Great Big Morning

Duncan and I took an early stroll this morning on the tight little slope between the building and the golf course. The sky was bright and clear and the tall grass on the other side of the fence bent low in our direction as though reaching out to tickle or caress us as we passed. It was a perfect morning and Dunc ambled along beside me, his head low at the edge of the shrubs but occasionally turned skyward to take big galumping breaths of the blue, to catch the sun on the tip of his nose, to smile into the warm breeze.


This morning was a perfect morning, the kind of morning I wish I had been born on and the kind I can only hope to be fortunate enough to die on. The cottonwoods are snowing and each walk seems like moving through memory as the cotton wafts down on us, catching the sunlight dappling on the leaves and branches, catching our eyes and on our cheeks. Great drifts of the stuff line the flower beds and Duncan, deprived of snow as he was for most of the winter, has taken to snorting his way through them, exhaling loudly and raising clouds of fluff around his handsome head which he can chase contentedly after.


The Russian Olives are in bloom and their scent is breaking my heart even as it heals it. Two smalls trees grow directly behind my building and when I leave my windows open in the afternoon I return home to the most delicious and sweet smelling rooms I've lived in. Duncan and the cats perch in the windows all day, looking down on the squirrels and the falling cotton, breathing in the precious scent of my favorite tree, the scent I live all year to savor. The moment the yellow flowers appear in early June I feel my spirits lighten and know that the memory is enough to get me through another year.

We made our way down to The Glen where I sat on grass that was only faintly moist with the morning's dew, as faint as dreams that follow us a few steps back into the waking world. I laid back on it and watched the blue sky, bigger than I could put imaginary arms around, move through the tops of the Aspen trees far overhead, felt Duncan plop down beside me and roll onto his back, his feet sticking up into the air like bent twigs. He pressed his nose against my temple, snorted and thumped his tail against my hip as he twisted this way and that, capturing as much of the morning and the light as he could.

God, this morning was big and made my heart soar alongside that of my good red dog. This is what sweet, smelling, bright heaven must be like, with a million dogs running the fields, their companions smiling and following lazily after.

"To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace. (Milan Kundera)"