shadow me and shadow lu in the shadow arcade. i'm still feeling my heart sink and fear flush through my cells hours later. on the other side, on the way back, lulu spooked and shrugged out of her new harness, ran across one street, two streets, and onto the midway. i had to wait for traffic to pass while praying to the universe to keep her alive. i saw her stopped on the grass between the trees watching for me. for the next while she ran lightning circles around the green and around me. i sat on a bench and waited. i lay on my back and looked at the clouds. she was playing like she does in the apartment. the game of keep-away. finally, exhausted, i grabbed her when she got near and wrestled her back into the harness, looped the leash around her body again to double secure it, and hurried home. she was sure enough checking in with me then, without treats. she knew how upset and afraid i was, and she was probably flooded with some of the same stuff as me, though she was having a wild blast for a time. funny that last post i was telling the cats maybe i'm just not a trainer. after this i thought, she could have died, i can't bear this, i have to admit, i'm defeated. 
it may be that lulu will settle down, that she'll be sane and cooperative, that she won't lunge and pull at other beings dog and human, and won't spook at trains and ghosts and shadows, but right now i don't know, how long will that be, if it will be? i feel like she may just be too much for this walker. i've been recalling the time mister ran, after a coyote on wooded island, and it was so different. i felt love and gratitude and elation, when i saw him coming back across the frozen lagoon. it was a moment of knowing that we were connected, that i was glad he came back, and he was he, and he was glad i was there, and i was me, waiting. 
today earlier i was feeling the gravity of always trying to avoid the stressors, the noises, the kids, the machines, all the environmental triggers of lulu. but this is worse than all the avoidance and the struggles with lulu. the calm, the positive-reinforcement, the training, the connection, seemed in a heartbeat, broken. this is the worst day because it flashes again before my eyes: lulu could have died. but we live, and still the matter remains, how do we live, together or apart.