Longing for a thunder shirt
On doing what we can with what we have
When she’s climbing on top of me in desperate fear, it’s easy to remember that my dog has a thunder shirt.
It looks like a racing dog uniform: a strip of fabric around the front of the dog’s chest and a snug tube around their middle. But for this shirt, two layers of stretchy fabric work together to give my dog a hug she can wear.
Unfortunately, you’re supposed to train dogs to like the wearable hug by putting the shirt on them when they’re already calm and happy. By wearing it in comfortable situations, the shirt gains the ability to recall that calm happiness. And two nights ago, because I haven’t yet remembered to do that for her, she was once again climbing all over me during a storm. Let me tell you: being climbed on by a panting, twitchy, 40-pound, four-legged, and eight-nailed creature makes me a twitchy, harassed human.
I have a playlist named “Leave the awfulness behind,” and it’s packed with strong lyrics and powerful rhythms. I curated the list for my drive to and from work, to help me shake off both anxiety before work and the anger I sometimes felt after it.
Before I listened to the music to process hard emotions, I listened to it when I was feeling well. I played it loud; I sang along; I drummed on the steering wheel. Imbuing power can exist beyond fantasy stories and magical swords. We can imbue power in our own worlds, with the help of repetition and presence.
But what do we do when we haven’t yet imbued the power in the planned object or experience? What do we do when we’re stuck in that same painful place, and we’re wishing for the thing we thought would fix it?
For Sadie’s storm fear—after some significant “not this agaaaaain” and “why haven’t I trained her on the shirt yet???” thoughts—I do my best and use what’s available to me. If my verbal cajoling (and sometimes physically moving her) isn’t enough to get her to snuggle up next to me, I stand up. If I want to help her feel better, I need to be ok myself.
So I stand up to give myself some space, and I wait for her to sort things out for herself a bit. I talk to her soothingly: “It’s ok, Sadie. We’re safe inside. The storm won’t hurt us. You’ve already done your job.” The words don’t help, of course, but the tone can. Sometimes it’s enough, and I can go on doing whatever it is I wanted to be doing, watching or gaming or reading.
Other times, she needs more. A positive association with a thunder shirt would be perfect right then. But, oh yeah, I still haven’t remembered to imbue that object its power.
A few weeks ago, I realized that the soothing talk was helping, but that I was running out of things to say and the patience to repeat myself. Desperately, I picked up my current book, and I started to read aloud.
It worked! She got the sound of my voice, and I got to do something I wanted to do—even if it wasn’t my top choice. (I was almost done building that new settlement for my video game beavers!)
I’ve had to read to her a few times since that first storm. I found a coping skill that works with my current skills, even if I’m still frustrated that I haven’t made the space to train her on the thunder shirt. Maybe writing this essay will help give me the push to finally get that started.
Or maybe, like the human I am, I’ll forget again until the next storm. I’m just doing my best.
Grinnell Students for Peace update
It turns out that the St. Louis area is a part of the history of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 during World War II. In 1973, waste from the Manhattan Project was illegally dumped at West Lake Landfill by a company called the Cotter Corp. An elementary school was closed in 2023 because of its contamination. It’s a 30 minute drive from my house.
Why here? Some of the uranium for the Manhattan Project was processed in downtown St. Louis.
Besides being horrifying, how is the nuclear waste dump related to my project about protestors in 1961, sixteen years after WWII and twelve years before the material was dumped? It’s not possible that the protestors knew about it (unless one of them had precognition—I’ll have to ask), but it is a part of the story of how nuclear war and energy effect our communities’ health.
I’m working on the GSP book as a way to share one story about the public’s ability to change the world—and as a way to share what’s at stake. This dump is part of that story.
Mentioned in this issue: Thunder shirts (which I assume work but clearly haven’t found out, and also there are other brands); the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Manhattan Project; West Lake Landfill; and a school that was closed because of nuclear contamination and is now a storage facility.