Pigs and Mud

Andy is a pig who always has a smile on his face. That’s what I say when I introduce him to people, but it’s not true. He doesn’t smile when he’s sleeping or not usually and he doesn’t smile during feeding time when he’s locked into the Weight Watchers room, which is actually the gated area outside the iso pen.

Judy and Patsy eat there too because all three of them are on diets. None of them likes it. Sophie says they’re on the Jenny Craig plan, which means one bowl of food for each, although Andy goes to every bowl first to make sure he doesn’t miss anything. He is big and he is a bully at feeding time even to Patsy and Judy who are bullies themselves pretty much all of the time, knowing how to throw their weight around, which is considerable. I saw in the pig chart in the med center that they now are estimated to weight more than Stubby who has always been our biggest pig—which is how I introduce him to people but that’s got to change unless our Jenny Craig plan works for Patsy and Judy. They may be losing some weight, but it’s hard to tell with those girls. They are pink like Andy and troublemakers, which means they are always curious as to anything that’s going on, always peeved if the goings-on include someone other than themselves getting something good. 

Andy isn’t a troublemaker unless he wants to lie down in a spot that already contains another pig who is comfortable and snoozing. No matter. Andy wants what he wants and he usually gets it. I give him the occasional massage and he yawns and stretches out, demonstrating what perfect letting go looks like.

Andy is part earth usually anyway, with mud encrusted in thick dry riverbeds down his sides. He lays in mud puddles, becoming half pig, half emissary from the realms of earth and mud deep under the surface, in the place where the earth exists just for itself.

Oliver and a mud puddle

That’s the world Andy reaches into with his belly and his hooves and his snout, asleep, almost submerged. He brings word from the world pigs reach, word of what is beyond our feet on the ground, he brings word from the roots. And something in our blood awakens to listen, even if the story is told just in the sound of his breathing as we sit next to him, as the dried mud on his sides turns to dust and swirls up to the rays of sun streaming through the windows of the pig barn.