Good Karma

I think we can all agree: puppies + mental health = good for you. Naturally, those of us that realized this during the peak of the pandemic, made the quick decision to get our beloved four-legged friends as the world was crumbling down around us.

But no two pandemic puppy stories can be alike.

Karma joined me in June 2020. Named after the spiritual principal of cause and effect, and inspired by books I was reading at the time, as I continued quietly and inconspicuously on a path of spiritual awakening. I was on a constant search of understanding existential questions, and the pandemic only exacerbated that.

Not only was my state of awareness growing, so was my sensitivity.

By September 2020, LA was literally in flames. The air quality due to wildfires made it impossible to be outside. Storefronts in downtown Hollywood, where I lived, all the way to the nicest parts of Beverly Hills were boarded up from the looting and terrorism that continued amongst each civil rights protest. The homeless, who I had so much sympathy for after campaigning to get funding years prior, were getting unbearably close and trying to break into my apartment. All non-essential businesses were closed, all friends had already fled town. Streets were empty.

Not even a puppy could fix this.

We flew to South Carolina. I packed 2 weeks’ worth of clothes. I stayed for 6 months.

My dad was living alone in a big log cabin in the woods, sitting on a pretty 30 acres of red clay and forest.

The house was empty except for a giant porch swing and the bedrooms. The furniture had been taken in the divorce several months beforehand, and he wasn’t eating, let alone shopping for new furniture.

So, I laid down on the big swinging bed on the porch, in front of a gray stone, dual-sided fireplace, with Karma, and tried to release all the anxiety that had been building over the months leading up to our escape.

Karma was my real-life teddy bear. 15 pounds of red fluff, with white paws, and a white tummy. He had all the golden retriever tendencies, and all the anxious poodle tendencies. He was no better off than I was, but we started to absorb our new beautiful relocation together. Corinthian bells sounded in the breeze and the country air smelled sweeter than probably anything Karma had smelled in his whole 6 months of life.

We had made it out of LA alive, and more importantly, out of whatever staying there would have done to us.

I thought we had come to South Carolina for us.

After a couple of grocery runs, I convinced my dad to keep food in the fridge. Turns out, all it took was me cooking to get him to start eating.

I would work during the day while my dad went into his clinic to treat covid patients, and Karma would keep me company. I would take breaks periodically, sitting out on the porch swing, watching him explore. After a few days he started to realize there was something here that he didn’t have back in LA: space! And just like that, Karma became a country dog. Not a single square foot of that yard that he didn’t sniff. That land was his happy place. Now, when I see his feet twitching a little bit in his sleep, I know he's dreaming about prancing through the yard. The forest surrounding the house lit up with burnt orange and yellow leaves as the season turned, and I could barely see Karma’s camouflage coat as he hopped off into the woods to chase a new squirrel or bird, or Chicken, our resident cat and my dad’s best friend.

The peacefulness of the woods finally began to internalize for both of us, and the isolation that my dad had been living in for the last two years had finally ended.

We didn’t know anyone in town, about 35 minutes south, and we didn’t pack for winter. But upon hearing that LA had gone into further lockdown, I decided we’d stay until December. I began painting with heavy body acrylics and each finished painting, I would give to my dad to fill his empty walls. I started to befriend my dad’s new girlfriend. A warm, energic, assertive woman, with sweet southern hospitality in her DNA. She would come to the house with treats and snacks, as we both made it our mission to fatten up my dad.

She tuned into and related to my spiritual mindset, but kept us all grounded.

The long winter in the big empty log cabin came to an end and LA started to open back up. Karma and I were very close to never going back. We flew back out to LA in February, Karma sleeping on my lap the entire flight as always, and packed up every article of clothing I cared about to bring back to South Carolina. My mind was made up watching Karma run around the yard unleashed and free. Feeling the warmth of family and safety of my dad’s presence. And then it wasn’t.

I didn’t know what to do. My life, my friends, my job was back in LA. Outside of Karma, my dad, and Jil, I had been deprived of social activity for so long.

I decided we would to go back to LA just before my 31st birthday, to see if I could round up a group of friends. Karma and I sat on the porch with my dad on our last day and thanked him for the free room and board. My dad replied earnestly, “I was broken, and you fixed me.”

In that moment I knew that escaping LA to South Carolina was never supposed to be for Karma and I. We all healed together except for Karma, who just stayed with us and loved us. Just a dog doing dog things. That’s all he had to do.