Prompt 298. Lost Dog, Lost Keys, Found Joy

& Alexa Wilding on losing & finding yourself

In the studio with Lentil, my most recent rescue pup (photo by Nadia Albano)

Hi friend,

I’m one week out from handing in the paintings for my art show, and with that deadline looming, I’ve been working long days and nights in a kind of creative fugue state. I’m using “fugue state” mostly in a good way, though both my email inbox and my refrigerator are suffering—the former is full to bursting, the latter is completely empty. I’ve been subsisting on protein shakes, coffee, and those baby food pouches of pureed pears and squash and peas. This was my pragmatic solution (maybe more of a pathetic solution?) to one of the challenges of small-town living, which is that by the time I remember to eat, everything is closed.

But let me regale you with a little tale of a food delivery that turned into a fruitful distraction earlier this week. On Wednesday, Jon came home for a couple of days with his friend Barry. He knew I was stressed about my deadline, and he asked how he could support me. “I’d love a meal drop-off with no expectation of a hang-out,” I said—not that I didn’t want to see him. I just knew that if I gave myself any leeway, I’d be tempted to blow off the whole afternoon.

However, by the time he and Barry showed up with a box full of goodies from the local farm stand, I was so depleted and in need of fresh air that I decided to break my no-hanging-out rule and walk them out. I put the dogs on the leash, and we headed down to the towpath along the river, where they were planning to take a stroll. It was so gorgeous out, the air so balmy, the trees so green, that of course I couldn’t bear to go back inside. I began bargaining with myself. A short walk couldn’t hurt, right? Wouldn’t that do me good?

So we continued under the leafy bowers beside the river, and suddenly my dream scenario began to unfold: Out of nowhere appeared a large scruffy dog, no owner in sight. I started to get excited, but Jon, who knows I am a little overeager about rescuing a “stray”—which is to say I might just abduct someone’s dog out of good intentions—tried to nip it in the bud. “Absolutely not,” he said.

“Maybe it’s in need of a home!” I said.

Jon came back with a counterpoint: “It’s wearing a collar and has a tennis ball in its mouth.”

From there, we went back and forth a bit, with me saying, “We can’t leave him,” and Jon saying, “Yes, we can.” Then a woman walked by, and we asked if she knew whose dog it was. She said, yes, that it belonged to an old man who lived down the towpath, and he’d probably make his way home. A bit crestfallen, I decided it was time for my walk to end and to get back to my studio. I said goodbye to Jon and Barry, then turned around and headed back to town.

When I arrived, I noticed my friend Beth was crouched in the middle of the road—and would you believe it? She was holding that same dog by the collar. “I was just with him,” I told her. “I don’t know how he beat me here!” I felt both vindicated and exhilarated, and I immediately unclipped a leash from one of my dogs and clipped it on the lost pup.

Now something to note is that Beth owns a bakery in town, and I pay her a visit several times a week. I usually have Lentil, my most recent rescue pup, with me—and not to brag, but she has become a bit of a celebrity there. The last time I was in, Beth and I talked about how we both wanted more dogs but how our spouses were not on board. I told her, “For my birthday, feel free to plant a stray dog in my front yard that I’ll just have to adopt.”

Right about then, I heard Jon’s voice. “What is happening?” he said. He and Barry were walking up from the towpath. “Why do you have that dog on a leash?”

I began explaining—that I had returned to find Beth with the dog, that he had run into traffic. And at that point, Beth said, “So funny, because we were just talking last week about how you hoped to adopt a stray”—totally undercutting my credibility that the dog had appeared and then reappeared. Jon’s eyes got wide. He said, “You can’t say things like that. Words have power!”

We laughed, but then I got serious about taking the dog home. We asked around, got directions to a dead-end road on the river, and Beth and I headed toward the house. (“Not sure if it’s a great idea for two Black men to stroll down a dead-end road at dusk,” Jon said.) It was getting dark quickly, and rain clouds were threatening. We delivered the dog back to a rather curmudgeonly owner, then headed back into town. 

But just before we parted ways, Beth realized she didn’t have her keys—that she must have dropped them somewhere along the way. So we began retracing our steps along the street, the sidewalks, and the towpath. When we didn’t find them, we thought that someone might have picked them up and returned them to one of the two places that were still open: the Mexican restaurant and the local ice cream parlor. Sure enough, they’d been returned to the ice cream parlor. And once we were there, well, didn’t we have to get ice cream?

By the time all was said and done, I had “wasted” two hours, but I felt so reinvigorated, amped from the walk and the lost dog saga and the sugar high. I returned to my studio and began painting again. I was so happy I went out on this strange adventure, the plot of which felt like it came straight out of a children’s book (or potential murder mystery!). The truth is I had hit the bottom of my energy reserve, and I wouldn’t have been able to keep working without that break. But it can be hard to step away, to rest and recharge, even when you’ve earned it, even when it’s the best thing for everyone.

With that, I’ll turn it over to today’s guest contributor, the writer and musician,

Alexa Wilding

. She has adapted a gorgeous essay and prompt from her Substack, Resilience, about the challenges of caring for a sick child. Anyone who has been around here for very long knows that I believe illness is often hardest on caregivers. They witness their loved ones suffering things that seem unendurable and are often powerless to stop them. Today, Alexa writes about the powerful bonds forged in those difficult times—how they erase and remake us and how, for better or worse, we’re never the same again.

Sending love,

Suleika

Some items of note—

• I’m excited to hear that many of you got tickets to the opening events for “The Alchemy of Blood,” my joint art show with my mom, Anne Francey. But if you didn’t, you can still visit the exhibit, up from June 22-September 22, 2024, at ArtYard in Frenchtown, NJ. While you’re there, visit Beth’s amazing Honey Moon Bakery & Pizzeria, take a stroll on the picturesque towpath, and keep a look out for strays for me!

• We’ll be announcing the date for the next gathering of the Hatch, our virtual hour for paid subscribers, next week. In the meantime, we posted a recap of our May meeting in Notes from the Hatch: On Lessons Re-learned.

• Need a mood boost? Each week in our Isolation Journals chat, we share a small joy that we want to hold onto. Mine this week was a blooming friendship between my most recent rescue pup and a beloved pal’s new dog. To read more and to add your joy to the chorus, click here!

A still from Alexa’s music video for “Eden”

Prompt 298. Leave Your Name at the Door by Alexa Wilding

When my son Lou was first hospitalized for cancer, I’d stay up nights writing songs. The melodies kept looping in my head, as did certain lyrics, like the lines “red river run, red river run” while I stared at the East River and the red IV lines, the endless blood transfusions. The looping lines reminded me of spinning analog tape in a recording studio, my natural habitat—a land I could not have found myself further from.

At the time, I was as afraid of losing myself as I was of losing my son. I didn’t know how to share this fear with anyone, lest they think me a bad mother. The threat of erasure was only reinforced by the well-meaning medical team never calling me by my name. “Everything okay in here, Mom?” the nurses would ask. “Yep!” I’d lie, hiding the keyboard I’d borrowed from NYU Langone’s Child Life Services under the rough hospital blankets. I knew it was protocol to just call me Mom, but I had a name, and how I longed to hear it.

Sometimes we moms would gather in the hallway with pretzels and Cokes. There was one dad, Brian, whose wife “couldn’t handle it.” We were fascinated by this absent mother. “She’s not a real mom,” Maria in Room 902 would insist. But maybe she was more real than all of us for admitting that this was too much for a mother to bear.

As cancer caregivers, we had to leave our names at the door. And rightfully so; we were leading the battle to save our child’s life. Yet underneath our suit of armor was a complex human with deep desires, hopes, and dreams, and a hunger for more than just her crisis.

I satiated that hunger by working on my third album. Maria bought crystals online. Felicia liked to go on long runs along the river. Brian seemed to be obsessed with Mary, the night nurse. Some of us drank. There were affairs and other bad decisions, as one’s head is not screwed on straight when you’re terrified. While we cut each other slack, we feared the outside world would not.

A part of me is still pacing the hospital hall with my pretzels and Coke, even though it’s been five years since Lou left treatment, even though he’s thriving. Whenever I sing “red river run, red river run,” or other songs from that time, I think of the parents I’ve met along the way. I say their names: Maria, Brian, Felicia. I hope they’ve forgiven themselves, as I have, for all the things we did to survive our child’s illness. And I hope they allow themselves whatever they need to soothe their still healing hearts.

Your prompt for the week:

Write about a time in your life when you struggled to hold onto your sense of self. What did you do to survive, and who helped you along the way? Were you able to forgive yourself for any missteps? Is the person you became in that moment of crisis still part of your identity?

If you’d like, you can post your response to today’s prompt in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals. As a reminder, we love seeing your work inspired by the Isolation Journals, but to preserve this as a community space, we request no promotion of outside projects.

Today’s Contributor—

Alexa Wilding

is a writer, musician, and twin mother. After a decade as a singer-songwriter (“the neo-Stevie Nicks” The New York Times), she received her MFA from The Writer’s Foundry in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has appeared in Departures, Cup of Jo, and Parents. She writes the Substack Resilience, where she shares her journey as both a two-time cancer mom to her son, Lou, and in a recent plot twist, an early breast cancer survivor herself. Alexa lives and works in Tivoli, NY, with her family. She is working on a memoir and new music too.

Announcing the winners of the Impromptu Challenge—

We have exciting news! Princeton University Concerts just announced the winners of the 2023-24 Impromptu Challenge—and members of this community were among the ranks. Congratulations to Shannon H. Mannon, who took the top prize, and to Heather Saba and Adina Schecter, who both received honorable mentions! You can read the winning entries here.

photo by Kate Sterlin, February 2022

If you’re new here—hi, I’m Suleika!

I’m the author of the memoir Between Two Kingdoms and the founder of the Isolation Journals, where we turn life’s interruptions into creative grist. Each Sunday, I send out this newsletter with an essay and journaling prompt from a guest contributor.

This weekly newsletter is free, with no ads or algorithms, just the support of this beloved community. If you upgrade to a paid subscription, you’ll receive other valuable benefits, like:

• my advice column, Dear Susu, where I answer your questions about writing and life and everything in between

• creative courses and daily journaling challenges, like our New Year’s series On Rumi & Paradox

• transformative workshops, like Letters from Love with Elizabeth Gilbert and On Joy, Sorrow, and Creative Alchemy with Susan Cain

• the Hatch, our virtual creative hour where we gather for inspiration, connection, and accountability

• our archive of sixteen Studio Visits with brilliant artists like the iconic poet Marie Howe and the astonishing multi-hyphenate Lena Dunham

• additional writing from me, like My Year of Love photo essay, where I reflected on what I thought was the worst year of my life but in fact was so much more

• most importantly: a way for people who find meaning in this work to support & sustain the Isolation Journals. If you have the means, I’d be grateful for your support!