#5 I Am Moos the German Shepherd …

The mood in the car is tense as Heidi and I pass through the village of Le Perthus in Catalonia, on the border with France. Moos the German shepherd died a few weeks ago. For twelve years, Moos accompanied us on our travels through Europe. Now, her kennel in the back of our Berlingo is empty, and it feels as if we’re leaving her behind in Catalonia. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Heidi crying, and I fight back my own tears. Time heals all wounds. With that as a guiding principle, we have always managed to quickly move on from grief. One day, we will laugh again. So why not laugh today? What applies to grief, I remind myself to avoid thinking about Moos, applies to many negative emotions, and all those negative emotions have in common that they’re addictive. We—humans—easily get stuck in negative emotions. Still, time heals all wounds. Why not actively make it a short time? Silly reasoning?

Hm...

But now, I admit, sadness hits hard, partly because we’re not only leaving Moos behind in Catalonia, but also the life we thought we could build there.

May 2024. About a year ago, we moved into an old Catalan stable converted into a house. It was our seventh international move in nine years, and we decided to do whatever it took to make Catalonia our final destination. Our surroundings—the surroundings of the village in which we came to live—matched the expectations Google Earth had created of them, and we enthusiastically threw ourselves into decorating our not-so-easy-to-decorate stable—the arches in the brick ceilings, typical of Catalan stables, started at chest height. We scoured markets, found the perfect second-hand furniture, and after some months of sanding and painting, we felt at home in our stable. But Catalonia has some downsides Google Earth had failed to make us expect. For one, Catalonia is woke. We still don't know what exactly that means, but the absence of joie de vivre seems to be one of the symptoms. Another downside of Catalonia is that its interior reeks of livestock, which eh... which lives under rather miserable conditions. And then, there were the apple orchards all around our stable, which—we were shocked to learn—are sprayed with poison every five days. Sure, everything we eat these days has been treated one way or another. We nevertheless felt uncomfortable being confronted with that reality so harshly and to constantly be on the lookout for tractors with trailers actively spraying where we walked or cycled, the smell of chemicals, next to that of maltreated animals and manure, a constant factor.

Not to get stuck in negative emotions, we were still willing to weigh Catalonia's downsides against its upsides when, at the end of the summer, the temperature in Catalonia dropped significantly—as it always does that time of year, we learned from our neighbors. Our stable, only just renovated into a home—we were its first human occupants—had some teething problems, which, together with our landlord, we solved one by one. When our landlord suddenly passed away, we had to deal with his Gen Z son. Yet another downside we were willing to weigh against the upsides, if it hadn’t been for the fact that also our floor heating struggled with teething problems. Neither Heidi nor I has two left hands, but computer-controlled floor heating is not up our alley, and our landlord's son failed to make good on his heating-related promises. Out of courtesy, we didn’t want to put pressure on him, so Heidi and I worked in our sleeping bags, watched television in our sleeping bags, and read our books in our sleeping bags. We were only warm when we walked with Moos or lay in bed.

Six months after our landlord's sudden departure, we put courtesy on the back burner. That rubbed our Gen Z friend the wrong way, and the moment the cold finally robbed me of my reason coincided with the moment I no longer felt like weighing the cons of Catalonia against its pros. To terminate the lease on our stable, I displayed some aggression—forbidden in Gen Z land but super effective—and shortly thereafter, Moos died. Saddened, we moved our belongings to a storage unit in the village of Roses.

Slowly, we drive out of Le Perthus, and I feel Heidi recovering. But I don't dare look at her yet, afraid we'll again burst into tears. Still, I know that in an hour—maybe two—we'll be okay once more. We’ve lost something precious to us, sure, but we know Moos lived a wonderful life, and we enjoyed the strange beast for almost thirteen years. Moos was the sweetest dog. She passed away peacefully, and ... tears blur my vision. No one hits harder than life. Rocky Balboa. Bugger!

This morning, we bade our stable goodbye, took a few last things to the storage unit in Roses, set course for the Netherlands—Heidi and I are Dutch—and now, we’re crossing into France. The mood in the car is still tense as we turn onto the péage. For an hour and a half, I keep up the speed. Then, I take the exit Béziers Ouest while Heidi fiddles with our TomTom. From Béziers, we decided yesterday, we’ll no longer take péages—toll roads—and ask the TomTom to guide us further north not only avoiding those péages but also avoiding highways. I quickly get the feeling the experiment is working out well.

The sky is blue, the sun is behind us, and the scenery only grows more attractive when I take a right on the D909 and drive in the direction of the village of Bédarieux. The mood in the car brightens, but mine then takes a dive when Heidi turns on the car radio and connects it to my iPod, which apparently, next to my 60s and 70s hits, contains the song My Silver Lining by a band called First Aid Kit—as I read on the radio’s display.

I hear a voice calling,

calling out for me …

These shackles I've made in an attempt to be free ...

Be it for reason, be it for love,

I won't take the easy road ...

The country road we’re driving on is a winding road, not one to be driven with tears blurring my vision. As if Heidi senses that, she turns off the radio. I recover, and eh… time heals all wounds, right?

Having passed through Bédarieux, we drive into the village of Lunas, and I regret we once promised ourselves never to live in France again. In the center of Lunas, our TomTom loses its sense of direction, and I take advantage by making the least logical choice at a fork in the road. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Heidi shaking her head, but we've been on the road for over three hours now, and it’s time for coffee. Crossing an old bridge, we leave Lunas behind, and after following a narrow road for a few kilometers, we come across an abandoned church. We stop, and not much later, we’re sitting with our backs against a church wall in a pleasantly serene setting, the spring sun on our faces.

I boil water on our gas stove and pour it over the rooibos in Heidi's Stanley thermos. Then, I boil water I pour over the coffee in the filter on the rim of my thermos. When Heidi grabs the stove, puts a small frying pan on it, and pours olive oil into the pan, I decide to tell her the story of my dog Toro. Sad story, but so ridiculous that I'm sure it’ll distract us from Moos, who keeps running around us.

“Toro was the pup I found when I was living in an army tent on a remote piece of land in Andalusia.”

“I know,” Heidi mumbles as she sprinkles herbs over the eggs and the pieces of green asparagus she’s meanwhile added to the olive oil in the frying pan. “And we've been to that land. Near Coín, right? Toro was hit by a car there?”

"Just wait. I never told you this story before. Salva, a bricklayer, helped me build whatever I wanted to build on my land, and a shooting range was one of the things we’d already built. Toro was a year old, maybe somewhat older, huge dog, when I wanted to sight in a scope at the range. After two shots, my rifle jammed. With Toro at my heels, I ran back to my tent. Salva, just then, was drinking coffee under an olive tree with the operator of an excavator he’d hired for a few days. The operator had asked Salva whether he’d heard shots too.

“‘Sure,’ Salva—ever a joker—had answered, and he added that someone was probably trespassing on my land.

“‘And Nikko shoots at trespassers?’ the operator had asked, somewhat alarmed, upon which Salva had shrugged his shoulders. That same afternoon, an acquaintance visiting me hit Toro with his car. I raced Toro to a veterinary clinic in the village of Alhaurín, and Toro ended up on the operating table. I was sent away and told I’d be called when Toro came out of anesthesia. Just before I reached my land, the vet called. Bad news: Toro had died. I didn't want to be on my land right then, so I drove on to Coín, where Joaquín, the local undertaker, tried to comfort me at the bar of Café La Reja. Joaquín had to be in Alhaurín the next day, and he promised to pick up Toro, so we could bury him on my land.

“The next day, Salva noticed me digging a hole next to my tent. He sent the operator with his excavator to help, and with three bites of that machine, a narrow trench, three meters long and two meters deep, was dug. That afternoon—the operator having gone home for lunch—a black hearse slowly drove onto my land, Joaquín in full regalia behind the wheel. Too late, I realized Joaquín was not only the local undertaker, he also liked a drink.

“Toro lay in the hearse in a mahogany coffin intended for an adult human being. Gold-colored handles adorned the coffin, a large gold-colored cross on the lid. Joaquín—slightly intoxicated—would not budge. I’d helped him out with something months earlier. By giving Toro a dignified funeral, he could do something for me y basta! Salva, who had been napping under an olive tree, helped us lower the coffin into the trench the excavator operator had dug. Joaquín drove off, Salva lay back down under his olive tree, and as I walked to my tent, I decided to hold my private service for Toro in peace and quiet that evening and shovel the trench closed then.

“When the excavator operator returned an hour later and wanted to continue with the job he’d been hired for, Salva asked him to fill in the trench he’d dug that morning. No peace or quiet that evening, and uh... quite some police and Guardia Civil officers involved in Toro's funeral ...”

Heidi chuckles and says, “But there was also something about Salva and Disneyland, no?”

"That's right! Salva was sturdy—not fat, but sturdy—but we nevertheless called him El gordo, the fat guy. He had never traveled outside the borders of Coín. His work was always good, so I booked a trip for him and his family to Disneyland in Paris. I’d never seen anyone as nervous as Salva, the weeks leading up to the trip, and a few days before the family would set out for Paris, I’d asked the travel agent to give Salva a call and ask him about the weight of his family members to get the seating arrangements on the plane right.

“‘Ay...’ the travel agent had exclaimed when Salva told him his own weight.

“A few days later, I took the family to Málaga airport, where someone who worked for Iberia—whom I knew and had called the night before—intercepted us, his official airport ID pinned to his jacket lapel. He explained there was a problem because no one on the passenger list could counterbalance Salva on the flight to Paris. Should Salva be allowed on the flight, the plane would tilt, which was dangerous. Salva’s wife and children could fly; Salva would be called if a passenger on a later flight could balance him out on the plane. I uh... I truly thought I’d die laughing that day."

Heidi shakes her head, and I know she has mixed feelings about the prank I once played on Salva, for she herself is too often the victim of my stupid pranks. But the mood has brightened once again, and things only turn south half an hour later, just past the town of Millau, when Heidi again turns on the radio and the music continues where it stopped earlier.

Something good comes with the bad

A song's never just sad

There's hope, there's a silver lining

Show me my silver lining

Show me my silver lining …

Yet again, the country road we’re driving on is a winding road, not one to be driven with tears blurring my vision. I turn off the radio although I suddenly accept there’s nothing wrong with us being sad today. Sure, Moos was the sweetest dog, but Catalonia lies behind us, adventure lies ahead, and in my head the song I just interrupted continues: “Be it for reason, be it for love, I won't take the easy road …”

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