The Hound

I once read a poem in high school that I have never forgotten.  It’s a fairly well known one, and I’m pretty sure most American teenagers had to read and discuss it in some class at some point.  On days like today, I can still picture myself in Ms. Teverbaugh’s class reading it for the first time.  It’s called “The Hound” by Robert Francis.


The Hound

by Robert Francis

Life the hound

Equivocal

Comes at a bound

Either to rend me

Or to befriend me.

I cannot tell

The hound's intent

Till he has sprung

At my bare hand

With teeth or tongue.

Meanwhile I stand

And wait the event.

Today I arrived at work and discovered that I would be doing the responsibilities of two people by myself (that tends to happen when someone gets sick).  I’ve held down the fort on my own before, but today was insane.

I think I was in a mild state of panic for about eight hours.  I could almost hear the adrenaline rushing through my brain.  And at one particular moment in time, as the phone rang and emails poured in and people stopped by my desk to ask me questions, I thought, “Thank goodness I didn’t know this was going to happen when I woke up this morning.”

I’m a worrier by gene pool.  There are known things in my future that I worry about (will Harry like his job?  Will we be happy with our life choices?  Will we ever have more than we currently have in our bank account?).  On days like today I’m so relieved that the “unknowns” that are simply unforeseeable are exactly that.  Because if I’d known that today would be like trying to herd cats after we’d all been tossed in a swimming pool that was filled with floating inner tubes, I might not have gotten out of bed this morning.

This is not meant to sound like a “my life is harder than your life” post—truthfully, I absolutely love my life.  And today I was grateful for something I’m never grateful for: that no matter what I think or plan or do, life is equivocal, and I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen when I get out of (or, stay in) bed in the morning.

I’m so glad that everyone has days like this that catch them by surprise and completely wring them out, that it affects the employed, the unemployed, the stay-at-home-mom (which in my opinion is employed-yet-unpaid), the retired, the wealthy, the poor, the old, the young, the blonde, the curly-haired, and the bald.

This crazy day has worn me out to my very core, and I’m now planted on the sofa wearing leggings and the fake Uggs I bought in college, while the crock pot gurgles away on the counter, and the laundry spins away in the machines in the basement, waiting for Sir Harry to come home and watch something with me that we can find for free on hulu.com.

A picture, in parting.

found here