“Yeah, that’s what she was doing before. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
“We have to take her to the vet!” Dad put the steaks back in the fridge, and the team rallied. All of us—Dad, Tripp, Jenna, Erisy, and I went to the after-hours vet. We huddled in the little room, surrounding Gizelle. They put a thermometer in Gizelle’s behind, checked her ears, looked in her nose, pulled on her tail and stretched each of her limbs. Nothing. It cost five hundred dollars that night to figure out that Gizelle had “growing pains.” Yup, just growing pains. “This is common in giant breed dogs,” the vet assured. The five of us stood, relieved. The vet looked puzzled by the sight of so many of us crammed in this one room for growing pains. Well, now we knew what it was. But I discovered something else that night, looking at my family packed in this tiny room circled around Gizelle, each of us stroking her ears and rubbing her tummy and gazing at her with love and Dad covering the vet bill without complaint. We were totally keeping the big puppy.
3
Making Lists
Summer was over and I was staring out the eleventh-floor window of a colossal and intimidating fourteen-floor sorority dorm. My new home. The hallways were filled with colorful Greek letters. Rooms had matching Lilly Pulitzer bedding and monogrammed laundry hampers. Girls walked around arm in arm in shirts that said things like, “Pi or Die,” and everything seemed to match, match, match.
Trying to adapt to the whole Greek life thing as a transfer sorority girl was tough. Leaving Gizelle and Erisy was tougher. I did my best to fit in at my new school. I went to a formal, tailgated at a football game, wrapped myself in a bedsheet for a toga party (and threw up on the lawn). Do I fit in yet? Do I want to fit in? I wondered. But when 6:30 p.m. Monday night rolled around, when all my sisters primped and polished and flooded the eleventh-floor hallway to march down the hill to the weekly Chapter meeting, I stayed behind. I don’t think anyone noticed.
I had transferred from the College of Charleston in South Carolina to be closer to Erisy during her last three years of high school. So I went home most weekends. Every time I walked through the door, the big puppy was bigger. Soon she was bigger than me, and she wasn’t finished growing.
Of course, Gizelle wasn’t aware she was nearing the size of a La-Z-Boy chair. In her mind she was no bigger than Yoda. She would army-crawl under short coffee tables to take a nap. Inevitably the table would tilt up over her head. She was our resident bulldozer, spilling coffee and knocking over frames with her tail. And if my sister and I were snuggled on the small two-person love seat in the living room watching a movie, Gizelle was blind to the fact that there wasn’t space for her, too. She would always make room, stealthily placing one paw up and then another paw. Then a graceful launch of all 100-something pounds of her right into our laps. Crushing our thighs and bellies, blocking our view, and pinning our arms to our sides, she would open her mouth to a light, smiley pant, almost as if she thought: They do not even know I am here.
As Gizelle kept growing, Mom’s pupils kept shrinking. She returned from rehab and twenty-eight days of forced sobriety and within minutes took off in her car. My family fell back into the same old traps, following her around, digging through her closet, calling liquor stores to see if she’d visited.
One weekend I came home to find her passed out on the couch at 5 p.m. There was a new dent in her car, mini Sutter Home bottles hidden away in the depths of her closet, and Tylenol bottles filled with colorful pills I did not think were Tylenol. I decided to confront her. “Mom.” I tried to speak calmly. “Why are you taking these? What are these for?” I held the pills out in front of her. She squinted at my hand, then stared off into space, like her words were lost, floating around in her head, and she had to find them first. After a moment she turned back to me, “I’m not, sweetie! I’m not taking those anymore. I’m totally fine!” she insisted, baffled that I would accuse her of such a thing.
There had been times she had been convincing, times I’d start to battle my own brain, wondering if I was the crazy one for saying “Mom isn’t fine.” I wrestled briefly with that thought, remembering how she had just mailed me a new purse and months before had spoiled me with the giant puppy. But looking back into my mother’s glassy eyes, I snapped back into reality.
“No. Mom. You are not fine. You are lying!”
She glared at me, but struggled to hold eye contact. As my words registered, anger broke through her drowsy stupor, and she snapped. “How could you not believe me? It’s so unfair! After all I do for you!” Suddenly, we were storming through the house like two teenagers, slamming cabinets and yelling as loud as we could in the same-old you-have-a-problem-no-I-don’t-have-a-problem argument until I finally called Dad to yell at him, too. “Dad! We cannot live like this! It’s not fair. It’s not fair to Erisy! Why aren’t you doing something? Please, please make her leave!” And this is why addiction is the knottiest, meanest, most confusing illness. It messes with everyone involved. It’s a bully.
I was losing my mom to that bully.
I slammed the door of my car and drove away from my house with Gizelle. I didn’t just want to leave Brentwood, I wanted to run away from Tennessee entirely. I hated school and hated home and did not know where I belonged. We had tried everything with Mom. I thought if I could catch her in her lies, if I could make her admit she had a problem, if I pleaded, tried to reason with her—something would work. Something had to work. . . . Right? I was trembling with rage. I slapped my hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck!” I yelled, flying up I-65 north toward Nashville as Gizelle shifted in the backseat to rest her chin on the center console, still trying to be as close to me as possible. I tried to take deep breaths. I tried to calm myself down. But I could not understand why my mother would keep choosing the pills and the alcohol over her family. (And she did, eventually, choose the pills and alcohol over her family. Later, Dad would tell Mom she had to move out if she refused to seek help. She didn’t put up much of a fight. She just left.)
I drove until I reached Percy Warner Park. The Warner Parks are southwest of Nashville and have more than two thousand acres of hilly trail. I needed air. I found a random trail, clipped on Gizelle’s leash, and started walking. Gizelle stayed right with me. Not behind me. Not pulling out in front of me. Beside me. She was a natural on her leash. As we made our way up the path, she kept looking up at me. She sometimes did this as visual confirmation I was with her, but that day I felt she sensed my distress. We walked faster, and soon our trot turned to a jog. Gizelle trotted just beside me. Then she started getting faster. We picked up speed. Our six feet beat together like two drums.
The leash flapped between us. Obviously, a leash is made to bind human and dog, and I’ve often felt it to be a nice connector, something that made me and Gizelle feel like two parts of one whole. Yet, at that moment, the leash felt like it was in the way, tangling the air between us. Making things knotty.
So, I took the leash off, and we ran.
We ran next to each other. A mini stampede. We were completely in sync, and not thinking about much but the present moment. We ran as fast as we could as the trees whooshed by. Gizelle came up to my hips, but she never tried to jump in front of me or nip at my feet like a lot of dogs would. Her jowls flapped in the wind and her long pink tongue flailed happily out of her mouth as she ran next to me. Like a protector. Like a friend. Then it didn’t even seem like we were two drums. We were one massive drum beating loudly with every step. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
We ran for a few minutes until we found a clearing and fell down onto the grass. I rested my head on her stomach and listened to her panting slowly subside along with my own. I couldn’t believe I had a massive dog who would follow me without a leash. She followed me just because she wanted to be with me. My head moved on her belly with her slowing breath. Then Gizelle turned around and licked my face followed by a nibble on my nose. This was how she told me she loved me.
I kept running through college. Running gave m
e a purpose when I wasn’t sure what my purpose was. I felt grounded, connected to the earth. I wasn’t fighting parts of my life that were distressing. Running was the first thing I can remember doing in my life where I felt like I was actually doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.
Running also made me feel productive, like I was taking advantage of my days and pushing myself to do something physically and mentally demanding. And as I watched my mom doing the opposite, sleeping her life away and losing days, I found myself afraid of being like her. I didn’t want to miss out on life. I wanted to show up for it. So I started training for my first half marathon. Gizelle became my training partner.
Having a 160-pound English mastiff training partner had its limitations and was not without risk. One pretty afternoon in late spring, I took Gizelle and Bertha to the park at the Brentwood YMCA—planning to do sprints on the soccer field. Usually Gizelle would do a little running around with me, but Bertha’s shorter physique wasn’t built for much activity. I didn’t have the heart to bench Fatty alone because that might make her feel self-conscious, so I leashed both girls to a nearby soccer goal. Gizelle lay in a sphinx position, watching me, and Fatty rolled over on her back, snorting in the grass.
With that, I took off running. Gizelle’s ears lifted and her eyes followed me intently as I ran back and forth across the field. On my third sprint back toward the goal, I gave Gizelle a little pat on the head. She must have taken this as a You coming or not? Because when I took off, Gizelle took off, too, dragging the soccer goal and poor Fatty along with her—an unlikely threesome careening across the field. Gizelle didn’t realize that she was the one towing a soccer goal along; she only saw a big net chasing her. She ran faster from the goal, with poor Bertha’s stubby legs scurrying at maximum new speeds trying to keep up. I rerouted myself completely to run after them, laughing and screaming and flailing my arms. Once I finally caught up, it took more than a minute to wrangle the tangle of dogs from the soccer goal in front of a parking lot full of howling children and soccer moms.
* * *
Eventually Gizelle came to live with me in Knoxville. We’d run through campus together at night, trotting down Sixteenth Street, past my old sorority dorm, and onto Volunteer Boulevard, where the campus sidewalk sloped upward into a grassy hill near the library. Every time we approached this spot, Gizelle began walking with purpose, picking up speed, tapping her front paws on the concrete with excitement. “Ready, girl? Ready?” I’d unhook the leash.
There weren’t many students out, but the ones who were would always stop in their tracks, books in hand, struck by the sight of the huge dog on campus running through the shadows. As she ran up the hill, she always turned her head around to make sure I was following. I’d chase after her, and together we’d dart into the grass, side by side underneath a sky full of stars.
Nights on campus with Gizelle always got me thinking. If I could say I wanted to run one mile, and then run that one mile, what else could I do if I set my mind to it? Where else could my feet take me? When I ran, I started dreaming of the places I wanted to go, the things I wanted to see, and what kind of person I wanted to be once I got there. I started listing items in my head, writing them in journals:
Run a whole marathon
See the lions in Africa
Study abroad
Eat pizza in Italy
Fall in love
Get a tattoo
This list eventually earned the title “Lauren’s Bucket List.” I crossed off and added things as I went.
Run a whole marathon
Study abroad
Get a tattoo
Be an au-pair in Italy
Eat pizza in Italy
Eat gelato in Italy
Eat Spaghetti alla Carbonera in Italy
Soon I was twenty-three, out of college and wondering what was next for me. My parents had separated and would soon divorce. Erisy had left for college in California. Tripp and Jenna moved to LA. Mom checked herself back into rehab. Friends were nailing internships, starting careers, or getting married. As I scanned my list, there was one item that felt like it was practically glowing on the page. One item that seemed like the most logical next step in life, even though I had no idea what I was doing with my life.
I decided I would move away from Tennessee. I would trade my life in the South for a place a little more energetic, gritty, cosmopolitan. A place I knew almost nothing about. I was going to move to New York City. To Manhattan. And Gizelle was coming with me.
4
Manhattan
43rd Street, Times Square
While I continued to work on my bucket list, thrilled to soon cross off “Live in Manhattan,” Gizelle continued to work on a list of her own. Her list of fears. Gizelle was terrified of nearly everything.
Mailboxes
Drains
Strangers
Yoda
Cardboard boxes and pots
Soccer goals (rightfully so!)
Bikes
Bertha
Plastic bags
Power tools
The bike didn’t even have to be moving. Once there was a bicycle on the floor of the garage and Gizelle crept around it so carefully you’d think it was a grizzly bear she was trying not to wake. Another time she refused to go out into the yard because there was a vicious plastic bag out there blowing in the wind. And it only took Yoda one snarly snap for Gizelle to retreat under the table all Gee, I’m so sorry, Yoda! Please don’t hurt me!
So, naturally, bringing my massive baby to New York City, a place where I was certain we would come across more plastic bags blowing in the wind, bicycles, drains, and (larger and louder) power tools and machinery—I was slightly apprehensive. Sure, Gizelle had become bolder and more confident during her time at the University of Tennessee, but my girl still put the gentle in gentle giant. What if Manhattan terrified Gizelle? What if she arrived and immediately wanted to country-roads-take-me-home, back to a land of quiet starry nights and grassy fields and car rides? There was only one way to find out. And it began with finding us an apartment.
For an outsider, finding a home in New York City is the city’s first test. It’s New York’s way of saying, So, how badly do you want to live here? How much of your space, moral compass, income, tolerance of filth, and dignity will you sacrifice? How insane are you? It’s survival of the fittest. If you can’t handle the apartment hunt, maybe you shouldn’t stay. Maybe New York City is not the best match for you. Which, in a way, I like, because that means people who live here must technically, somewhere deep down, want to live here, or else you would never torture yourself with the pain-in-the-ass apartment hunt. I soon felt that all of Manhattan worked this way—if you weren’t willing to work, it would eat you alive, but if you were, and if fate would cooperate, there were rewards.
One of the biggest gifts fate bestowed was Kimmy. Kimmy was from Hartford, Connecticut, but had gone to school in New Jersey. I’d met her studying abroad in college and we became instant friends. Kimmy was one of four sisters, and she had the same my-closet-is-your-closet outlook as me. She was the type of girl whom a number of people would count as their best friend.
That first year we lived together, she was a bridesmaid or maid of honor in about twelve different weddings. Once a month, like clockwork, she’d be gluing rhinestones in cursive on a sailor hat (Brides Mate!) for another bachelorette party, then she’d look at me and roll her eyes and say, “Fuck. These. Weddings,” then laugh and get right back to her rhinestones.
We both couldn’t believe people our age were getting married. Moving to New York City and having a dog was the biggest commitment we both wanted to make. We were twenty-three and saw the city as one giant playground. Girls our age? Settling down? Now? But there was still so much to see and do and explore! Kimmy and I had already done a lot of exploring together, too. We bungee jumped off the highest bungee bridge in the world, did a homestay in Nagano, slept on canoes for no reason, and now we were taking on New Y
ork City for our greatest adventure yet.
As we walked to meet our broker, I asked Kimmy if there was anything that bothered her about roommates, and she just said, “Ugh. Living with people who get mad about stupid shit.” That made sense to me. Who wants to be around those people? Right? But wait a minute: Do I get mad about stupid shit? I didn’t think so. Studying abroad, Kimmy had earned the nickname Farm Girl, because she was always drinking a lot and saying funny, dirty things and posing provocatively in front of important historical monuments. But that never bothered me; I was usually right there alongside her!
I adored Kimmy. She was easygoing yet motivated, never picky, and truly selfless. The girl could survive on condiments alone if she needed to. Once, when I was hungry, she gave me her bag of chips and ate a packet of ketchup instead, just squirted it into her mouth. “What? It’s good!” she claimed. The other thing about Kimmy was that she was thrilled to have a dog. “I’ve never had a dog before! Always wanted one!” she cheered. She’d met Gizelle once before in Knoxville. Her reaction? “Oh, she doesn’t even seem that big!” Yes, Kimmy was perfect roommate material. If only we could find an apartment.
We found a broker named Allie who led us up what felt like every staircase in Hell’s Kitchen, a neighborhood she claimed was “affordable.” Despite all those stairs, Allie was a devoted fan of the pencil skirt. We followed those pencil skirts through a number of “sundrenched,” “modern,” “huge” apartments. But the places we saw were tiny—so small that if there was room for a couch, you could reach the fridge from it. It didn’t take long to discover that being able to even fit a bed in a bedroom was a luxury and having a window facing the smallest sliver of sun was a miracle. And what about dogs? Where do New Yorkers put dogs? I wondered. Gizelle hadn’t arrived in New York City just yet. In fact, she would only arrive if I had a place to put her. But some of the apartments were so small that I doubted Kimmy, Gizelle, and I could all fit in the place at the same time. Gizelle would have to walk out into the hallway to turn around.
Gizelle's Bucket List Page 3