Unpleasant

My sweet dog has one of two responses when I have to pee in the woods:

1. She stands in front of me licking my face. I hate to be licked by dogs and she never licks me, except when I'm peeing in the woods.

2. She jumps into the nearest body of water and then shakes vigorously behind me. This is especially delightful when it is cold; like my aspirations aren't already chilled with exposure.

She's my beloved companion and we've gone on nearly every trail in Juneau together, but I have been known to swear at her when trying to pee. I like to imagine she does these things as some dog sensitive way of protecting me when I'm vulnerable. But I'm guessing, like most of those I love, she's just being a turd. 

Since I had way too much coffee this morning and lots of time to think while the dog licked my face and the brewed grounds returned to the earth, I realized I love peeing in the woods. 

LOVE IT! 

Even when the dog is making me crazy.

I remember the first time ever was when I was 19 visiting Alaska for the first time. I had never peed without some kind of seat. It might seem obvious to men how to pee in the woods, but it is not quite as apparent for women. 

They let me off the boat because I was positive I did not have the skill to pee over the edge. I wandered the woods trying to figure out how I could manage relieving my bladder without wearing it or getting eaten by a bear. They thought I died because I wandered for a long time, but after that learning experience, peeing in the woods was the delight of staying hydrated.

I recently read a reflection by Thomas Lynch (an undertaker/poet from Michigan) about how the flushable toilet made way for all the other "conveniences" that have distanced us from the unpleasantries of living and dying (and sex). He throws them all together. 

We want packaged meat, disappearing waste, and all the other illusions that life comes and goes without a mess. 

I'm all for sanitary conditions, especially in hospitals and hotel rooms. Dysentery is no fun, but Lynch argues that not long after we stopped having to handle and dispose of our own waste, we also moved death out of the proper context of home and family and into institutions. Death moved from a natural by-product of life into a shameful secret akin to all the other things we flush out of sight. 

Peeing in the woods is my confrontation with the unpleasant reality of death. Or at least I think there is something carnal and freeing about honoring the circle of life. 

Everything has to go somewhere. 

I know that is obvious, but the funeral home, sewage treatment plant and dump is still a shock to the youth let alone adults. Nothing goes away. It might get transformed or sterilized, but there is no magic wand to make it disappear. 

So go ahead and pee in the woods and confront your mortality. 

But, taking a dump in the woods is a totally different thing and you better bury that appropriately because my dog eats it. Did I mention the part about her licking my face?