A gentle story in three parts
How it began, what it’s become, and the small, four-legged reason for all of it.
How it started
It began as a way of paying attention.
I got Daisy during one of those years that quietly takes you apart. I wasn’t looking for a project or a lesson, I was just looking for something warm to hold. She arrived at eight weeks old, all ears and outsized confidence, and she’s been teaching me things ever since; mostly without knowing she’s doing it.
So I started paying attention, and I wrote down what I noticed. She moved through the world without apology. She asked, straight out, for what she needed. And on my worst days she loved me with the exact same warmth she had on my best. I thought I was writing about a dog. I kept ending up writing about myself.
The thing about animals is that they hold a mirror up without meaning to, and sometimes the reflection is the most honest thing you’ve ever seen.
What it’s about
Four years of growing alongside each other.
Out of that bond came bigger questions: about worth, and grief, and tenderness, and how any of us keeps going. The essays don’t try to answer them so much as sit with them.
This is where I write about the years Daisy and I have spent growing up with each other. It’s about the kind of love that asks nothing of me, about learning I’m allowed to be here, and about healing, which I’ve stopped picturing as a place to arrive at and started seeing as a direction to keep walking.
And yes, unavoidably, it’s about a dog. A very good one
About Daisy
The one who started it all.
Daisy is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, four years old, with a remarkable gift for leaving fur (which she insists on calling “glitter”) on absolutely everything. She has an unshakeable conviction that every person she meets has come specifically to see her. She is not wrong about this.
She doesn’t know she’s the subject of my writing. She thinks she’s the subject of walks, dinners, and the occasional piece of cheese. This is, I suspect, the healthiest possible relationship a person can have with their own story.
Continue the conversation
If any of this lands with you, or you’d just like to say hello, I’d love to hear from you.