Is There A Pug Or Three In The House? And, Living The Wabi Sabi Life...

From left to right: Sampson, Babs & Coco,

and Maitri with her lopsided Bell's Palsy,
Wabi Sabi smile in the back!

Truly, I think it was all Molly's fault. She is the one who, with her wonderful husband Chad, said, as they left after bringing my first rescue pug from Mid Atlantic Pug Rescue, "Pugs are like potato chips, you can't have just one..." Ahem. Apparently not. And I am usually very careful not to show pictures of my Bell's Palsy lopsided face that started the wabi sabi of it all as Niecy Nash from one of my favorite shows, Clean House, might say, which I was blessed with in June 1995, but it's hard not to giggle with 3 pugs in your lap. And blessed by Bell's Palsy, you betcha!

Now, it's not that I like to look lopsided, but I'm a sort of lopsided, cattywompus person to begin with, and after having three babies and gaining weight, my last vestige of pride, what everyone always called "My beautiful smile," had gone all funny, as well as my eye and pretty much everything on the left side of my face, well, after the pain, after the shock, after a year and more, I realized that it was with me for good, and I kind of shrugged and went on. It taught me a wonderful lesson, it taught me compassion.

Bell's Palsy was the beginning of my learning the true meaning of maitri, the Buddhist teaching of loving kindness and compassion, that you must first have it for yourself before you can give it to another. I had to come to terms with the fact that I would always be lopsided, but life goes on and so did I. In fact it moved me to dedicate myself, my life, and my work to maitri, and ten years after I got Bell's, I got divorced, and I went straight to the courthouse and applied for a legal name change. Maitri is now my legal name, and I changed it to have a reminder all of the days of my life to continue the practice of maitri in every single moment. It, like meditation, is a practice. We forget, and then we remember, and it goes on like that. We keep practicing. It's hard to forget when you've taken it as your name. Which leads me back to the pugs...

Let me start by saying that I have had, loved, and felt closer to animals since childhood than I have to other people, and animal welfare and animal advocacy are the most heartfelt causes that I support, and I walk my talk. For several years I ran a non-profit shelter for disabled parrots and other domestic birds that were unwanted. Today I live with 5 parrots, 4 beta fish, one dog, and three pugs. You have to understand that pugs are not dogs, not really. They'd be the first to tell you so! And while I have loved all of my dogs dearly, most especially my big lab-doby mix, Moses, whom we adopted from the Humane Society at 3 months and who is now twelve years old, there is just something special about pugs that you can't deny. They are the first dogs I have ever had that have turned me into the kind of parent you run from when you see coming, as they flash out 78 pictures of the new baby. I blush, but it's true.

And I am now running kind of an Old Folks Home For Pugs. No, there won't be any more, not now, but trust me, 3 pugs are more fun and more trouble than a barrel of monkeys! Leave it to the woman with the lopsided face to fall in love with 3 funny-faced little creatures. And fall in love I have. I am, in fact, smitten.

Babs is 12 and deaf as a door. She will sleep any old where as long as it's on the bed with me. Coco is 11, hard of hearing, and sleeps under the covers all the way down to my feet, as I was told she would, but it's a bit startling, I mean, you wonder how she can breathe down there? And Sampson is the youngster of the group, being somewhere between 7 and 8, and sleeps next to me with his head on the other pillow. He's my Velcro-Pug. They told me he had Abandonment Issues. I said, that's okay, so do I. Babs came in August, Sampson in September, and Coco just yesterday, the November Newcomer. I'd say that Moe is the Alpha dog, but he is so laid back, as they all are, that I think he's just confused.





Moe says, "You're kidding, right?"



What I figured, after walking with Moe and the first two pugs for awhile, was that I could handle one more, 2 on each side, and it would be a more balanced walk, so in came Coco who needed a home and we are a downright spectacle walking down the side of the street. People's mouths drop open. My biggest fear is that we will cause a 15 car pile-up because people just stop and stare. And they shout things out, anything from "That's so cute," to "LADY, how do you DO that???" which is what I hear more that anything. And people just can't help but want to look at the pugs. Moe is a sweetheart and will be the great love of my lifetime, but the pugs, well, they're funny, and adorable, and charming. Right now Sampson and Coco are snoring. Moe and Babs are asleep as well. And don't tell me your sorry tales about having a spouse or partner that snores. Try sleeping with 3 pugs that do. Now that is something to write home about.

In 1995, just three days after Bell's Palsy changed my life, I learned about the Japanese aesthetic of wabi sabi. Wabi Sabi is the imperfect-perfect. It comes out of the Japanese Tea Ceremony and is about compassion, and about the reality of life, and that there is perfection in imperfection. All of my work became, in that moment, about wabi sabi, and maitri. And so it shall be.

So with sleeping snoring pugs around me, and a grey parrot named Henry (Now there's the Alpha male of the house!) on my shoulder where he spends much of the day, I will head into the kitchen and make my protein shake and latte. And I will watch the outside birds at the 7 feeders on the patio (my other flock!) and enjoy this beautiful, crisp, cool Sunday morning, and I will thank God for this beautiful day and all of my many blessings, and I will look at my funny faced dogs with my own funny face, and we shall have a splendid day.

Maitri, the five parrots, the four beta fish, the one dog, the three pugs, and I'm quite certain there's a partridge in a pear tree here somewhere....