The Real Jolene of Fiction

31 December 2025

It’s taken me the better part of two years, and it has been a better part, to be able to place Jolene du Près as a fully-fleshed hound in Pets, Real and Fictional.

The deficiency lay not in this sweet, loving, adorable beagle, but in myself.

She’s worked hard, very hard, to fit into my Pantheon of Pets since first she entered my real world in early September 2023.  She was in my dream-world before then, but the wise among us know how hard it can be to reconcile Dream with Reality.

At the age of two-and-a-half years, Jolene has developed a precious sense of self that knows precisely what she deserves, and she refuses to settle for less.  I’m not about to mess with that strong and positive identity!

She tries so earnestly to be my helper, my matey in this Human Life that she must still find odd at times.  Well, I find it odd at times, too.

Here I am, at 5:45 in the morning in the Living Room, seated on the comfy couch, with my Jolene curled up beside me.  It’s still dark outside, and the rains are making a return for another week . . . maybe more!

I had a dream the other night that it snowed, and that dream might come true.  I’m willing to wait for that dream to come true.

I’m willing for wait for many dreams to come true.  Jolene did, for me, during July 2023.  I found myself able to bid adieu to my Chancey Boy, and to put into perspective our years together, here, on earth, from October 2016 until May 2023.

Those seven years went by in the blink of an eye.  Time does fly when you’re happy, in love, reaching toward that lofty and noble goal that is your heart’s desire.

Jolene is a heart’s desire, not just of my heart, but of just about any heart she meets.  It’s a gift, a real gift, that innate ability to pull so tenderly and enduringly at the heart-strings.

Sometime around 2 a.m. this morning, Jolene went outside for her brief nocturnal call to nature.  She didn’t return upstairs to the Master Bed, as is sometimes her wont.  She’ll jump on the couch in the Living Room (also known as the Viewing Room for the wide-screen).  This dark, cold, damp post-midnight hour, she claimed her space on the couch as Independent Dog.

“Doesn’t she think I need her?” I jokingly asked Dear Husband.

Evidently not.

I’d been awakened by My Muse to come up with character details for the Next Western.

My Jolene knows when I need her, and when I don’t.

What more can you ask from a pet?

It’s almost too much to ask from a friend, or a loved one. And, yet, your canine companion, if you’ve given yourself fully to her in love and devotion, deciphers that need extremely well.

I’ve been hard at work this past week, from Christmas Eve Day right up until this pre-dawn, re-formulating my next Western.  The Delete Key got a ginormous workout!

I’d initially conceptualized the Chance Westerns, two of them, during the week of 22-28 October 2023.  Jolene must have been hard at work, already, helping me to move into the future.

Moving into the future ought not be a laborious task.  The word, “ought”, though, is a dicey term.  So much of what “ought” to be, is not, but we need to hold onto those ideals.  I say hold onto them, but don’t let them strangle you, or blind you to the beauty of an imperfect world.  Do not became a slave to your ideals, or a vicious miser, never sharing an inkling of what they are, or what they mean to you.

It’s bizarre how a certain type of disappointed idealist destroys the very concept of The Ideal, and becomes the Enemy of The Real.  The sly cynic clings to his idolized ideal, as if he, and he alone, invented the exalted archetype.  He self-righteously clings to The Ideal for dear life, sucking the air — life’s breath — out of any chance of actually actualizing it!

The pompous perfectionist vastly prefers to blame her failure on the goal having been too high for any human to attain.  The road to Nirvana got blocked and destroyed by Others.  Why, there’s no reason to look in the mirror and see the Real Problem, the real reason why flops and fiascos overtake each half-hearted attempt to face reality!

It is possible to look back so much that the present whizzes by you.  There’s not an earthly of a chance to venture forth and make a stab at making the future concretely materialize.

I’m calling the Back-Story of this next Western “the Forward-Story” because I truly have stopped looking back for creative impetus to move me onward, ever onward!

I’ve turned a page, to open a new book, to open many new books.  Yes, indeedy, I’ve crossed the Rubicon in terms of creating, crafting, and composing fiction.  Jolene du Près has been the inspiration, among many, for this dynamic direction in my artistic life, and in my personal one.  She’s a delightful inspiration, and has thereby earned her place in Pets, Real and Fictional, whatever that perch might be.

Jolene du Près, Legend of the West, is the mistress of her own fictional fate!

As for me, an afternoon nap shall become real!