Jane Hale (Courtesy Photo)

Jane Hale (Courtesy Photo)

Don’t mess with the OG pood

A dog loves you, but it doesn’t know that it loves you. It can’t reflect on that fact.

The danger is in the neatness of identifications.

–Samuel Beckett

Molly, the older of our two poodles, is a female we have had for all of her 10 years. Hugo, our 2-year-old male, is the larger of the two dogs, but when he seems to be getting out of line, Molly doesn’t hesitate to try to mount him, humping him as if she were the male and he the female.

This has nothing to do with sex or gender.

Molly certainly can have no illusion of trying to procreate this way. She’s not mixed up about gender, and she’s not confused. (And she hasn’t been “groomed,” although the “grooming” staff at PetCo may have a secret agenda; you should check with Marjorie Taylor Greene about that.)

Molly’s non-verbal message to Hugo is simple, immediate–not at all premeditated–and unambiguous: I’m the boss here; don’t mess with the OG Pood.

Dogs, of course, have no conception of themselves as male or female, masculine or feminine. None of our abstract categories operate in the dog brain. Molly is just being herself, responding to the experience as experience, acting in the moment as the moment requires.

One of the lovely things about living with dogs is watching how their relationship with the world seems so much more intimate than ours, unmediated by language and abstract thought. A dog loves you, but it doesn’t know that it loves you. It can’t reflect on that fact. It doesn’t trouble itself with asking what love is or why you.

As far as we can tell, these are exclusively human troubles–our fretting over whether our words and concepts and categories, our assumptions and our beliefs accurately reflect the world at large.

This trouble is where both logic and poetry begin.

Unlike science, logic doesn’t propose to discover new things about the world. Rather, logic works backwards from something we think we already know to ask how it is that we can actually say we know it. The classic example is the mortality of Socrates. We all know that Socrates is mortal, but how do we know he is mortal?

Well, he’s dead. That’s usually a pretty good sign.

But what if Socrates is still walking around?. How do we know that he’s mortal?

Logic gives us tools of deductive and inductive reasoning that let us work backward to discover whether we have a reasonable or empirical basis for conclusions we have already reached.

Poetry comes at the same problem a different way entirely. Poetry seems to say that if the world is such a big riddle that we have a hard time knowing whether we actually know it and a hard time comprehending it in language, let’s just stretch the language and give the world some wiggle room. Let’s make the language as big a riddle as life itself, definite but ambiguous, clear but mysterious, beautiful but hard to fully understand, at once subversive and celebratory.

Poets say let’s see if we can’t use this language to glimpse an intimacy with experience that seems to lie just out of our reach. And let’s keep this poetic language anchored to the earth by grounding it in the physical sound of words themselves, in word music, in rhymes and rhythms, assonance and alliteration.

This is what the term “non-binary” means to me. It’s poetry. Not simply an indication that a person identifies with characteristics of both genders, although that’s a part of it. More fundamentally, however, it’s a way of negotiating around gender categories that have atrophied and can no longer accurately reflect who we are in the world–if they ever did.

Are you a man or a woman?

Yes.

Are you feminine or masculine?

Sure. Neither. Maybe. Sometimes.

Define your terms. In rhymes.

We are always trying to explain ourselves and our world — much the way I try in these columns to explain my own quirks and oddities. But rarely do our explanations seem commensurate with the experiences themselves.

Maybe that’s why we so often seek out experiences that are so clearly beyond words, beauty we can describe but never completely grasp, never fully comprehend. A late winter afternoon in the mountains. A sunrise at sea. City streets in the wee hours of the morning. The birth of a child. Music. Love.

And there are those other experiences, equally incomprehensible, that we don’t seek but can never avoid: danger, violence, the death of a loved one.

Experiences that leave us speechless.

And maybe that’s why we need poetry. Its fuzzy and wiggly riddles bring us as close as we can come to verbalizing–aloud where we can hear each other–those moments that seem to lie so far beyond the reach of words, sprawling out all over the page disrespectful of borders and definitions and categories.

I love poetry, and I love living non-binary. They seem so much the same. I just don’t seem to be able to color inside the lines. Never have, never will.

*****

Postscript: As I write this, I am hearing news of some threatening posts appearing in public places around town targeting Juneau’s trans community and our children — threatening and kind of surprising, since Juneau is such an incredibly supportive community. Anyone who feels threatened and unsafe, we have people and resources in Juneau that can help. You’re not alone, and you don’t have to deal with stuff like this by yourself. Check out SEAGLA’s website, https://akseagla.org/community-resources, for some of our local resources.

More in Neighbors

Page Bridges of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Juneau. (Photo courtesy of Page Bridges)
Living and Growing: Heartbreak Hill

Trying to write about beauty and our need for it is hard.… Continue reading

(Juneau Empire File)
Community calendar of upcoming events

This is a calendar updated daily of upcoming local events during the… Continue reading

A public notice about one of several Thanksgiving proclamations President Abraham Lincoln issued during the Civil War. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)
Living and Growing: Give thanks with a grateful heart

Happy Thanksgiving! Once again we celebrate what is a distinctively American holiday,… Continue reading

A female bear with her cubs: bears have direct-development life cycles, looking like bears from the time they are born. (Photo by Jos Bakker)
On the Trails: Animal life cycles

There are two basic life-cycle patterns among animals. Many animals have complex… Continue reading

(Jessica Spengler/CC BY 2.0 DEED)
Cooking For Pleasure: No trauma pie crust (that actually tastes good)

The secret is keeping all of the ingredients very cold.

Maj. Gina Halverson is co-leader of The Salvation Army Juneau Corps. (Robert DeBerry/The Salvation Army)
Living and Growing: Be thankful for the opportunity to care for ‘Others’

As Thanksgiving quickly approaches, we are reminded of the importance of being… Continue reading

A springtail perches on a wood railing, perhaps to eat microalgae. (Photo by Bob Armstrong)
On the Trails: Early November sightings

An early November stroll on the dike trail was uneventful until I… Continue reading

Fred La Plante is the pastor of the Juneau Church of the Nazarene. (Courtesy / Fred La Plante)
Living and Growing: Having an attitude of gratitude

Our world is quickly enveloped in negativity, but that attitude doesn’t help… Continue reading

Devil’s Club Brewing Company brewer Trever Held accepts an award at the 2023 AK Beer Awards competition at Williwaw Social in Anchorage on Nov. 3. (Photo courtesy of Brewers Guild of Alaska)
Neighbors briefs

Juneau brewers win 10 medals at 2023 AK Beer Awards The Brewers… Continue reading

Juneau Veterans for Peace President Craig Wilson, left, watches a procession of fellow veterans and others ring the Liberty Bell replica in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Nov. 11, 2022, during an annual Armistice Day observation. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire File)
Three annual events honoring veterans scheduled Saturday

Armistice Day bell ringing at Capitol; Veterans Day events at Centennial Hall and EPH.

The flowers of enchanter’s nightshade are tiny and often self-pollinating. (Photo by Bob Armstrong)
On the Trails: Enchanter’s nightshade

Enchanter’s nightshade is a tiny perennial plant we commonly see (and walk… Continue reading

The new office in Lynnwood, Washington, for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. (Photo courtesy of Tlingit and Haida)
Neighbors briefs

Tlingit and Haida opening new Washington office The Central Council of the… Continue reading