David McElroy

As I stood in the ankle-deep water of the Cahaba River late Tuesday afternoon, it was so serene that time seemed to stand still.

I had ditched my shoes and rolled up my pants to wade into the water for a better view of a warm golden sunset. The water was unseasonably warm for a late February day. I stood there feeling the water rush against my legs as my eyes took in the color and majesty of another perfectly routine Alabama sunset.

In the stillness, I couldn’t help but think that the scene before me had played itself out — like perfect clockwork — for many hundreds and thousands of years. It occurred to me that if I could somehow transport myself back in time — say a thousand years — to this exact spot, I would be watching a sunset that would be essentially the same, depending on the clouds that day.

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My dogs and cats have taught me a lot of things over the years, though I’m sometimes slow to learn. Lucy taught me something this weekend — and I now feel foolish to realize she had to teach me something that should have been obvious.

Lucy hates vacuum cleaners. This is common with a lot of dogs and cats, but her fear is the worst I’ve ever seen. She seems to think her life is in danger and she goes into a terrible panic.

You might remember that when she came to live with me two years ago, I was told that she would always be a “special needs dog,” because she was terrified of the world. She’s made so much progress that I almost never see that side of her anymore — but the vacuum cleaner still brings it out.

I can be stubborn, for reasons that have to do with both personality and training, and I’ve been stubborn about the vacuum cleaner. I’ve said all this time that she had to get accustomed to this device eventually, so I’ve not kept her away from it.

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I’ve fallen into a hole today. Call it alienation. Call it depression. Call it longing. Call it whatever you want. There is loneliness in this hole. There is bitterness. There’s hurt and anger.

I need to stay away from most people today, because I’m not my best self when I’m in this hole.

In a private letter, the writer Edna St. Vincent Millay once gave me this metaphor. She wrote, “Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

I woke up feeling this way — as though I had fallen into a hole during the night — but it was hours before I was conscious enough of it to realize what was going on.

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