LETTERS FROM HOME: BEDTIME STORY FOR A FITFUL NIGHT OF SNARLING

May 2, 1996

Dear Julie,

It's midnight on a night filled with sirens and rushed deadlines. Hank and Lucy are upstairs wrestling and playfully snarling at each other while DC tries to fall back asleep.

It's a fitful night, though, and I doubt dreamland will be easy for anyone to find.

I've come downstairs in search of some peace, a couch and a lamp and a shining silence.

We have failed horribly as dog owners. People advised us to put them in a kennel when we weren't around, the better to housebreak and civilize them. We couldn't bear the thought, wanting our puppies to live free.

Now, eight months after they arrived in our household, they are neither housebroken nor civilized. Chaos is their idea of a good time.

If our dogs were kids, DC says, they'd be juvenile delinquents.

She recently brought home a dog toy, a pig whose label boasted that it was indestructible. Five minutes in the presence of Hank and Lucy reduced the pig to pieces.

The thing is, they're also our boon companions, always greeting us at the door, pulling us down the street on their leashes, leading us on fun-filled chases after their almost daily escapes out a door.

Last weekend they accompanied us to DC's parents' cabin, where they can roam without restrictions. A fellow who was there turkey hunting thought they might have some Blue Heeler in them, judging by their energy level and speed. "They're some kind of stock dog," he says. "They're smart and they always like to be doing something."

If they're so smart, I wish they'd learn to relax.

An eerie silence tells me they've finally settled down. Either they ran out of juice or DC distributed bones to pacify them. Or she has bound and gagged them.

Our spring has been turbulent. The temperatures are still chilly, off and on, which has confused the plant life, and near-constant rains have bloated the Mississippi again. Throw in a tornado or two and it's been an unsettling season.

Flooding is becoming the normal occurrence here in the '90s. It might as well be a metaphor for the waves of profound changes washing over the Earth. Hierarchical governments giving way to home-rule, victimhood yielding to responsibility and empowerment, the god of knowledge searching for his goddess of compassion, giving birth to wisdom, and the blockages of fear all of us have lived our lives with -- fear of God, of each other and on and on and on -- being swept away.

It begins with love of self, of another, of family and friends, of community and ultimately of all creation. Love is the river we must bathe in when fears take the shape of mountains.

A man killed 35 human beings a few days ago. Senseless, we all say. My theory is that the psychosis that seems to be loose in the world really is a reaction to the speed of the changes we're undergoing. Some people can't handle the acceleration. Too many G's. It's all that makes sense to me this night.

That's why we all need a little less chaos in our lives. A place to go where the birds sing in four-part harmony or where there's no sound at all save your heartbeat. There, dogs obey and their masters and mistresses shower them with love and kibble.

Back upstairs, I feel the need to explain this to Hank and Lucy, a bedtime story if you will. They look up quizzically from their sleepy reveries, as if I were the one whose behavior is beyond bounds.

Now we can all go to sleep.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.