Pathological Modesty, part III

I volunteered at three different animal shelters during the years I was living in Cambridge. First I was at the MSPCA (in Jamaica Plain), then at the Northeast Animal Shelter (up in Salem), and then at the Animal Rescue League of Boston (in the South End). Each stint lasted about a year, I think; I didn’t keep records but I know that in each place I was there through various seasons, walking dogs in hot humidity and also in snow.

I’d go in once a week, always for the first shift in the morning at about 7 am, and I would usually stay for two or three hours, depending on how many dogs were in house each week. In addition to sometimes giving dogs their first walk and play of the day, I’d clean their personal areas (roomy cages) and sometimes feed them (at one place the staff did the food prep and feeding) and then maybe do some laundry and dish-washing and other tasks.

My favorite thing to do was to clean the cages. It was very satisfying and made me feel like I had really gotten in there and done useful, necessary work whose results I could see with my own eyes. Sometimes dog runs were really gnarly and trashed when I first arrived, like there had been a wild rager the night before; lots of poo and urine, and sometimes trashed bedding and toys strewn around, ripped, torn, un-stuffed, destroyed. (But some runs were remarkably tidy, dogs curled up comfortably on clean, neat beds.) Keep in mind that some of these dogs and puppies had not been house-trained nor socialized and some had never before been kept confined in any capacity.

Sometimes someone else—volunteer or staff—would go walk a dog while I cleaned that particular dog’s run and the timing usually worked out so that just as I was finishing, the dog was coming back—to his newly fresh, gleaming space. To get it that way, I had a system: first I’d pick up whatever feces, if there was (were?) any, and then I’d gather the bedding and toys (I usually wore plastic gloves). Whatever was too gross, I was allowed/advised to throw in the garbage but urine on sheets or blankets—if there wasn’t too much of it—could be washed in the washing. Same with intact toys (fabric ones in the clothes washer, plastic ones in the dishwasher with dog and cat bowls).

Once everything was cleared out of the run I would take the big industrial hose connected to the indoor system and I’d hose the whole cage down with soapy water; sometimes the walls and the cage door, too, if they needed it, and then I’d scrub it all down with a long-handled thick scrub brush. Then came the clean water hose-down, and finally the squeegeeing of all the water into the drain in the tile floor. Some workers/volunteers would put new bedding in at this point but I liked to first take a towel and dry everything thoroughly first, and then, when there were no remaining damp spots on the tile, I’d put new toys, sheets, blankets—there were whole rooms full of donated and laundered things for these purposes—and perhaps a bed. Then, when the dog would come back from his walk, he would be all clean and comfy in his safe place.

When I told people that I did this volunteering, often they’d say, “Oh, I couldn’t do that; I’d be too sad! Isn’t it sad to be around all those neglected doggies?” But in my experience it was the opposite of sad because I saw the high turnover rate of the animals; every week I’d come in to see that dogs from last week had been adopted out, on their way to happiness and loving care and belonging. Yes, some of them broke my heart when they first came in, so scared, confused and sometimes hurt/unwell/traumatized, but then there were also adorable, floppy bundles of innocent puppy joy!

Around the time I was at the Northeast Animal Shelter I was working on a crowd-funded album and part of this process involved my pledging to give a percentage of whatever money that came in from my fans to a charity of my choice and I decided on the shelter in Salem. I knew what good they did and how much the donation money would mean in a practical, day-to-day operations sense. When the album was finished and all my album-making money collected, I wrote a check for a few thousand dollars to the shelter. I sent the check, satisfied and so glad that I-- because of the generosity of my people-- could contribute.

By this time I had taken leave from my volunteering gig because my album was ready to be released and I had to go on tour (my other gig) and so at that point I had no more face-to-face contact with anyone at the shelter but I was soon contacted by someone in the director’s office. She first thanked me for the generous donation and then she asked me if I would like to have—she offered me-- a plaque with my name on it put up in the adoption area above one of the dog runs. (I’d be publicly known as a sponsor of one designated space.) This startled me; it was unexpected, and a little distressing, as it seemed to suggest to my hyper-sensitive and never-quiet mind that there was an assumption that I wanted something in return for the money, which I absolutely did not. I did appreciate the thank-you and the thank-you would have been plenty.

I suspected now that the name-plaque thing was done for bigger donors as a matter of course; when a certain amount had been given, a process kicked in which enabled the donor’s nameplate to be created and erected above a dog run to commemorate the gift, so that people--random drop-ins; the mutt-curious; eager dog-wanters—walking through the available dogs area would be made aware of donors’ names in order to connect them to philanthropical generosity as well as to the idea of giving to this particular organization.

I have no idea if my name meant anything to anyone working at the shelter other than just another volunteer’s name; if they connected Juliana Hatfield the volunteer to Juliana Hatfield the alterna-waif pop-star manqué. (This is one of the benefits of being a—umm—cult artist; I can go through life largely invisible to-- and unbothered by—most people.)

“Oh,” I said, startled. “No, no thanks, you really don’t need to do that,” as I thought, “God, no! Please no, definitely don’t put my name up out in the open, for all to see.”

With my name up on (permanent?) display calling me out as a donor (“this space brought to you by JULIANA HATFIELD” or however flagrantly or not it was worded), how could I ever again go back, as either a visitor or as a worker, a cage-cleaner? The balance of everything would be off. Volunteers are meant to be nondescript, humble, silently doing their unrenumerated, unremarked-upon tasks, for their own private reasons. They don’t have last names.

Also, if I ever went back, now, even if I actively avoided looking at my name, I would feel its presence burning hot into my consciousness, and be forced to confront all the failure and disappointment and stupidity and mortification and lost opportunity and irreparable emotional damage the name represented (to me [and probably to others]).

Like I said, the personal thank-you was nice, very nice, but I wanted no other acknowledgement (except from the IRS, at tax time, when I could deduct the donation). All I wanted was to aid the shelter so that it could keep on doing what it did, which was good, necessary work helping animals who needed help. Knowing that I was part of this mission was honestly the only reward I needed. That was why I volunteered with my body and got up early and drove in the dawn dark up to Salem once a week to get my hands in the gunk and fur.

I didn’t even really deserve the thanks for the check. It was my generous supporters—a portion of their money, given to me; I’d paid it forward, with their collective blessing. (They knew from the start of the project that part of all the money that came in to fund the making of my new album would be going to this animal shelter.)

There’s something unsettling about a big donor’s name up in, or on, a place--a hospital wing, a museum annex, other non-profits. It is the class divide on display, in stark relief. It’s not enough that the really well-off people get to have the money and the power; they need it to be known by everyone (unless, of course, they are anonymous donors).

There is a Sackler Museum (art) at Harvard. The Sackler name is built in to the front of the building. It is part of the structure. Regardless of whether or not the earlier generations of reportedly benign philanthropists in the family were benign, today the name Sackler has ugly and even evil connotations--they’re the ones who deliberately worked to get a nation and a world of people and doctors and a medical-pharmaceutical establishment hooked on opioids, in a wildly successful scheme to build on their already-established empire of power and wealth.

There was a local campaign to have the Sackler name removed from the building (as well as from another building on campus) but the name—and its tainted legacy—remains.

A name up on a building wants to be seen, recognized, known. I know I am a very flawed character and what I want is for people to just listen to the music and ignore its messenger.

I realize this is a contradiction. Part of my career (such as it is) outside of writing and recording has been doing my promotional duties: putting myself in front of audiences and performing the music, making videos, being photographed/sharing those photos, doing interviews. But I do it all in service of the perpetuation of the music.

If I ever do anything truly heroic, someone can commemorate the moment, preferably in some out-of-the-way place. Maybe it could be a cairn, or a carving of my name--or better yet, just my initials--in a tree in an obscure wood.