You've heard it all before. You don't have children after a certain age if you can avoid it because, well, you just run out of juice at some point. Your patience has dwindled to a slow trickle and chasing after something that moves a lot faster than you do can bring on a panic attack that comes on like it does during a morning run when you realize the path hasn't been cleared. It's black ice.

So instead you get a puppy. Not a slothy, sleepy breed, no, you get a bird dog - a runner, a true springer and you think you're game. Sure this works in the woods of Maine or by the lake. You simply have to work on getting her to come when called and push the door open a gazillion times for her to commune with nature. But, wait, you actually live in Boston for seven months out of the year, and wait, you have to walk her more times a day than you are home, and wait, there is no place for her to run that isn't bordered by screaming traffic or canals filled with ducks. Holy crap.

And yes there seems to be quite a bit of that blessed stuff. Picking it up throwing it out and picking it up and throwing it out and picking it up and throwing it out. More than you ever changed a diaper and that's after raising two boys.

But wait. You did do this once before, actually twice before. Because way back in the day when your kids were little you had two dogs, (one is still going strong at 13) and you had a full time job, and no free time, and absentee husband, and how the heck...

Oh right. You were younger.

Well, I'm counting down the days till I am back on the lake and so is Honey. It will be May, black flies be damned and bring on the mud. She's been a good sport, but there haven't been enough winter weekends in the woods. Yeah she's keeping me on my toes (dare I say keeping me young) but it feels different here in town and we are both looking forward to our freedom.

Suzanne Gibbons-Neff Kahn's company, SGN Public Relations & Marketing, is based in Boston, Mass. She is a summer, fall and a few times in the winter resident of Camden.

Transformations
We tell stories.
We tell stories to make sense of our lives.
We tell stories to communicate our experience of being alive.
We tell stories in our own distinct voice. Our own unique rhythm and tonality.

Transformations is a weekly story-telling column. The stories are written by community members who are my students. Our stories are about family, love, loss and good times. We hope to make you laugh and cry. Maybe we will convince you to tell your stories.
— Kathrin Seitz, editor, and Cheryl Durbas, co-editor

"Everyone, when they get quiet, when they become desperately honest with themselves, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there." — Henry Miller

Kathrin Seitz teaches Method Writing in Rockport, New York City and Florida. She can be reached at kathrin@kathrinseitz.com. Cheryl Durbas is a freelance personal assistant in the Midcoast area. She can be reached at cheryldurbas@tidewater.net.