddled up against me. Now I have a playmate out in the yard and Tiger gets jealous, which make me feel quite desired! I guess the little punk’s not so bad. In fact, when he’s not around, I kind of miss him!!
Well that’s my story and I thought I better dictate it and get it all documented now, before I lose the rest of my faculties. I hope you enjoyed it!
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Thursday, August 7, 2008 at 12:21PM 
Detail of Louis Vuitton Window from my NYC Windows series on my FLICKR
