In Search of Color
In Search of Color
Rose Schrott
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is notably gray. Something about the convergence of three rivers, Lake Erie to the north and the Appalachian Mountain plateau seems to trap the clouds overhead. Many cold weather mornings, even with the clocks falling back an hour to help us rise with the sun, we still have to turn the lights on as we awake to a gloomy Gotham City horizon (literally—The Dark Knight was filmed here).
Add a pandemic and stay-at-home advisory and I am now swimming in gray as I sit on my gray couch, usually in a gray sweatsuit, computer on my lap, gray skies overhead—at least until around 3 pm when the barely visible sun makes its descent behind the bare trees.
Recently, the grayness seems to only be punctured by exclamation marks of fear and loss as Coronavirus cases fill hospitals and family members cancel their tickets home for the holidays. The grayness is oppressive. And repetitive. I go to bed only to wake up and sit on the same couch, in the same sweatsuit under the same sky, and work on my same grad school classes. Like a weighted blanket, my growing sloth slowly numbs all other senses.
I do not even feel the usual gurgle of anxiety in my gut as I looked at my to-do list for finals. I don’t feel anything at all. The “Sunday scaries”—that feeling of dread as a new week stretches out before you—are confined to a numb resignation that I will wake up and do the same thing again tomorrow: a pandemic Groundhog Day.
*
I once read a story about children orphaned and left to starve during the bombing raids of WWII. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received good care. But many of these children couldn’t sleep. They were afraid. Finally, somehow, someone offered a child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime and, finally, the child could sleep. They were reminded, “Today I ate, and I will eat again tomorrow.”
I need a loaf of bread.
My story is not in the same realm as these children; I know I will eat today, and I will eat again tomorrow—probably too much, especially if a loaf of bread is involved. But I find myself longing for the same spiritual assurance as the children. Where is my hope in this gray monotony? I long for a stroke of color.
The 16th-century Catholic priest St. Ignatius of Loyola acknowledged the basic human need for meaning amidst the sometimes-gray reality of life. Through his spiritual practice of the Daily Examen, he offered that our lives can gain purpose when we learn to see God in the ordinary. He believed we could do this with two questions: Where did I experience God today? Where did I feel God’s absence?
In this self-reflection, Ignatius believed we grow eyes to see God breaking into time while we also learn to discern who God is inviting us to be. In short, we learn to see that our lives have always had meaning because God is with us and God calls us.
And so, muffled under my weighted blanket of sloth and gray but in hope of color, I ask: Where did God feed me today?
*
In a rare showing, the weak sun revealed itself as we pulled into the parking lot. Copper Penny perked up in my lap, the one-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel’s tail beginning to wag. His auburn ears with the perfect beachy wave stood at attention as he turned his buggy, slightly wonky eyes to mine. In high-pitched voices reserved for small, cute things, my sister Mary and I cooed at him to prepare him for upcoming social interaction. Perhaps we were projecting—we were definitely projecting.
Opening the door, we walked across the street to the small Highland Park dog park, where roughly 20 other Cavaliers played with their owners standing by, either socially distanced or in clumps.
Rose Schrott
Copper is a 2020 dog. My parents got him in late January as a second dog to Chance, their Frankenstein-type mutt with the body-mass of a Pitbull, the coloring of a Collie, and a head-size of a much smaller dog. Big, anxious, and sweet, Chance gives off an energy similar to Lennie from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. So, we assumed he would enjoy a small, fluffy companion. (Of course, we would also work to avoid the ending of Steinbeck’s novella.)
However, bless his heart, Chance’s anxiety is so intense and his social skills so skewed that it took him weeks to even look at “the other dog.” Then, Copper, a born tyrant, began to stand on his hind legs and box Chance in the face before running behind the couch and yelling at him. Copper loved the game. Chance did not.
As their love-hate, play-murder relationship developed, everything went into lockdown. So, Mary and I took Copper to our house for the weekend as a form of pet therapy. Then he stayed a week, a month, a season. And here we are nine months later in our blended family.
Copper is the ingredient that keeps our house somewhat functional. Mary and I use our Zoom breaks to hold him, smell his ears (which smell of warm hay), and throw his ball in loving repetition. He cuddles us on the couch as we type and read. He is a reason to go for a walk. The day I lost a congregant to COVID, he spent the afternoon with me—little spoon to my big spoon, a sponge for my excess emotions, a little barnacle on the life of our house.
This leads us to the small dog park full of these regal, friendly, slightly weird-looking dogs. As we walked in, we were surrounded by Cavs of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some were groomed with shorter hair while others had ears that reached past their shoulders. One had a curly mop of black hair on top of his head. A 10-week old puppy buzzed around the group, small enough to lose a fight with a Guinea pig.
Like most dogs in the history of our family, Copper is a bit broken. He is over a year old and half the weight of standard adult Cavs but with much longer legs. With a patch of auburn only over one eye, his markings are also off. This is highlighted by a mix of black and pink on his nose and black liner only part-way around his white-marked eye.
Being a true quarantine dog, Copper treats dog parks like an anxious kindergartener. He will run off and explore, maybe even smell a butt or two, but will always come back to check that we are still there. This can get embarrassing, especially when he sees another woman in leggings, a mask, and a ponytail and jumps up to punch them in the butt—his classic move.
We’re not sure if the Cavalier playdate was enjoyable for Copper; he spent most of his time hiding between our legs from Teddy, a well-groomed, overly-friendly Cav. I, on the other hand, loved it. Squatting down to their level, I would reach out to pet one dog and five others would come running to get in on the love.
As I stare numbly at my finals’ to-do list and the bleak winter before me, I think of the feeling of being surrounded by multi-color, tall, short, fat, skinny, old, and young Cavaliers. And I smile.
God had given me daily bread in the form of a herd (a waggle? A court? A cuddle?) of Cavaliers. And that vision—God sending an army of soft, spitty, smiling dogs to break into my gray world and remind me of divine love, of divine color—was enough to buoy my heart for another day.
I have encountered God today, and I will encounter God again tomorrow.
Rose Schrott
Writer & Editor
Rose is an editor for The Upper Room and a Christian education consultant for the National Council of Churches
Photography by Luis González