Ruby, Wetherby, and the Small Town Weight

I came back to Ruby with hope, as I always do. She is seven now — a wriggle monster, bounding joy, a creature of dens and quiet contentment. Lola, born in early May 2015, is just past her tenth year. Her paw, her breathing, her seventh year heavy with love behind her — all of it reminds me that her time is finite. I’ve given her everything, and one day I’ll have to learn to give some of that to myself.

My mother remains a shadow in the story — her world narrowed to the television, her words barbed, her praise absent. I meet her needs, but the cost is silence and cuts that leave their mark.

And then there is Wetherby. Polished, small, soulless. I walk its streets with Ruby and remember: this town is too little for me. It folds in on itself while I’ve known wide horizons — rivers at dawn, pilgrim roads, markets where even strangers feel warmer. Here I find Andy’s chatter, Ian’s aggression, people clutching their dogs away as if joy were dangerous. No, Wetherby is not a pleasure; it’s the reminder of how a place can starve the soul.

The DWP wrote, offering help. I braced for threat, but the reply was softer than expected: voluntary, no pressure, no change to what I receive. I will leave that door closed until after pilgrimage. My path cannot be forced into their neat boxes.

The Course in Miracles runs alongside all this. God’s healing Voice protects all things today. I test that idea against the noise of the A1M, the criticisms of my mother, the blankness of the town. I find it, faint but steady, in Ruby’s presence, in Lola’s sleep, in the river, in the sky.

This week has been tidal — Sunday still and meditative, Monday frantic, Tuesday a quieter practice, Wednesday and Thursday autumnal and unsettled. Yet through it all, I see the pattern: the dogs hold me, the town drains me, and the Voice reminds me that even here, I am not unprotected.