LETTERS FROM HOME: THINKING ABOUT THE PROMISED LAND ON A WINTER'S DAY

Feb. 25, 1999

Dear Pat

We thought we'd found the hole in the fence Lucy made her great escape through. It's temporarily covered with a board held in place by a large flat rock she couldn't possibly move. Of course, underestimate Rin Tin Tin and Lassie if you dare.

A few mornings ago, I started drawing a bath, walked downstairs and let the dogs out the back door before making coffee. As before, only Hank came when I called. I yelled to DC, ran down the back steps and spied Lucy loping across the driveway out front, bound for the Promised Land.

Fortunately, she is a graduate of a dog training class and came when called. But like a parent, you can't help feeling guilty about what might have happened.

DC in her housecoat and I in my sweats began a board-by-board inspection of the fence. About 20 yards from the original hole we found a spot where some wire had separated, leaving a gap of only a few inches. You'd hardly notice it if you weren't a nosy dog.

We were just glad the mystery was probably solved. Two jail breaks in a matter of days is too much for any warden.

DC walked back inside the house first and began screaming seconds later. DC believes screams are appropriate in a variety of situations: for instance, a finch caught upside down in its cage because its nails are too long, a tree limb crashing through the window, a tornado bearing down on the house in the movie on TV.

Unfortunately, her screams aren't accompanied by information that would make it possible for me to decide whether to run or laugh. They simply hang in the air like an exclamation point with a question mark.

Rushing inside I could hear both her footsteps going up the back stairs and between screams the plop, plop, plop of the bath water that already had seeped through the ceiling of the den and was making plans to sweep the couch away in a torrent that would have to travel only three downhill blocks back home to its mother, the Mississippi River.

As my mother always says, If it's not one thing it's something else.

The question is, What else? If we only knew which disasters, terrible and small, were about to befall us, we'd take the preventive steps necessary. But then, life would hold no jail breaks, no mysteries, no great urge to keep plugging along to see how it all turns out. We'd already know. How disappointing.

Instead, ours is a sublime adventure, a ride aboard the real Magic Mountain. Scary, mundane, exhilarating, the Eiffel Tower one day, mops and brooms another. It's a package deal.

In college, I used to sit in the Student Union on gray winter mornings with my friends David and Dale, drinking coffee and talking about our miserable classes, our miserable lives, our miserable rock 'n' roll band. Inevitably, someone punched Jose Feliciano's number on the jukebox, his "California Dreamin'," sweeping me far away to a land of immortal sun where college students study volleyball on the beach and no one cares what you're going to do with your life.

I know how Lucy might feel about the Promised Land. The horizon calls. But eventually you discover the Promised Land is wherever you decide to find it, the Garden of Eden right outside your door.

A few days ago, I was sitting in the den when that plopping sound reappeared. This time the water was falling on the other end of the couch. Two plumbers later we have a new pipe to replace a cracked one leading to the sink.

The ceiling of our den looks like a modern painting, muddy brown splotches and cracks on a white canvas. Once in awhile a speck of plaster falls on the couch, new seeds for our garden.

Love, Sam

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