{"id":35893,"date":"2017-07-30T11:19:01","date_gmt":"2017-07-30T17:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=35893"},"modified":"2018-09-10T08:35:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T14:35:45","slug":"read-local-first-jeri-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/read-local-first-jeri-parker\/","title":{"rendered":"READ LOCAL First: Jeri Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jeri<\/a>

Jeri Parker: Looking for Whippet in 1989<\/p><\/div>\n

READ LOCAL SUNDAY is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. 15 Bytes regularly offers works-in-progress and\/or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction and memoir.<\/p>\n

Today we feature Salt Lake City-based Jeri Parker. Winner of last year\u2019s\u00a015 Bytes Book Award<\/a>\u00a0for her novel\u00a0Unmoored<\/em>, Jeri is an artist as well as a writer. She has paintings in private and public collections in Paris, Athens, Frankfurt, Istanbul, London, Sydney, and more than half of the states. She is presently co-owner of Wildflowers Bed and Breakfast and \u2026 an avid dog lover. A contributor to the newly released\u00a0Dharma of Dogs<\/em>, edited by Tami Simon, Jeri\u2019s essay \u201cLost Dog\u201d is excerpted below.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

excerpt from \u201cLost Dog\u201d
\nin\u00a0The Dharma of Dogs\u00a0<\/em>(Sounds True<\/a>\u00a0Publishing, 2017)
\nby Jeri Parker<\/p>\n

Dogs, I think. I wonder when they appeared. They would have roamed these mountains in wild packs thousands of years ago.<\/p>\n

I brought Whippit here to my cabin from the city and a fenced back yard. I introduced her to wildness, to danger. And bliss. But I\u2019d failed to keep her from harm\u2019s way. My sense of responsibility for her safety, for her life, falls over me like a second skin. I fly back to my feet and I run hard now, calling, creating a grid in my mind. I work the upper acres and then drop down.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m expecting her to pop up every minute. I\u2019m startled that she doesn\u2019t come, and I scan near, far out, and suddenly I\u2019m inside-out with fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll find you,\u201d I murmur as the trees go by. \u201cI\u2019ll find you, Whippet,\u201d and I know I\u2019ll never stop looking. I see in my mind what a wolf can do to a dog and I run back to Pat\u2019s. \u201cCould I borrow your truck?\u201d I ask, flat out, a note of desperation in my voice.
\n\u201cCome on,\u201d she says, \u201clet\u2019s drive around and look for her. I know we\u2019ll see her right off.\u201d<\/p>\n

This wispy dog is my access to calm and I try to get back to that calm as we drive along Stamp Meadows Road, the old logging route. I call her spirit to me, see myself up on the high bed with her, and I\u2019m calling and calling and she doesn\u2019t come. I think of the joy in her and I miss it. I have those two things about me all the time when I\u2019m with her\u2014the calmness of the Whippet and the joy in her. I know suddenly how long it will be before my own heart leaps up in joy if she stays out there in the forest\u2014part of the food chain herself now, unequipped since I\u2019d taken away her independence. I\u2019d made her subservient to my judgment. I hadn\u2019t ever thought that that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing with our household pets.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the bargaining started. Great Spirit, let me have her back, I murmur. I\u2019ll understand my part in it\u2014let me have her again. And I see her coming back, tired, relieved, and me lifting her to the bed. And she curls along my back and I\u2019m able to sleep.<\/p>\n

I stretched out on the bed for a minute when I get back to the cabin. I woke hours later with a start. It was dark and I was crying and I\u2019m back to walking the pitch black forest, calling out \u201cWhippet, I\u2019m sorry. Whippet, come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

I call my friend Cill the next morning. \u201cCan you come up early?\u201d I ask. My voice catches. She\u2019s a nurse, she can\u2019t just walk off the job. But she does manage it; she\u2019ll be up right away, she tells me. I go outside and do my Indian prayer\u2014arms outstretched. I feel in a different way what I have to be grateful for.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a five-hour drive for Cill. I walk in the forest the whole five hours. I think Whippet is close\u2014just mixed up. When I come back to the cabin, Cill\u2019s big Plymouth van is in the driveway. Okay, we say, let\u2019s make a plan. We get out a map. I pencil in where I\u2019ve been. \u201cLet\u2019s go to places you\u2019ve taken her,\u201d Cill says. We drive for hours, putting up rudimentary posters I\u2019d made. Pat agrees to be the command post\u2014she\u2019s the one with a phone.<\/p>\n

The calls start coming in at once. She\u2019s been to the church. She\u2019s been to the huckleberry patch, she\u2019s been to the river. That\u2019s when the loggers tell me she\u2019s weak on her legs. They gave her a peanut butter sandwich but she wouldn\u2019t eat it.<\/p>\n

Stamp Meadows Road is a dustbowl now. The trucks and fishermen have gone up and down it all summer and they\u2019ve left about five inches of powder on it. We go back out there over and over and stop whenever we see anyone. \u201cShe chased a white one-ton,\u201d one of the sawyers tells me. Cill\u2019s truck is white and Wippet is well acquainted with it. My throat catches. I feel light headed.<\/p>\n

We look until the dark obliterates everything. We go into Island Park Lodge for a late dinner. The waitress tells me she\u2019d lost her husband and then she\u2019d lost her dog and there was no difference in the emptiness. This bridge between us comforts me profoundly.<\/p>\n

The third day is indistinguishable from the second. On the fourth day, a kind of peace falls over me. Whippet isn\u2019t hating every minute, I say to myself. She\u2019s stopping by the creek, lying down, feeling the cool breeze stir her fur. She looks up at Sawtell at sunset. If she dies out there, Sawtell is a tombstone to make the pharaohs jealous. I relax.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have to be careful not to make her a folk dog when we find her,\u201d I tell Cill in the morning. And I go on, thinking aloud. \u201cThere\u2019s a certain comfort in knowing she isn\u2019t doing to herself what we\u2019re doing\u2014she isn\u2019t going through the reasoning why. Maybe we shouldn\u2019t be trying to second guess her. There doesn\u2019t seem to be any pattern.\u201d I think that over. \u201cUnless\u2014you know, it looks like she\u2019s gone to all the places I took her. Why didn\u2019t I see that.<\/p>\n

Day one\u2014Bart sees her on that first little dip in the road leading away from the mill and back to the highway. Next sighting\u2014she\u2019s continuing on that road, she\u2019s traveled two or three miles. Next sighting, it\u2019s Friday, she\u2019s in there on the logging roads at 9:00 and at 11:30. And that\u2019s where she is at 6:00. That\u2019s where the loggers offered her a peanut butter sandwich. That area accounts for the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sighting.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d been back to that spot fifty times. The guys that were stripping out lodge poles in there knew us by name now. That\u2019s where we got the weak on her legs report. She was further up the road at 6:15 that third evening. Then she was back closer to the mill when Bart saw her at 3:30 Friday. The beginning of the wild and furious Labor Day weekend. Then she was over by Island Park Lodge Saturday evening and Sunday at 8:00, 8:30, 10:00. Then she went to Lee Swaner\u2019s cabin on the North Fork\u2014we walked in there all the time. That same day she went up the hill\u2014she\u2019d have to be crossing the highway constantly\u2014and she went to Janet\u2019s cabin. I\u2019d taken her there the week before.<\/p>\n

Cill says \u201cAnd Sunday she went to church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d I laugh. She was at the church on Sunday. Had I had her there? And then we didn\u2019t hear anything for a while.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t let myself think how often she darted across that highway with its restless tourists driving too fast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the story of a lost dog,\u201d I say to Cill. \u201cIt goes like most lost dog stories. They saw her but we didn\u2019t then they saw her again but we didn\u2019t. Then no one saw her for quite a while and we thought she was gone. Then they saw her again but we didn\u2019t.\u201d
\nThis went on for five days\u2014not a very long time really, but it involves 120 hours\u2014each with more minutes in it that than the one before. Half of them are unlit by daylight\u2014simple physics but hard on the heart. It extended to twenty-two sightings\u2014the most interesting of which went like this. \u201cWhere were you yesterday, Parker. I tried to call you for three hours. Your dog went over to that sign you put up at the church and laid down under it just like she could read.\u201d She was the only dog I ever had who could have learned to read.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d had dogs from the time I was born. I always think of myself as a serious dog lover, not a slacker, but I\u2019ve crossed over this time. And I sit out on the deck in the sun and think of my dogs: Mike, the Springer Spaniel I had as a little girl. Ginger, our beautiful golden Chesapeake\u2014there\u2019s a dog who got lost too. Blackie, the dog my father abandoned on a country road, the hardest to remember. Tami, the dog I drove to Montreal, packed in ice to keep cool. Mouse, who ate the shoes off my boyfriends when I had them distracted. And Sadie, the little beagle, the delight of my first days in Utah. And then Whippet. They\u2019d all offered unconditional love, trained me in what it was to have their companionship, gave me access to how they understood day, night, summer, winter\u2014nature itself. As well as the human heart.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s go fishing,\u201d I say to Cill on the last day. We go to Coffee Pot. I\u2019ve finally got so I\u2019m not scanning every square inch of forest. We stand in the cool water and cast our lines and a little sense of normalcy returns. It\u2019s such a beautiful world. When we get back to the cabin, I tell Cill I\u2019m through looking. If someone called and said they had her right now, I wouldn\u2019t go after her.<\/p>\n

The phone rang. \u201cWe\u2019ve got her. She\u2019s at Island Park Lodge.\u201d<\/p>\n

We grab the car keys. We don\u2019t take jackets or purses or anything. We know how fast this dog moves. When we get there I run into the lodge. \u201cMy dog\u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s right up there on that hill, hon,\u201d the waitress says. She\u2019s seen us in here often for breakfast. She\u2019s the one who told me I lost my son and then I lost my dog and it was the same emptiness.<\/p>\n

I run out to tell Cill, and I see her up on the hill. She\u2019s kneeling and that crazy white dog, the white Whippet is in her arms. I run as though she might disappear again and then I have her bony little body in my arms and I put my face down in that dusty fur and think of the trees and the river and the roads and the gentle people and I love having this little shaman, this dog.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

\"\"Jeri Parker<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0grew up in southeast Idaho, spending summers with her grandparents at a sawmill that was a few mills from Yellowstone National Park. She later returned to this spot in the Centennial Mountains and built her own cabin of foraged materials. She still returns for part of the year, writing at an old desk beside a window in the loft. She is the author of\u00a0Unmoored;<\/em>\u00a0she is the author of the nonfiction work\u00a0A Thousand Voices<\/em>. In addition to her winning the 15 Bytes Book Award in 2016 she\u00a0has won first-place prizes from the Utah Arts Council and the Henry\u2019s Fork Foundation in Idaho.<\/p>\n

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READ LOCAL SUNDAY is your glimpse into the working minds and hearts of Utah\u2019s literary writers. 15 Bytes regularly offers works-in-progress and\/or recently published work by some of the state\u2019s most celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction and memoir. Today we feature Salt Lake City-based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":35894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[2715],"class_list":["post-35893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first","tag-jeri-parker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Jeri-e1501357082646.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 15:03:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35895,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35893\/revisions\/35895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}