The Year We Don't Survive Is Not a Failure

or, a year in review

Every other week I post a more personal essay, like this one, that is for paid subscribers. These aren’t the “important” pieces, just insights into my life.

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Every year we survive is a victory. The year we don’t survive is not a failure.

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I adopted my dog two years ago now. My neighbor, another queer woman in Appalachia, had found him, his mother, and 5 or 6 of his littermates on the side of the road, the next holler over from my cabin. They were all hungry and full of worms. Later, we learned that about a quarter of his litter had already died of neglect before they all ran away together.

It was autumn 2021, and while most of the world was waking from Covid isolation, I wasn’t. I lived alone in a 12x12 off-grid cabin, using solar panels, batteries, and a cell phone booster to work from home. I worried about illness and death. I worried about fascism and the neo-confederates who were doxxing me. I worried I was losing my mind–I’d been talking to the trees and the birds as much as anyone else. An owl had taken to perching where he could see into my window, during the day. I didn’t know owls did that sort of thing during the day.

I worried about everything. That’s always been one of my skills.

So my neighbor told me she had these puppies, and she had to re-home them, and would I like to meet them. I might have walked over the ridge, I might have driven the long way around, but I went to her trailer, up against the creek, and met a litter of puppies. All mutts. All different colors.

A black and tan and white little monster with needles for teeth crawled onto my skirt and fell asleep, and I happy cried, I ugly cried. That’s how I met Rintrah.