“She’ll keep them apart,” he assured me. 

I rolled my eyes. Sure, I’d never owned a dog, but it seemed extraordinarily risky to leave an unspayed eight year old female with a 18 month old unfixed male under the supervision of a 21 year old human, even one as responsible as my then-boyfriend’s daughter, Alexa.  But that is what Jack was doing as we left for our first trip to Poland 12 years ago. 

I did not give much thought to those animals. Instead, I spent our 10 day holiday being mentally poked and prodded through translation by my family-to-be. They were nice about it but it was exhausting. I had no emotional energy left for imagining the canine shenanigans Kora and Riddick might be getting up to back in Brampton.  And whatever Alexa, her younger brother, and their inevitable gang of friends might be doing for that matter. Not my kids, not my house, not my dogs, not my problem.

We returned to our respective homes, Jack in Brampton and me downtown Toronto, from where we conducted our medium-distance relationship. A few weeks later, we were in the Brampton Conservation area to take Kora for a walk, the first time I’d seen her since our Eurotrip. She waddled with new weight. Jack, however, remained firm - no, there would be no grand-puppies. 

“Jack, give your head a shake,” I said, laughing as a wayward paw shifted her belly wall from inside. And then another. And yet another.  “That’s one pregnant bitch!” 

It wasn’t until the next day when I got his phone call, that he finally believed me. “Kora’s just had three pups on her own and there are more to come!”  Jack was father to four human children and, at that time, two grandkids but, with all due respect to his human progeny, there was a level of excitement in his tone I’d never heard before. His favoured furry daughter was becoming a mother!  The cutest pup - Bidi - joined Jack and me, Kora, and my two fraidy-cats when we finally moved in together four months later. 

With siblings all much older than me and a mother who’s as honest about such things as I am, it’s never been a secret that I too resulted from an accidental pregnancy. Just as we did with Kora’s six pups, I’ve never been made to feel badly about it.  Despite my origin story, however, the element of surprise is something I’ve steadfastly avoided my whole life.   It’s just easier for me -  and let’s face it, for everyone around me -  if I know what’s going to happen. 

Avoiding the unplanned sometimes holds me back.  Language acquisition for example - you can rehearse up and down the thing you will say in the restaurant in France but the fear of the unintelligible thing the snooty waiter might say in return has always left me pointing at the menu, smiling and nodding like a bobble-head doll.  I’ve missed the rich experience of communication in other languages, providing a glimpse into another culture. I have Air BNB guests right now from Turkey. Two young people with nearly no English but game to go for it linguistically. I envy their brave enthusiasm. 

I’ve been thinking how my fear of all things accidental has limited me in my worklife.  As I’ve reported here before, I’m in the midst of a reinvention on all fronts, including professional. All my new work draws on my previous experiences but I am a beginner at everything I’m doing for the first time in many years. And it’s tough. I think back to articling students I’ve had who have clung to email like a life raft rather than picking up the phone. And I get it now - when you’re in a live conversation, you don’t have the benefit of time to consider your response. I’m doing it, but it takes guts to risk the accidental outcome of live calls and video meetings rather than hiding behind the written word. (there’s a clearly a reason I’m not a brain surgeon - that’s real guts!)

 ***

Closing note: I am a person prone to earworms. Maybe most are. Perhaps the idea is worth a future blog but I need to share that this week, in the course of writing this, I have enjoyed the refrain from Elvis Costello’s Accidents will Happen.  And now, for those also susceptible to a tune burrowing deep into your brain, I’ve just deposited Costello into yours. 

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