Hi. I'm Bones.

Today is my first blog. It's taken a while to get here, mostly because I'm a dog and typing is not straightforward. But I decided it's time. I want to document my life: the people, the places, the everything... so you always have that.

I was born in Vermont. I've lived in Utah, Oregon, California, Arizona, West Virginia, and Washington. I've walked in almost every state in this country.

I do all of this from the back seat, which is mine.

(though, sometimes I claim the front, too)

I'll be 11 this year. I don't play with toys.

I never saw the point of pretending something is what it isn't.

The back seat is his. It has always been his.

Here is something humans don't know about dogs, or maybe they used to know and forgot:

We don't see you the way you see yourself.

We don't see the version of you that's worried about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow. We don't see the story you've been telling yourself since you were small. We don't see the armor or the performance or the careful way you've learned to hold yourself together in public.

We see the thing underneath all of that.

The light that was there before the story started.

That's the only thing we've ever been looking at.

Pure stillness. The kind that asks nothing and gives everything.

When someone is carrying something heavy, I know before they say a word. Before they probably know themselves. It has a particular quality, that kind of weight. It changes the air around a person.

I don't try to fix it. I just walk over and put my head where it needs to go and stay there.

Five minutes. Sometimes more.

Humans always want to do something about the hard thing. Name it, solve it, move through it faster. I have learned that most hard things don't need solving. They need witnessing. They need somewhere quiet to land.

I'm good at quiet.

Day one. He already knew.

Frankie has been my person since she was seven years old and I was four months old.

I knew the first moment I met her. You don't choose these things. For eleven years I've shown up for her because that's the whole job. Not performing comfort. Not following a protocol. Just being the same steady presence, day after day, in the good days and the ones that asked more of her than seemed fair.

She is my person. I am hers.

Born ready to travel in style.

There is nothing complicated about love when you stop thinking about it.

The humans come into the studio wound up in themselves, the way humans do. People who have forgotten, temporarily, that they are more than their worry.

I watch them. I wait.

At some point the paint gets on their hands and something loosens. The shoulders come down. The jaw unclenches. They stop narrating their experience and just have it.

That's the moment I recognize them.

He's always known which way to go.

I love being outside more than almost anything. That's where I come alive. The smell of earth after rain. A fire going low in the dark. The particular silence of 3AM in a tent when Jules and Frankie are asleep and I'm still listening to whatever the night is saying.

We've camped under a lot of skies, the three of us.

I also love hide and seek. The treat kind. I have a system. It's mine.

When I smile, I mean it. I don't do things I don't mean.

The beginning of a million miles together.

Here is what I know after almost eleven years of paying close attention:

The present moment is not something you arrive at. It's the only place any of this is actually happening. The past is a story. The future is a story. Right now, whatever this is, this is the only thing that's real.

🐾

I was born in Vermont. Every morning I wake up next to my people and something in me knows, this is the one. This is the day that has everything in it. Every single time.

My Advice for Today

Go outside. Even for five minutes. Leave your phone on the counter. Notice one thing you didn't notice yesterday.

That's it. That's all I've got today.

You're welcome.

Bones Fish, Chief Morale Officer, Wicked Rae's Splatter Studio

Frankie's dog, always.