Besides the sappy title this blog may seem like it’s going to be about Harmony my sweet, loving and infinitely loyal Black Lab rescue dog who is now somewhere around 13 yrs old. How Harmony came into my life (actually into my open garage prior to me getting working garage doors) is a whole different story. This true tale and longwinded CaptCliff blog is actually about the necessity of facing ones mortality and the importance of remembering who you once were and reconnecting with that childhood self. “Inner child” may be a close approximation but in this case it’s not about peace, love or flower power. Neither is it about some idealized angelic version of childhood.

By “childhood self” I’m mostly referring to the original, pure, innocent, unadulterated and unconditionally loving part of our being as well as the unbiased unadulterated early in life preferences, interests, desires, likes (yum!) and dislikes (yuck!) that once defined and described an individual’s true nature. There are no six-year-old accountants or eight-year-old attorneys. Only little kids in their most real, authentic and original state of being. Admittedly it’s not an easy concept to pin down precisely but if you asked a family friend or older relative who knew you at age 4-9 years old they would likely be able to describe certain key elements or personality traits that stood out as far back as they can remember. For many children who are now fully grown adults or even aging Baby Boomers like myself our original self was often characterized by a boundless amount of physical energy, vivid imagination, untamed emotions (and emotional vulnerability), an inherent sense of play and playfulness and non-stop curiosity about everything which is not very different from my dog Harmony’s basic personality…minus maybe the energy part nowadays.

Consider this: Once upon a time we were all children. Amazingly that even includes monsters like Hitler, Stalin and whoever created TikTok and the reality TV shows Jersey Shore and The Swan. Taking into account the wide range of basic human temperaments, all of us were more or less sweet, adorable, playful, emotionally open, unconditionally loving, and lacking in prejudice…also like Harmony. Then “shit happened” in our lives and in our varied and various life journeys, ie. deep pain, devastating loss, hurt, rejection, life threatening illness and psychological trauma like death, divorce, physical and sexual abuse, economic problems etc..

As a result we developed coping mechanisms in an attempt to deal with everything we couldn’t adequately deal with or process at the time, Not our fault. Our brains, bodies and minds were not developed enough to do so. For many of us these predictable but also often maladaptive coping methods included deep denial, dissociation, drinking, drugs, depression/anxiety/PTSD etc. and selective forgetting/repression. In other words a lot of our early life experiences, memories and primal feelings were shut off and stored away someplace in our mind/body and metaphorically speaking got “lost” in a purposely disorganized pile of old papers with a small child’s hand-scrawled sticky note instruction to “remember this and figure this out later”.

The inconvenient truth is as follows: 

To be genuinely ok with ourselves (self love/self care) and fully loving towards others (truly open to giving and receiving love) we have to re-connect with our lost or repressed childhood memories including painful feelings and eventually find a healthier, better and more conscious way to process, honor and appreciate BOTH the wonderful positive and the terribly traumatic experiences we’ve been through. Another way to describe that kind of fully processed physical, mental and emotional state of being would be “living in harmony”….which again is much like good old Harmony Mazer the black lab rescue dog who by the way also had a very traumatic early childhood but now seems to appreciate most things in life just as they are and even counts her daily blessings…especially her favorite soft dog chew treats and car rides. She does however much prefer bites of my double bacon croissant breakfast sandwich over the lower calorie turkey bacon muffin at Starbucks.

Here’s why this topic is currently on my mind. Last week Harmony who follows me around 24/7 no matter where I go whether it’s to the bathroom or to take a five minute car ride to Starbucks or Publix for the first time chose not to get up from her comfy couch bed upstairs to accompany me and Mochi ( her younger Toy Havapoo sister) to take Argentine to her 10:30 am Pilates class. Harmony loves two things: food and car rides. She basically views riding in the car as both an enjoyable hobby as well as an important and serious job. After struggling a bit to jump up and get into the back seat of the car (more so lately) she goes into “working dog” mode by looking out the windows intently at everything she sees (or can still hear) and then assumes this hyper-focused body posture with a certain look on her face that says “Hey this is serious business everybody and my job is to witness it all no matter how unimportant or inconsequential.” Of course seeing squirrels cross the road and other medium to large dogs on the way to our chosen destination is an added bonus and special perk of her “ride or die” sidekick position in my life. I guess in the end everyone, including dogs want their lives to have some defining purpose and special meaning. In fact, when you think about it we are probably here to “witness” everything we can as well and so in a way that’s our cosmic job as sentient human beings.

Without a doubt another big part of Harmony’s life purpose is to love me unconditionally which is not always an easy task. She can recognize if Im in a good or bad mood or if I dont feel well and she responds accordingly. While choosing to not get up to stretch and painfully paddle (due to age related arthritis) down three flights of stairs might seem unimportant I instinctively took note of it as a kind of subtle but significant milestone in her and my already long life and in our special relationship together.

 There is probably a good reason why people are inextricably drawn to a poignant love story (think for example “The Notebook”) whether by reading a book or watching an unusually powerful or unforgettable movie. A really good book or film whether it has a “good” or “bad” Hollywood ending makes a person reflect about their own life in ways that are deeply moving, thought provoking as well as emotionally bittersweet…. because every life is like that. When you get to be 70 years old, even though everyone says you should be “mindful” and “live in the present”, you cant help but start to look back at your memorable but probably also checkered past as well as begin to ponder your inevitable future. The inevitable future, as hard as it is to accept and truly comprehend is about no longer being around. People also talk a lot about “telling one’s truth” but there are many different truths. Sort of like a certain little kid holding an official library card I now remember (maybe around 10 or 11 years old) who was dropped off by his proud Jewish parents at the Highland Park public library well before the internet existed, everyone has to choose the right book, story or magnum opus for their life and find among the tall seemingly endless stacks of classic literature, historical autobiographies, scientific journals, encyclopedias, novels, novellas and personal narratives the most genuine, most honest “quintessential” theme and thesis for their brief but purposeful human existence. It’s important to do so because time is both relative (Einstein) and relatively short. Whether they all go to heaven or not, dogs always die and so do people including Albert Einstein. In other words, a person like myself cant help but notice that not only is my beloved dog Harmony getting old but certain inanimate objects like the modern sculpture outside of the Highland Park public library and the bronze lions outside of the Art Institute of Chicago haven’t changed a bit over the years while everything else including that little boy now a 70 year old guy in the bathroom mirror is nearly unrecognizable.

So in the end it probably makes the most sense to face facts and reconnect with that ever curious kid seen in photo albums and in the Fells Shoes shoebox full of old black and white Polaroid photographs and come to terms with him/her/it (to be somewhat politically correct today). Come to terms essentially means to reconcile, accept and love as is, as was and as always will be which might sound a bit cosmic because well…it is.

Finally, it would also be smart to choose a life story that has the most personal meaning, makes the most moral sense (based on a ones fundamental values and cherished beliefs) but also feels “genuine” or what certain people today like to call “authentic”. Authentic means real and not just a figment of somebody’s self-serving or exaggerated imagination… or God forbid some orange guy’s ginormous ego and reality TV show fantasy of ones life.

In case you wondered …the young boy who was dropped off at the public library carrying his own library card with his very own name on it who disappeared into the tall stacks of books in some quantum universe way “never to be seen again” picked out two seemingly quite different if not dialectical books to sit on the floor and read over and over again. One was The Odyssey by Homer (with illustrated map). The other was Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion. Not so surprisingly, both main characters got lost for a very very long time before eventually finding their way home. Just like Harmony.