Kristin von Kreisler

Good news! I was featured in a podcast by The Dodo. It’s called The Cardboard Beagle. You can can check it out here!

When people ask what I did during lockdown, the answer is easy: I gardened! Every day for many hours. After working at my desk each morning, I went outside and dug and weeded and planted and pruned–and the days flew by. I forgot that my bangs needed trimming when hope and beauty were evolving before my eyes. Now my veggies are ready to spring into action, and my peonies are glorious. Here are photos so you can see!

Today is the birthday of Earnest, the yellow Labrador retriever in my new novel of the same name! Some of you may be thinking, Wait a minute. He’s fiction. It’s his publication day, not his birthday.

But I beg to differ. To me, Earnest is as real as any Lab I ever knew, and I couldn’t love him more if he were resting his chin on my foot this very minute. Today I want to celebrate his beautiful spirit and his entrance into the world.

I have created Earnest, nurtured him, and seen him through fictional scrapes and triumphs. I watched him mope and refuse to eat when his humans broke up and fought over custody of him. He didn’t like their split, but being an intelligent and resourceful dog, he began a campaign to chasten and reunite them. When they had a spat one afternoon, he gave them a withering look that said as clearly as anyone ever said anything, Your scrapping is intolerable. You are the ratfinks of the western world! At times Earnest showed better judgment than they did.

On this day I mentally hug him and tell him I love him with all my heart. I congratulate him on being born and on being one of the very best dogs that ever lived. And with joy, I unleash him and send him out into the world to romp on the grass, make new friends, and sniff messages left on the street by other dogs. I have confidence in him – he’s a strong and sterling animal. And he’s smart. He can make it on his own now.

All I ask is that he remember me and come back to visit once in a while. I’ll be waiting for him with a dog biscuit and one of the Granny Smith apples he loves, and I’ll be glad to throw a stick for him until my arm is sore. I will always want to see him and and hug him and know how he is doing.

Kristin and Maggie, who inspired Earnest:

A week and a half ago, An Unexpected Grace was officially launched at the Eagle Harbor Book Company, my local independent bookstore.  I gave a talk about the novel to a crowd of kind strangers and beloved friends.  Later, feeling joy about my book and the audience’s support, I told my husband, John, “We don’t get many days in life as happy as this.”  And he said, “That’s why you should enjoy it.”

Abraham Maslow would have called my bookstore talk a “peak experience,” a rare moment of pleasure and excitement to be held dear to the heart.  I’ve been lucky to have my share of major highs, but lately I’ve also thought about the minor ones.  My father once pointed them out to me when I was mulling the meaning of life.  He said, “It all boils down to little everyday happinesses.”

In their own quiet way, those little happinesses can be crucially important.  They’re the simple pleasures that get us out of bed in the morning.  And once we’re up, they’re the comforts and encouragements that keep us going.

Today, for example, my favorite squirrels showed up at my bird feeder and gluttonized on seeds.  Next, a ring-necked pheasant strutted under my plum tree in all his stunning, multi-colored glory.  Then for lunch I got to eat a chunk of brie left over from last week’s gathering of friends – all that delicious, forbidden fat!  Ecstasy.

You get the picture.  Little everyday happinesses parade through our lives and feed our souls.  The small joys can add up and create a feeling of wellbeing.  Another joy is happening before my eyes this very minute:  As the sun is setting behind my hedge, the sky has turned a soft lavender-pink.  Thank you, Mother Nature.

In the last few weeks as I’ve promoted An Unexpected Grace, people have asked why I write about animals.  My answer is simple:  There’s no way I could not write about them.

I was born on October 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, and I have always been supremely sensitive to creatures.  My father took me as a child to western movies; and when cowboys dug their spurs into horses’ sides, I cried so hard that he had to take me to the lobby.  During a drought in Texas, where I grew up, I worried the whole summer after third grade about the thirsty deer, raccoons, and squirrels.  All my life I rescued dogs and kitties.

As an adult, I became a freelancer for magazines but never thought of writing about animals.  Then I had an accident and injured four disks in my spine.  Unable to work for months, I lay on my office sofa with Beatrice, my beloved beagle, loyally cuddled up beside me, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be pain-free enough to write again.

When your career is hanging in the balance like that, you do some serious thinking.  And I slowly realized that I’d been frittering away my life, writing about subjects that had meant nothing to me – and I’d left my heart behind in the dust.  I wondered, what’s the meaning of my life?  Beatrice reminded me that, no matter our species, meaning comes by loving and helping others.  One day it occurred to me that I had always loved animals more than anything — so I should write about them and try to improve their lives.

I vowed that if I were ever strong enough to work again, I’d align my heart with my career.  And that’s what I’ve done in articles, nonfiction books, and now a novel. I’ve tried to show how worthy animals are, how important they can be to us, how much they have to teach.  Every morning I get out of bed, knowing I’ll work for something bigger than myself, and trying to give back to the world the love and kindness that animals have given me.

I believe that early morning musing is important. I lie in bed in that sleepy zone between my conscious and unconscious, and let hazy thoughts come to me.  Sometimes they arrive as ideas for projects or solutions to problems.  But today I woke to a message from my spirit.

I opened my eyes, and, oddly, the first thing that came to me was Rudyard Kipling’s poem If.  I rarely think of poetry when half asleep, but I remembered Mrs. Watkins, my fifth grade teacher, looking sternly at our class of twelve and reading the poem from a big red book, marked with a frayed red ribbon.  She often made us memorize such masterpieces as the Gettysburg Address, and I must also have learned at least a part of If.  What floated through my mind today were snatches of the first three lines:

            If you can keep you head when all about you

            Are losing theirs…

            If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…

I blinked and thought, Eureka!  A message indeed, surgically tailored for me.

Today is the day that my novel, An Unexpected Grace, is officially out in the world, available online and in bookstores.  My publisher is doing an email blast to launch the book, and I’m supposed to tweet and pin and post about it.  Though thrilling, this is not an easy, simple morning.  Anxiety lurks in the shadows of my excitement, and I feel almost overwhelmed.  It’s definitely a time to do what Rudyard Kipling says:  to “keep my head” when life is out of my control and “trust myself” when others doubt or question what I’ve written.

Kipling said that inspiration for If came from the British politician Leander Starr Jameson, who led a raid against South Africa’s Boer government in l896 at about this time of year.  Though the raid was a failure, Jameson’s dignity and courage made him a hero; and his strength of character was said to trump his defeat.  A book launch may be a gnat compared to the elephant of his military action, and I’m not anticipating his failure.  But a launch does call for Jameson’s mettle and determination.  I vowed this morning to rally it, as must all writers when they sit down to a blank page every morning and are said to open a vein and bleed.  Or when they go out to promote a book.

Thankful for this morning’s message to gather up my spunk, I can only say:  Hello, world!  Here’s my novel about Lila and Grace, a woman and a dog!  Their light shines from my heart and leads my way.  I hope you’ll enjoy their story.