Today, I had to answer questions via email for a journalist. I know not all of my answers will make it into the article being written so I'm printing the entire thing here. I hope you enjoy it. As for the publication, I won't mention its name as I'm sure a much briefer version will appear in its pages before too long.
Here you go...
How did Atticus come into your life?
I had rescued an elderly miniature schnauzer, Maxwell Garrison Gillis. He was only with me for a year and a half
before he died. Soon after I attempted
to rescue any other miniature schnauzer that might be in need but I didn’t have
any luck. So my friends, who knew I was
grieving, gave me a thousand dollars and told me to go out and find a
puppy. Once my on-line search started a
confluence of fateful emails with a breeder from down south brought Atticus into
my life.
As you’ll see when you read the book, this interaction with the breeder at the
beginning and throughout the story is a main theme in our book.
What is it about Atticus that made you want to simplify your
life?
It was Maxwell Garrison Gillis, not Atticus that made me aware I needed to
simplify things. When I rescued him I
was leading a complicated, controversial, and exciting life running a
one-person newspaper in a seething political town. I was always “on.” But when Max came into my life I was forced
to pay attention to someone else’s needs.
I had always been on the move and he gave me a reason to stay home more
often. He gave me someone to look
after. He gave me a home. Seeing him curl up in a small ball on my bed
while I was on the phone talking about the latest lies of some small town
politician made me realize I wanted to find that same kind of innocence he
exhibited on a daily basis.
How did Atticus help put small-town politics into perspective?
After Max passed on I had the responsibility of raising Atticus. His breeder, Paige
Foster, had entrusted a very special puppy to me (I wouldn’t know for years
just how special she thought he was) and I took my responsibility seriously. When you raise a puppy, there is so much you
have to take into account. I was given
charge of a new life and I wanted to make sure that he had the kind of life the
once-neglected Max had been denied for the first decade of his life.
When you love someone, everything else falls away. When you care for someone - that becomes the
priority. Putting Max, and then Atticus
first, humbled me and put things into perspective for me.
What makes Atticus happy?
Not long ago someone asked me if Atticus has a voice in the book. He doesn’t.
It would be presumptuous and disingenuous of me to pretend I know what
he’s thinking or what he would say if he could speak. I won’t pretend to know everything that makes
him happy. But from what I see being
free is the main thing. He gets to be
with me, which is a job he takes extremely seriously as he acts as though I’m
his responsibility. By being with me he
gets treated as an equal. I like to
think that makes him happy.
Being in nature also does it. This I can
clearly see. If we are on a beach or in
the woods there’s more of a spring to his step.
And being on a mountaintop…well, something comes over him. The best I can describe it is that he seems
to find his bliss and his center on top of a peak. He sits and sits and sits moving nothing but
his head and eyes taking in the view.
And when we first get to a mountaintop he wants me to pick him up so we
can share the view together. In my arms,
with both our eyes cast out towards the horizon, I feel his body relax, I hear
him sigh, and I see that this is a place he was meant to be.
Why 48 peaks, twice each, in the winter?
The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) created the 4,000-Footer Club more than
fifty years ago. Its purpose was to get
people to explore the four corners of the White Mountains of New Hampshire and
not just hang out on the most popular peaks.
There are 48 of them. Finish them
and you get a patch and a scroll signifying the accomplishment. More than 8,000 people and 100 dogs have
completed that ‘List’ through the years.
Then there’s the ‘Winter List.’ It’s much difficult club to become a member of
and far fewer people have accomplished this.
It’s even rarer, as you might imagine, to do all the peaks in one
winter.
At the time I was looking for a way to pay tribute to a friend who had died of
cancer. Just before her cancer was
detected she’d done a three-day, sixty mile cancer walk and told me it was
tough and something she’d never dreamed of doing, but it was also
rewarding. So setting out to do
something just as tough and rare and rewarding was the impetus for attempting
to hike 96 peaks in 90 days to raise money for the fight against cancer for the
Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and then later for Angell Animal
Medical Center.
What was the highlight of your trek?
There’s no one highlight. For the rest
of my life moments of our journeys in the mountains, especially in winter, will
flash in my mind. It happens on a daily basis to me. I suppose what mattered most was that
throughout it all, we grew even closer than imaginable. Not only did we have an already incredibly
intimate bond shared by man and dog, but we also shared a bond between hiking
partners. There’s a rare intimacy that’s
shared between two fellow adventurers that the rest of the world can never
know. People can think they know about
it but until you experience it it’s something that cannot be translated for
others.
In three winters Atticus and I climbed 188 winter peaks. In that time we shared numerous adventures
and lived a life most others only can dream of.
The friendship that existed before then and grew because of those
mountains – that was the highlight.
Did you and/or Atticus ever want to give up?
Again, I cannot and will not speak for him. I can say is that Atticus always had a say in
every hike. If he didn’t want to go, we
didn’t go. If we got so far into the
hike and he wanted to turn back we did.
He didn’t do either of these very often, but he did it enough to know he
could always have a say.
As for me, there were many times I wanted to give up. Winter in the White Mountains can be exhilarating
and beautiful. But it can also be
daunting, dangerous, and about the loneliest place in the world. On days when the sun is bright and the skies
bright blue, the snow is brilliant white and my heart soars. But when it’s gray and misty and there are no
views and the wind howls like a banshee, well, I shiver and I shudder and I
question myself.
And of course it’s incredibly difficult to get out of bed when you are aching
from a twenty mile hike and you have to get up and do another hike again,
especially when the temperature is below zero and everyone you know is home
safe and sound.
What is different about your life with Atticus in it?
That’s what our book is about. Read it
and you’ll find the answer.
If I had to sum it up though, I’d say that throughout all of our lives we all
lose things along the way. When we are
young and innocent we dream of how special the world will be and how wonderful
we can be when we grow up. And yet along
the way year by year that gets chipped away.
We get to be middle-aged and often all we can think of us is just
getting by. We forget the magic. We forget how much of a gift life is.
If we are lucky, fate knocks on our door and says “Wake up! I’ve got an
adventure for you to go on.” Joseph
Campbell, the mythologist, refers to this as the ‘hero’s journey’. It’s that moment we step away from the usual
and enter a different realm that at first seems uncomfortable, maybe even
impossible, and then yields to a more rewarding existence. Soon you’re on your way back to everything
you ever dreamed of being. . . . That is, if you have the courage of your
convictions and the willingness to leave the old and the safe behind for this
new life – the life you were always meant to lead.
First Maxwell Garrison Gillis and then Atticus Maxwell Finch became avatars,
guides, if you will, to bring me on this journey back to myself. As I’ve said many times over, I owe much to
one dog who died and another who lived.
I owe them my eternal gratitude for giving me back my life.
What is different about Atticus’ life with you in it?
Really?
Sorry, but I won’t even pretend to know the answer to this one. He was eight weeks old when we joined forces.
If I was to leap for an answer the only thing I’d say is that I’m proud of
something Paige Foster said, “Thank you for not training the Atticus out of Atticus.” In short, I set up guidelines so that he
could be safe but the rest was up to him. I allowed him to be whatever he
wanted to be. I simply got out of his
way and let him be.
If he didn’t like mountains, we never would have returned for a second
hike. But he did and that was the path
we took.
All I can say to this is that raising a puppy and living with the dog as he
ages is the same as loving someone: you do your best to protect them, but you
let them live and grow and be themselves.
In return you receive so many gifts, especially the knowledge that you
helped someone on their own personal journey.
If we weren’t together, well, I have no idea what his life would have been
like. Paige always thought he was
extraordinary, so perhaps he would have been extraordinary in some other
way. Thankfully for me, it’s an answer I
don’t need to have.
What’s next for you and Atticus?
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie “Hook” (it’s a modern day look at
Peter Pan) or not but there’s a great last couple of lines. Granny Wendy says, “So…your adventures are
over. And Peter Banning says, “Oh
no. To live…to live would be an awfully
big adventure.”
We’ll always have our mountains but our greatest adventure continues to be
sharing this life together. I take heart
in knowing there are many more adventures to come. In the last chapter of Following Atticus you
will see we set sail on a new one and that is a story unto itself.
