Forty-five pounds of muscle and fur pulled me down a dark road with no sidewalks, no lights, and barely any shoulder to speak of. The dog was a stray I had found three days before—a smelly, exuberant hulk of a pup who had captured my heart the moment I saw him. I paused for a moment and reeled the cord in just enough to keep us in the beam of my husband’s flashlight. The dog stopped straining and walked by my side. “Good boy, Barney,” I said, even though I was pretty sure he had no idea that “Barney”...

The engine is off. The seatbelt unbuckled. The windows all rolled up. There’s nothing left to do except get out of the car. But I don’t. Instead, I sit there, staring out the windshield at the woods beyond the parking lot, my right hand squeezed into a fist around fourteen keys, a string of beads spelling “s.o.b.,” a solid brass circle, and a Big Boy juggling a hamburger in his chubby plastic hand.

Most of these keys are so old I can hardly remember what they unlock—an office at a job I no longer have, a house in a...

Barney and I return to the park the next day and the day after that. And we keep coming back until three weeks of walks have piled up behind us. One morning, as we drive into the park, I see a new banner on the entrance gazebo announcing the upcoming Halloween Barkin’ Bash. It’s a dog party, complete with costume contests, prize giveaways, and free treats, but it’s a party we can’t attend. I make a mental note to stay far away from the park next Saturday.

When we get out of the car, the air smells of apples and...

As we walk down the park road, I search the sky to get my bearings. On my boat, there’s always a compass and GPS to guide me. But here, there’s only the sun and my approximation of where the water is—the water being the Chesapeake Bay, which always tells me where I am.

The road ends at the South River, so I figure we must be heading north. Or is it east? I mentally map the contours of the park, searching for the river to determine exactly where we are. I’m becoming more and more absorbed in this little...

The first of December brings a warm and sunny day, with temperatures climbing into the high fifties. As soon as the car turns into the park entrance, Barney presses his head between the bucket seats and leans against me as if saying,Good choice, my friend—I’m with you on this one. My eyes are fixed on the view outside the windshield, but when I glance over at Barney, his big grin smiles back at me.

I pull into the lot and park in our usual space near the meadow, making sure to attach Barney’s collar and leash before letting...

Around Barney’s first birthday, I packed him in the car and drove ten hours north up I-95 to visit my sister in Baltimore. The big city was baffling to him with its sidewalks and tiny plots of grass, so my sister brought us to a small park on the industrial side of the harbor. We strolled along the water, watching enormous container ships glide past while seagulls flew above our heads, surveying the area for fish and garbage scraps. Halfway through the walk, two boys approached, trailed by a big German Shepherd. The dog was not on a leash. The...

The western shore of Maryland is not exactly snow country; just the threat of two inches of frozen precipitation can trigger area-wide school closings. But last January, a blizzard descended over the Chesapeake region, dumping twenty-three inches of snow in a forty-eight hour period. As the snow fell and fell, I hunkered down in the house baking cookies and hoping that the power wouldn’t go out. Finally, the storm drifted out to sea, leaving behind a shimmering landscape of powdered sugar hills and whipped-cream streets. Even though it was risky to go out (snow inevitably brought driveway-shoveling homeowners and their...

Before leaving for California, I had gotten a wolf-husky puppy, a striking black and white boy with one brown eye and one ice blue one who was to remain in Ohio with my mother until I could send for him. When I left, Sundance was a tiny thing. But upon my return I was greeted by a six-month-old, thirty-pound monster who terrorized the entire family.

One afternoon, not long after I came home, he grabbed a piece of bread from my little brother and ran under a table. When I stretched my arm out for the food, he snarled at...

March comes in not like a lion but like a drunken bear, stomping through the Mid-Atlantic with wind gusts of up to thirty-five knots, knocking down power lines and snapping tree branches as if they were twigs. In the park, I stay close to the tree line, grateful for what shelter we can get from the windbreak. As we walk, I hear odd sounds in the woods—soft, baleful moans, and groans that sound like rusty hinges on a swinging porch door. It takes a while to realize that what I’m hearing are trees being pushed to the edge of...

T.S. Eliot says April is the cruelest month, but in Maryland it’s not as cruel as it is cranky. When Barney and I get out of the car, a cold, light rain spits out of a sullen sky. It’s not pretty, but it is quiet—no cars, no people, no dogs. This is the saving grace of crappy weather—it keeps most everybody else away.

We head toward the forest by the picnic area and follow the tree line. Even though the foliage is minimal, it acts as a pretty good rain break. The precipitation reaching us is reduced to...

Ah, summer. Soft, warm, and sleeveless. Just the way I like it. As Barney and I walk down a shaded stretch of park road, the trees bend over our heads in slow, green waves. Breathing deeply, I try to capture this moment: the blue sky, the sweet air, the dog at my side. In less than an hour I’m to leave for the residency portion of the writing program, so this will be our last walk together for quite a while.

Kneeling beside Barney I try to explain what’s about to happen. I’ll be gone for two weeks. He will...

Can’t sleep. The words circle through my mind like a mantra as I drag myself out of bed, slap on some makeup and get my dog into the car. By this time, it’s almost noon and I’m sleep-deprived, overcaffeinated, and thoroughly disgusted with myself.Normalpeople get up in the morning, even if they have slept badly.Normalpeople accomplish things by lunchtime.Normalpeople don’t obsess that their life is going to hell just because they wake in the middle of the night. The announcer on the radio drones on, a blur in the background until a live news...

Without glasses, I see faraway things in fuzzy, abstract terms—faces without features, signs made of squiggly lines. What looks like a can of peas on a supermarket shelf could just as easily be soup or beans. As school gets underway and the essay about my father starts to take shape, it becomes apparent to me that my writing is just as fuzzy as my eyesight. The writers I admire the most make their words come alive with descriptive language so vivid and detailed that I can see, smell, and hear what they are writing about. Feelings dominate on the...

By February, my tolerance for cold weather always reaches a breaking point. Each year, I try escaping to warmer climes, but more often than not winter follows me. In Jamaica, the northwest winds incite the sea to madness, whipping the waves into ten-foot walls of destruction. Barbados isn’t much better, sunny but windy, with that angry, frothing sea. Bahamas, cold and again, windy, the water uninhabitable.It was nice the week before, the locals say. Also, this, in island patois:When de northwest winds blow up north, dey always end up here. They don’t tell you this in the brochures,...

Usually when I return from a trip, I’m met by a wriggling mass of panting, whiningOhjoyohjoyohjoyyou’rehomedog. But instead, I’m greeted by my mother, who has been watching Barney while I was gone. She sighs with relief that her firstborn has made it home in one piece after traveling to Florida for a work-related conference. “Really, to go that far,” she says. “A woman alone.”

“I’m fine,” I say, turning my head in an effort to divert her Revlon “Really Red” lipstick kisses from tattooing my cheek. “Where’s Barney?”

Barney is at the back door, barely able to contain...

I’m sitting in a darkened room resisting the urge to blink while a blinding beam of light is aimed directly into my pupil.

“Yep. Just what I thought,” the ophthalmologist says. “Floaters.”

Looking past the chart glowing on the wall, I see my life go downhill before my eyes.Floaters. Isn’t that what old people have?

“It happens with age,” the doctor says. “What you’re seeing is dried-up gel from the eye’s viscous fluid. Your eyes will get used to it. Eventually you won’t even see them anymore.”

The first time I noticed the spots I thought I was seeing...

Lying in bed, I stare at the ceiling and listen to the steady bellows of Barney’s panting. This is the third time he’s woken me tonight. “Shut up!” I yell into the dark. The sound stops for a moment in reaction to my voice. Then it begins again followed by a noxious cloud of dog fart. “Jesus, Barney.” I grab the sheets and turn in the opposite direction of the dog bed. Barney gets up and repositions himself on the cedar-filled cushion. He drops down with an audible sigh before the sound starts up again.

Barney pants at night. He...

Three days into December, I get up early and take Barney to the park. There’s a chill in the air that hasn’t been there before, and for the first time this season, I notice how bare the trees are, how completely the colors of fall have been replaced by the brown nakedness of bark and tangled undergrowth. In the space between the trees, I can see much further into the woods than before.

Clarity is my mission today. Yesterday, Barney’s doctor called and said the MRI revealed no problems with his nasal passages. I should be glad, but it means...

Barney parks himself on the bedroom floor and watches me as I pack item after item into a black suitcase. As usual whenever I pack, he’s very quiet. He knows whenever I put things in the rolling black box it means I’m going away without him.

Before the nosebleeds, before the Cushing’s, before the MRI and surgery date, my husband and I had booked a trip for the second week in December to Fort Lauderdale to see the annual Winterfest Boat Parade. Both Curt and I had been to the parade years ago, and we talked often of going back...

March begins the way it usually does—cold and damp—before taking pity on the winter-worn with a sultry, sixty-degree day. Outside my window, green shoots push through the earth. Purple and white crocuses curl on their stems and long wands of bright yellow forsythia brazenly burst into bloom. Barney is blooming as well, showing no signs of a failing liver and every indication that he plans on sticking around for a while.

After hacking away at the band manuscript for most of the morning, I decide to take a break. Bundling Barney in the car, I drive to take...

“Did you ever talk to someone after you were raped?” The question takes me by surprise. I stare out the window of my analyst’s office, a light-filled room overlooking a beautiful garden, completely unlike the room her question immediately conjures up.

“Sort of,” I say. “A psychologist, I think. It didn’t last long.”

The rape and its aftermath is not something I often discuss in therapy, except as an aside to a question about what I was doing in my twenties or how and why I made the choices I did. In truth, the constant vigilance I maintain when walking...

By May, our walking speed has settled back into the rhythm of pre-operation days—slow but steady, no more falling, wobbly dog problems, just stopping and starting as Barney does whatever it is a dog needs to do during a fine walk on a fine day. The pace is calming, almost meditative, and when Barney stops to relieve himself on a patch of grass by the side of the road, glints of gold at the base of the sea oats catch my eye, mirrors of light reflecting the sun. Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized the grasses were rooted...

I’m fussing with Barney’s collar, trying to snap the prongs into the open links to latch it closed, but the metal refuses to yield to the pressure of my fingers. My hands flutter around his neck, ever more manic in an attempt to hook up the chain while he waits patiently, smiling thatI’m going to the parksmile while I curse at the collar and order the links tobend,goddammit, wishing I could control this animal without resorting to choking off his very breath.

Sometimes he reminds me of a little pony, with his broad neck and tall,...

The woman behind the counter at the post office wants to know if my package contains anything fragile or explosive. It’s a good question. Wrapped under the cardboard and brown paper is two years of sweat and soul: all one-hundred-and-fifty pages of the thesis, the story of my band years—or, at least my attempt at telling the story. By writing about it, I’ve revisited years of emotional turmoil, trying to understand why I was so hell-bent on destroying myself. I’m still figuring it out. But the thesis is done. Soon it will be bound and embossed with my name...

Barney lies in classic moping mode, body flat on the kitchen floor, legs splayed out against the white tile, head immobile as his big brown eyes follow my every move: the purse hoisted over the shoulder, the drawer opening, the keys in my hand. I look over at him and shake my head.

“You can’t come, B. I don’t have time for a walk.” He fixes his sad eyes on my face. “Okay,” I say, and he immediately jumps up. “But it won’t be fun. I guarantee it.”

I’m going on a job interview, although my gut tells me it’s...

Click,click,click. I can hear it, Barney’s hip clacking bone against bone as he walks ahead of me. In the quiet of winter, the sound seems louder than it is, amplified somehow against the emptiness of the woods. Clouds thicken above, capping the sky with a nickel-gray cover, but even in this grayness, there is color: the subtle blush of rust and pink on azalea leaves, the red coat of an orange-billed cardinal, mushrooms exploding out of the ground, stark white and mustard yellow. This time of year, you appreciate the small things.

The clicking hip is a constant...

January brings a long string of cloudy days as well as the surprise return of the robins who have winged their way north unusually early. I set aside a bag in the kitchen for old bread, and, when I have a good amount, I take it to the meadow near the park’s visitor’s center where the birds have been gathering for the past week.

I usually avoid this part of the park. The long, grassy meadow attracts a high incidence of Frisbee-tossing dog owners who can’t seem to resist unleashing their dogs for a game of catch. But on this...

On my day off, I sleep away so much of the morning that Barney and I don’t get to the park until noon. The clouds bundle together in a snow pattern, but signs of spring are everywhere: fuzzy buds on bare branches, more and more birds in the trees. One of the most surprising discoveries I’ve made in four winters of walking is that budding doesn’t start in the spring. The process goes on all winter long, disguised as nubby bumps on bark or dried seed pods waving in the wind. Even when it looks bleak, the cycle of growing...

One month after the official equinox, spring finally arrives in Maryland. It’s the kind of day poets write about, when buds burst into bloom and the world seems changed on an elemental level. The sun is no longer the shy star of winter solstice; it’s a glittering jewel, a bright stone swaying from a hypnotist’s hand as he says,Wake up, wake up, you are getting less sleepy. The anchor weight of depression I’ve been carrying around for the last few weeks is still there, but feels lighter. Something—maybe the sun, maybe the birds (maybe the medication I started...

On a closed-gate Tuesday, I drive into the strip mall across the street from the park and angle into an empty space directly across from the park entrance. While I stand by the open car door fumbling with Barney’s collar, a man and woman begin walking in our direction from the far end of the parking lot. There is something familiar about them in an uncomfortable way, the man holding the woman too close, the woman tense and laughing too loud. They follow us across the street and through the one open gate of the park, the smell of their...

The last thing you want to do after walking a dog in ninety-degree weather is put him in a car that has been baking in the sun for the last half hour. So on a brutally hot afternoon, rather than park in the sun-filled gravel lot near the Orchard Trail, I pull into the one across the road where a shaded row of spaces hugs the darkest stretch of forest in the park.

As soon as I let Barney out, he reels the leash out and heads straight for a paved path leading into the woods. When I catch up...

The first week of September, Hurricane Katrina ambles up the Mid-Atlantic coast, much weaker than she was in New Orleans but with enough punch to dump tropical rains and a lingering low front on the Chesapeake Bay area. Before we can even clean up the mess left behind, another hurricane glides up the Atlantic on its way to New England, bringing days and days of gray skies and sticky humidity. It’s one thing after another. Just like with Barney.

First came the incident on the Orchard Trail where he tipped over on his side like a cow. Then the stumbling...

The sky has been threatening rain all day while I’ve been driving around town taking care of one errand after another. By the time the gray clouds deepen into twilight, I’m still not done and Barney hasn’t had a walk yet. “Back in a few,” I tell him before dashing into the drugstore. “Then we’ll take a quickie.”

When I come out, the air feels wet even though it’s only misting, not quite raining yet. I clip on Barney’s leash and pull my hood over my head, trying to deflect whatever damage the dampness will inevitably do to my hair....

I unhook Barney’s leash and watch him spin off in slow motion down the Twisty Tree Trail, sniffing a bush here, marking a tree here. There’s no one around, which gives me a perfect opportunity to try a little experiment. I have no idea anymore how much walking Barney can actually tolerate. So I let him loose on the trail to see exactly how long he can walk when left to his own devices.

Barney takes his time, moving from one side of the path to the other, his bootie-clad back leg scraping the pavement. He makes his way past...

I’m in the vet’s office reading a six-month old copy ofPeoplemagazine (Celebrity tattoos revealed! J. Lo’s new perfume unveiled!). Meanwhile, Barney does a little reading of his own, sniffing the air delicately until he finds the source of good news: bone-shaped vitamin tabs sitting in a bowl on the examining room counter. He can’t jump up and snatch a treat like in the old days, but he makes it clear it would be nice ifsomeonewould. I set the magazine down and get him a treat. His teeth grind away in pure chewing satisfaction. “At least your...

I’m lost in a long line of words when a soft nose nudges my thigh. Looking down, Barney’s almond-colored eyes stare up at me, pleading under a furrowed brow. “Soon,” I say, resting my palm on the broad, flat space between Barney’s ears. He pushes his head into my hand, talking back without saying a word.

Touch is our primary form of communication. If I ignore Barney for too long, he’ll wiggle his head under my unoccupied hand, flipping the palm up and down in a kind of “auto-pet” motion. If the hand is busy, he’ll back up into me,...

A hawk glides through the cloudy April sky, flying just above the tree cover of the Twisty Tree Trail where it intermittently appears and disappears, wings fully spread to catch the currents on the breeze. At one point, the trees part to reveal a gray slice of sky into which the dark silhouette once again glides into view. The bird kites downward on the wind, dipping low enough for me to identify the pale chest, dark head, and orangerust feathers of a red-tailed hawk. He circles above us, scanning the woods. I wonder who his victim is. A vole? An...

For months, I stay away from the park, although it’s impossible to avoid it completely. Every time I go to the library or the bank or the drugstore, I pass by the entrance with its plantings of Russian sage and butterfly bush, the white gazebo with the fancy fretting, the pale green cement pond shooting up its flume of water. It’s a constant reminder of my loss. I can’t stand to look. But I can’t look away, either.

The second Tuesday in August, on my birthday, I stop by the drug store across from the park. When I leave the...