Thirteen years in South Central Colorado have nurtured my creative spirit. Standing in this bowl of the San Luis Valley, looking out on the San Juans, the Collegiate Peaks, the Sangre de Cristos, and the New Mexico plateaus, such beauty inspires me daily.
I wander trails here with my dogs, who have taught me to be a better human. Hence my second memoir, Dog Love Stories––The Canines Who Changed Me. I heard the word animal comes from the Latin word for soul. By deepening our understanding of our animals, we deepen our understanding of ourselves.
In my first book, Being Mean, A Memoir of Sexual Abuse and Survival (2019), I share how, as an eight-year-old, I experienced love and safety with my first dog. That led to nine more dogs in my life.
One feisty Denver street dog, a prolific biter––picked out at the shelter by two of my high school students who knew my 14-year-old Lab was close to death––helped me become aware of my own reactive behaviors. We all became more resilient together: students, dog, and teacher. Twenty-five years of teaching in urban schools (English and French mostly) also did that for me. I was humbled by all my students taught me.
I composed my first dog love story at age 10, had a short story published at age 14, then lost all my confidence by high school after being shamed by an English teacher for not thinking fast enough to complete essay questions. After cheating my way through the remainder of that class, I found pleasure in the ease of reflection in letter writing and journaling. I composed and typed (on a typewriter!) a full manuscript about spending a month alone in my thirties, wrote a thesis on Professional Reflective Journaling in my forties, blogged through my fifties, finished my first memoir in my sixties, and my second in my seventies. Who’s in a hurry?
In Being Mean, written before #MeToo, I spoke out against the silence so often prevalent around child sexual abuse. I wrote Dog Love Stories (March 2025) to honor the human/animal relationship and the meaningful ways we companion one another. (Both published by She Writes Press).
Writing has helped me love, heal, and relate to others better. And, as Gloria Steinem once said, “Writing is the only thing I do where I don’t feel like I should be doing something else.”
www.patriciaeagle.com