Farewell Hello Home

And then suddenly, after seven years on the property we've called home, five of them in our cozy, one-bedroom apartment, it was time to go for one last walk down the thirty-seven stairs, out onto the sidewalk, painted bright under the morning sun, stroll down The Run for one last meeting with Jeffrey, his cats, and the squirrels which gather at his patio for their morning meal, across Bowles to the park where we could run and throw a good, bright and new tennis ball, and enjoy the memories of all the mornings, evenings, and afternoons we'd done this very thing, while looking to the future, the new people, the new friends we'd make, the new paths we'd amble, and the new apartment we'd call home.

Dunc was all smiles, oblivious to the adventures that awaited us. I took him off leash at the park and let him run and run and run some more, until he was panting and content to roll onto his back and show the blue sky his pink belly. And when it was time to head home, we walked down past our first apartment, ran into Scott and his Golden, Zeus, who gladly ate the treats I offered, and told them we were moving. Duncan glowed red and gold against the newly greening grass and the birds--returned from wherever--sang us a spring song.

And then, hours later, when everything had been lifted and carried and moved from one place to another, when our bones were sore and our muscles tired, we assembled my bed and climbed in, cuddling up against one another, Dunc spooning me, one paw thrown over my shoulder as he snored. 

Our new home is truly new; we are the first to live here. It will be awhile before everything finds the places it needs to go, until the boxes are emptied and carted down to the recycle bin. But that's okay, because we have each other. And the path looms ahead.

A Changed Heart, a Necessary Sadness

It is no secret that I prefer Spring and Summer over Autumn and Winter. As the season warms and the world greens, I have always felt my spirit change––a thrumming in my blood and bones and a calming to my ever-racing thoughts––as the leaves unfurl on the trees and the blossoms emerge from their brown, bark cocoons, their sweet fragrance wafting across the fields and into my open windows. And then in the fall, when the world turns orange and red, and a perpetual sunset seems to hover over us, a necessary sadness overtakes me with the realization that the birds have fallen silent and the tufts of dandelion and cottonwood snow are an eternity away.

This year I have kept my eye on a single maple leaf that hangs directly in our path when we walk down The Run. Sometime in June a six-legged critter, possibly one of the fat green caterpillars that I marvel at, paused on its journey and snacked a heart-shaped hole into its perfect surface. That shape became a symbol of the joy that overtakes me each Spring, of the love I feel for the season. I have watched it daily, reached with my hand to gently push it out of my way and peer through the heart at the blue sky and green cottonwoods on the other side. I have fallen in love with that lone leaf and have watched for it each and every time Duncan and I have ventured outside on our walks.

This past week, when the weather turned consistently cold and the wind found its bite, I have watched it yellow and then turn orange. This morning I discovered that most of its sibling leaves had been pulled free of their mooring and lay scattered on the ground at our feet. While Duncan peered in Jeffrey's window for a sign of the cats he loves to play with, I rushed forward to check on my leaf with its heart-shaped hole. My stomach dropped, my mind raced. I should have plucked it free and taken it home to keep with me always as a reminder of these days and these walks Dunc and I have shared. When I finally found it, I ran my thumb across its surface and watched it flutter in the wind, its skin, once thick and juicy, now brittle and dry as an old woman's foot. I wanted to pull it loose but then changed my mind and decided to let it be, to allow the wind to carry it at the time of its choosing, at the moment it was destined to fall, flying briefly, rejoicing in a sudden and exhilarating freedom before the hand of gravity pulled it to its final resting spot. Such a simple decision, and one most people would regard as unnecessary, but it took all my will power to let it go, to look back one more time not knowing if I would see it again. And while Duncan ran blissfully across the park, rolling his face against the stiff, frosted grass, my mind kept wandering back to the maple, back to its fate, and that necessary sadness claimed me once again.

There is a fierce wind out tonight, loud and cold and tireless. The branches are beating against each other like old enemies and while Duncan lays curled up at my feet, his chin resting so gently against and warming the top of my foot, my thoughts are out there in the dark, worrying for my heart, wondering if it will still be there in the morning.




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The Rains

The rains brought a wet and soft kind of silence, a faint rhythmic thrum––on the leaves, dripping down the rough bark of the maples, mingling like familiars among the bowing blades of grass––a silence felt rather than heard. The mornings were sweet for Duncan and me, with a sprinkling so fine it could hardly even be called a mist. The drops were motes: silky, invisible, and delightful on my cheeks and throat, gathering as they did, like sunshine along the line of Duncan's back, extending from the tip of his nose, gathering together sweetly on his eyelashes, parading all the way down to his golden strands at the end of his tail.

It has been a long time since we have walked in such silence. The air had turned cool––nearly cold––and all those people in all those home around us were doing what I had done when the drowning heat of the week before had finally passed: they flung open their windows and turned off their air conditioners and allowed the first fresh air to mingle among their things and themselves. The Run seemed almost empty without the constant whir of machines, the lurching clap clap clap of motors coming suddenly to life. The only sound was the dreamlike drizzle off the trees and the soft squish of our feet in the soft earth. We walked slowly, without purpose or hurried pace, afraid to stir the silence even slightly for fear that the morning would shatter, which it eventually did, but by no fault of our own.

For many these rains were anything but peaceful. Homes have been lost, as have lives, and it will be a very long time before things return to the way were only a week ago, but for Duncan and me, in our little corner of the world, in their own way they were wondrous, not for their cacophony but for their serenity. That seems almost unfair to admit, but not to marvel at them would be a lie, and to ignore even the smallest drops would be a crime.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: A New Friend

Recently some neighbors of ours lost their black lab Clancy to cancer. Clancy was a good dog, strong and muscly, a bit more vocal, perhaps, than his neighbors would have liked, but good nonetheless. He fought a good fight and left his family having touched their lives deeply.

Recently they were able to invite a new dog into their home, a stocky little yellow lab named Bentley, who loves the grass and Duncan, my pocket full of treats, and showing us his pale pink belly. Dunc, who normally doesn't pay much attention to other dogs, is quite taken with this new pup and both consented to getting their picture taken together.

 Roo made a goofy face for the first one, startling Bentley, but agreed to pose politely for the second.

Our walks down The Run just got better!

Monsoon Season

It has not been an easy couple of weeks, for Duncan or for me, and I now understand more than ever why he prefers Winter to Summer.

In addition to the Independence Day holiday, which dragged on for five miserable days, the monsoon season has returned to the Front Range in full force. When Ken and I first moved here we scoffed at the idea of a "monsoon season" but summer soon proved to be a far wetter season than we anticipated. Each day dawned bright and clear, sweet-smelling and warm, with fat drops of dew bending each and every blade of grass, but by mid-afternoon the skies in the north would turn treacherously dark and ominous and bleed southward, and the thunder would echo off the mountains, reverberating across the plains. Soon the wind would pick up and the tornado watches and warnings would start, and we'd find ourselves in a torrential downpour that rivaled the storms we'd experienced in the green Shire-like Midwest. It was a blessing because the clouds shielded us from the brightest sun of the day and by evening, at dinner time, the birds would resume their flutterings and the mourning doves would reclaim their lookout on the eves, lowing softly as the sky swept clear and the cool of a perfect evening returned.

It has been several years since the monsoon season has been as severe as this year. I used to look forward to afternoon storms but in the past couple of years Duncan's anxiety at loud noises has increased and I find myself tending to and reassuring him more than anything else. The Fourth was loud and explosive and sent him running to the bathroom to seek shelter in the tub. The following four days traumatized him with the remainder of the bottle rockets and firecrackers and then the nightly storms. It has been so terrible that he's refused to go out at all. Where he used to jump and dance and chirp at the mention of the word "walk" he now cowers under the table, and when I do manage to get his leash on him he refuses to walk, except in the mornings, when the world is at its most quiet. Walking down The Run has turned into a frustrating exercise as he continuously attempts to seek shelter in each of the breezeways of the buildings we pass and the things that used to bring him great pleasure, like chasing Ziggy and the squirrels, visiting with Jeffrey, dancing below Soldier's patio, are now ignored in favor of staying right by my side, startling and stopping at the sound of a golf ball being hit on the course behind us. He is miserable and it's all I can do to keep him calm. His Thundershirt and CS Drops, which I also take for my own anxiety, help, but he is not himself and I am beginning to miss him terribly.

So I lay with him under the coffee table, my head resting on his belly, one paw cradled in my hand, and whisper to him, stroke his ear, slip him treats and tell him how brave he's being, how safe he is. And together we wait for the storms to pass, for the mourning doves to resume their tranquil song.

A Scourge of Seeds

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
     but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."  

(Mary Oliver)

 

There are few things more wondrous than a tree in Springtime, when it seems to move without moving, to grow and change in the span of an eye-blink. They are living statues, rejoicing so obviously under the tender ministrations and delicate kisses of the new sun. They speak a language only understood by the birds and flowers and insects, and yet one needs only gaze upon them and listen for a few moments to learn the melody they sing so surely with their silent voices. While Duncan tends to walk with his nose and eyes to the ground, my gaze is pointed up, at the dancing tendrils of the willows, at the slowly blooming Russian Olives, at the Linden outside my window that will transform entirely my apartment in a few short weeks. I am in awe of the trees––all trees!––even the scourge of Narrow Leaf Cottonwoods that plague my small corner of the world.

I do not hate them. These cottonwoods, different than the more common Eastern Cottonwood that most people easily recognize, are wonders of Summer, reflecting the light in a way that freckles the world in gold and shade and dancing green shadows, cooling The Run on our afternoon walks. They are never still, even when the air is, and the sound of their leaves brushing against each other are as sweet as the soft twinkling of the chimes that grace my patio. They don't grow as tall as their eastern cousin, and their cotton is fine and beautiful and something I marvel at and don't mind at all. In Autumn they are magnificent, their voices loud, their presence soothing as the leaves turn pale yellow and then fall away where they can dance wild and run in the wind. They are the sentinels of winter, standing guard over the park and The Glen, their pale, rough bark catching the snow and holding it close like a drapery of loose gauze. It is only in Spring that they are a challenge.

It's their seeds I loathe. They are everywhere, impossible to avoid: lurking among the tall grass, polluting the sidewalks as thickly as the spattering of goose-droppings we dodge in winter. They are thorough in their infection of both The Glen and the park. Long and yellow, the seeds are covered in a thick and sickeningly sweet resin that catch the hair of Duncan's feet and collect into a sticky clot under his soft pads. Dunc spends much of our walks laying down to nibble at his feet, pulling on them, tearing the fur from his feet and then sputtering to spit them away before they catch in his whiskers and collect along his muzzle. And once he's done, his belly is covered in the things, which, if left untended, turn into twisted mats that need to be cut away. They are miserable, contagious things and I look forward to the day they have dried up and been carried away by the wind.

They are a nuisance, but only temporarily. In a few weeks they will be gone and the trees where they originated will be more glorious than before. Until that day, though, when they snow magic and bring a warm winter, Duncan and I will tread carefully and await the return of our Lindens and glorious-scented Russian Olives.

Earth

It has been a lovely, fling-the-doors-and-windows-open kind of day and Duncan and I have spent much of it out in the world, walking the park, chasing squirrels down The Run, even strolling to the mail room and back, a chore I tend to put off as long as possible. And while I walked I did exactly the sort of thing I'm not supposed to do, which is to forget the walk itself and focus, instead, on what I think I'm supposed to do.

As you may recall, I've joined my friend Sue in an April Photo-of-the-Day challenge. Each day we're given a theme and we're supposed to find something to photograph that describes that word or phrase in some manner. I've primarily used it as a tool to help me blog, which I've struggled to do on a regular basis for quite some time. The only problem is that my blog is about not having an agenda; it's about moving out into the world without a goal, without a destination, and allowing myself to be led wherever my feet and Duncan take me. Quite often that theme has nothing to do whatsoever with where we wind up or what Dunc wants to do so I find myself not enjoying our walks, not paying attention to the world but instead looking for what I want the world to be.

And that can have disastrous consequences.

Today's theme was "earth," a rather vague and annoying theme if I say so myself. But, I made a promise to myself to complete the challenge and so Duncan and I marched out, he with his nose to the ground, his ears high to catch every note of the birdsong drifting down from the cottonwoods and maples, me with my eyes focused solely on every patch of dirt, every rock that might be the slightest bit photogenic, anything that I could focus my camera on. The more we walked, the less I actually saw, and the more desperate I became. Duncan, who waits patiently––most of the time––seemed a bit annoyed at my sluggish pace and my inability to just walk, to enjoy the day for what it was and not what I thought it should be. But I, as usual, forgot my lessons, and focused on all the wrong things.

Finally, down in The Glen, I spotted a nice patch of earth, dark and gold in the sun, at the base of a pine, the mottled trunk rising up in a suitably interesting manner. While I stepped in close, knelt down beneath it and examined it from all angles, Duncan would have nothing to do with it. He kept a safe distance, hunkered down on the hillside and watched me, sighing loudly as he is wont to do. Finally I located the patch I wanted to photograph and hardly noticed the tickles running up and down my legs and arms while I snapped picture after picture. It wasn't until the tickles began to itch, and then to burn, that I bothered to notice I'd stepped right into a nest of ants, which were busy acclimating themselves to the contours of my body.

I leapt up and began shaking them off, swinging my legs back and forth, rubbing them vigorously, sweeping off my arms and neck, shaking out my shirt and shorts. I danced a mad dance, sliding down the hill, losing my balance and falling on my belly where I had the good sense to roll in the grass. Duncan normally would have taken this as a signal to play but he merely sat and watched while I made an ass of myself in front of a woman and her Pomeranian who stood in her window, jaws agape, eyebrows cocked in confusion.

Enjoy the photo and know that I suffered for my art.

To the amusement of my dog.

His Tender Heart

I cannot count the reasons I love my dog; they are far too numerous. But on mornings like this morning, when the sky was still clear, the sun golden, and the air still warm, before it turned grey and cold and began to snow, Duncan reminded me that it his gentle spirit and enormous heart that I treasure most of all.

The bunny was waiting for him in the middle of The Run, a small grey shape that I mistook for a stone until he laid down almost on top of it, cupped it between his paws and began to lick it. The bunny, eyes wide and alert, its ears pushed back nearly flat against its back, didn't move, didn't even flinch, but stayed where it was and seemed to relax under Duncan's tender care. It closed its eyes briefly, even seemed to push back against him while he tended to it. It was only when I realized what it was, that it was not a rock kicked into our path by some kid but a baby rabbit, that Duncan rose to his feet and stood protectively over it, nudging it once or twice with his nose before resuming his ministrations.

I could only stand and watch. Several times he laid back down over it, spread his paws around it like a cup of warm tea, and licked it, oblivious to my presence. I stood there a long time, a mute witness to the scene, my heart bursting with pride and love. He tended to it carefully, his tail churning happily in the grass behind him, a soft whine occasionally rising up from his chest.

After a very long time we had to go. Duncan had business to tend to and I had to get to work. I was finally able to coax him away with soft words and the promise of treats. I planned on picking the bunny up and placing it in the shrubs off the path but Duncan stood protectively over it.

It took several minutes before he's let me reach down and pick it up. At the feel of my hands around it, it tensed and seemed ready to spring, but Dunc whined and danced in front of me, staying within the bunny's line of sight. I felt it relax and once I placed it deep into the shadows among the brambles, Duncan nosed in and checked to make sure I hadn't hurt it. It hopped further into the bushes and hunkered down near a flat stone. I stepped away while Duncan stayed behind, turning to look first at me and then back at his charge. He was torn, but after several whistles he hurried to catch up to me. He trotted along side me, dancing as we walked, his eyes wide, his ears high, his tail flapping like a flag above him. "Good boy," I said. "You did well." I patted his head and slipped him a treat, which he greedily gulped down. But almost as soon as he swallowed he glanced back over his shoulder and then darted back down The Run to the spot where we'd left the bunny. And there he stood for a long time, content to stay where he was, heedless of my schedule.

I had no choice but to follow, to kneel down in the grass and sit with him long after I should have fed him his breakfast, climbed into the car and driven away. Moments like these are far too few, and some of the most precious we have shared and I didn't mind being late one bit.

My dog is magical. I know it's true.

Alone

"Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder

in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf." (Albert Schweitzer)

It snowed today, one of our frustrating but predictable April snows, big and fluffy. It will continue to snow, off and on, for the next three days, and then hopefully we'll be able to put winter behind us and get on with the business of Spring, my favorite season. Last year at this time the trees were in full bloom, pink and white, and the air was filled with sweet fragrance, but this year the trees are hardly budding.

This afternoon, after leaving work early in a futile attempt to beat the traffic, Duncan led me down The Run to play in The Glen. Halfway down, beneath the maple that rises up near the balcony which used to belong to my friend Brady until he moved two weeks ago, a single leaf had come to rest on the surface of the snow, somehow still golden and crisp, its edges sharp and as new-seeming as if it were October instead of April. Duncan galloped right past it but I paused and reflected on the long winter days and nights, the bitter wind of the past few days, and the strength of that lone leaf as it clung to the tree it had known as home for so long. Why it chose today to fall instead of holding on a little longer, until a new family unfurled around it and protected it from the elements I'll never know. Perhaps it wanted only to fly and spin, just once, among the thick flakes which drifted from above, to realize the wonder that had perplexed it in the long, lonely months it has been alone.

Dreamy

After three walks through the park, three trips down The Run for a game of fetch in The Glen, and a big dinner, Dunc was more than happy to curl up against me on the couch and snooze. It took many years to learn that it's best to let sleeping dogs lie, and required all my strength not to reach down and scritch his ears while he was snoring; and, oh, how carefully I had to move to take a picture but I managed.

He's beautiful when he sleeps, beautiful when he dreams, and I am the most fortunate boy in the world that he's able to do them with me.

Starts with "A"

Duncan has no qualms. He is an unabashed window peeper. Each time we venture down The Run Dunc prefers to gallop through the bushes and trees that grow along the edges of the apartments, stopping more often than I care to admit, to stare straight into the homes and lives of the people who reside within. It happens even when we're walking on-leash. He'll pause to peek through the blinds at another dog, or a cat who's perched on the sill, or even just to take a gander at folks eating their breakfasts or dinners. On more than one occasion he's caught someone emerging from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around their body, singing softly to themselves while they dry their hair or pick out their clothes. I tend to stand off to the side, my back turned, my arm wrenched at an awkward angle in the hopes that they'll recognize my dog as the pervert and not me.

This afternoon he paused in front of The Witch's Lair, raised his hackles and growled a low, deep growl, the kind I don't hear very often from him. I'd been walking a bit ahead, whistling, as I'm known to do, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the incredible spring sky. When I noticed he wasn't at my side I turned back and saw him looking as though he was about to pounce through the window and attack whatever it was on the other side. I hurried back to him and laughed when I saw what had caught his attention.

Hanging on a chair in the window was the ugliest afghan I'd ever seen, a purple and orange thing, made of thick, fuzzy yarn that looked like it had been skinned from some sort of creature conjured by the imagination of HR Giger. It was not a pretty thing and looked too thin to offer much in the way of warmth, but was instead meant as some sort of decoration. Either that or a quick throw to toss over a dead body. One never knows when dealing with The Witch.

I called to Roo softly in hopes of avoiding attracting the attention of the wretched woman who owns the thing, but he would not listen. So after snapping a quick picture for my April Photo-of-the-Day Challenge, I leaned in, leashed him up and pulled him away. He kept looking back over his shoulder, though, and growling, then back up at me as though shocked I wouldn't let him attack and kill it. 

 

It wasn't until we arrived at The Glen and I removed his leash that he put it out of his mind. I'd been stressing my photo all day, looking for things that started with the letter "A" and hardly noticed when he led me to an aspen tree, plopped down in front of it and waited for me to figure out what he was trying to tell me. It was almost as though he refused to let me use the afghan and wanted something prettier instead. So I snapped a picture to appease him and led him across the street to the park for the rest of our walk.

 

 

As usual, Duncan knows best.

The Witch

So there is this woman who lives here, mid-way down The Run. I've written about her before, and have spent nearly every walk since those initial encounters biting my tongue and playing nice. But last summer, after several unpleasant words, I've taken to calling her The Witch. Her patio is decorated with all manner of unpleasant hangings, bizarre wind chimes that, for all I know, could be made from the bones of little fingers of children she has lured into her abode with promises of sweets and goodies; baskets made of wicker that look like aboriginal snares and ghastly, clotted paintings that depict what I can only imagine is her mood at any given moment. Late in the fall, just before the first snows came, a number of tall, grizzly-looking bird feeders appeared, brassy, copper-ish things turned green with age, with strange shapes and undulating figures running up their sides, their wide basins open mouths waiting to swallow the finches and nuthatches which frequent Jeffrey's patio only a hundred yards away. She fills them regularly with seeds and grains and while the birds have largely ignored them the squirrels have been unable to turn their backs on the treats she puts out as offerings.

She is a short thing with wild, white hair, who crouches and lurks in her window watching for Duncan each morning as we pass by and then again in the afternoons and evenings. She has chastised me for not cleaning up after him––a crime I have never committed––and has lectured me about keeping him away from the flowers she has planted in the common area that does not belong to her. She is mightily unpleasant and a dark cloud seems to hang over that area of The Run no matter the season or the time of day. I have worked tirelessly at training Roo to stay away from her patio and the bulbs which erupt there in the spring, but he is a lover of all things bright and wonderful, those things that sway in a summer breeze, and the wondrous things which make music by the invisible hands of the wind. It hasn't been easy but I try. And last summer, when I spied her lurking behind her curtains waiting to reprimand me for his appearance once again on her patio, I started warning Dunc, loudly so she could hear, "Be careful, Roo. Get too close and she'll turn you into gingerbread. Or worse, a toad! And I don't have any water on me to melt her down should she get too close." She's stopped accosting us but she hasn't ceased her glowering or the loud sighs and grunts which emanate from behind her screen door and windows.

She was on her patio this morning, clad in a bright orange bathrobe, so short as to leave her mottled and purple-veined knees exposed, her skinny legs white and twiggish, impossibly pale even in the glare of the thick, new snow and the bitter cold. I did not see her so when she screamed, a guttural low roar, I jumped and Duncan tripped over himself as his body tensed and recoiled all at once.

"You scared me," I laughed uneasily as she hissed loudly and waved her hands in the air, the limp band of a slingshot wagging above her head.

"These damn squirrels," she cursed as one darted past Duncan and up a nearby birch. Duncan, terrified of the crone, didn't dare follow after it. He sat solidly beside me, his weight pushing against my leg. "They won't leave the bird feeders alone."

"I know they have special feeders you can get that make it difficult for squirrels to get the seed. My mother has several," I offered.

"I don't want other feeders. I want these," she spat and hissed again at another squirrel. "So I got this slingshot. Just about took the leg off one yesterday. And now he's limping around. Can't even climb very fast. I hope the coyotes get him."

I blinked, astonished at her malice. I patted Duncan's head and softly urged him forward. "Let's go, Roo."

"You should get your dog back here to scare them off," she said. "He can finally be useful."

I just stared at her, my back straightening and my gloved hands clenching in my pockets. There were a myriad of things I wanted to say, none of them nice, several of them downright awful, but instead I took a deep breath and said, very calmly, "You have made it clear you want my dog nowhere near your patio and I've trained him to stay away. He is very useful but he will never be of any use to you. I wouldn't allow it." I turned away but then stopped and looked back at her. "And if I ever see that slingshot again I'll report you to the leasing office." And with that, we walked away. Duncan strutted beside me, head high, tail even higher, perhaps proud of his papa, perhaps simply happy to be done with that old witch.

I was just happy to finally give her (a tiny sample of) The Full Curt.

Nesting

Earlier this week it was warm and sunny and all the promises of an early Spring seemed so close we could touch them. While the trees have not even begun to bud yet and the grass is still matted and yellow, the earth seems to be loosening up, and the air has been filled with the faintest of Spring-ish fragrances. The sun has been high and bright, chasing away the occasional gloomy grey clouds, and the air has been warm enough that we have slept with the windows open twice. As you know, I'm a whistler and the last few months I've been whistling some rather mellow, wintery sorts of songs on our walks (I do a mean "Nature Boy" and an even meaner "I'll Be Seeing You"), but this past week has found me whistling a couple of springtime favorites: "I Feel Good," (a Nina Simone classic) and "Recipe For Love" (a Harry Connick, Jr. favorite that requires my eyebrows to dance while my head bobs from side to side as Duncan and I walk down The Run).

And then this morning this happened

So Duncan and I have spent much of the day nestled up on the couch, occasionally getting pushed out of the way by Pip, who seems to regard us as little more than warm pillows arranged for his convenience. We have napped and watched a movie, snacked on a leftover piece of pizza, sipped at the chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove, and ventured outside only every now and then. But it takes almost ten minutes to get my boots and hat, gloves and jackets and coat pulled on, zipped up and ready to go. And then neither of us particularly wants to be outside in it for very long. It's cold and the snow keeps finding a way to bite at the soft spota tucked under Roo's pads. He limps and tries his hardest to be brave and endure until I come to the rescue, but after several failed trips he's decided a warm couch, or even the bed, is a nicer spot.

 And that's just fine with me because this is what I get to see all day.

The last of winter's snarls may batter and bite at us, but it also brings us closer together. And that makes the wait for spring endurable.



Post Script: And yes, Aunt Lori, that is the blanket you knitted for us. It is has been our salvation every night these past few months and I wonder how we ever got along without it. Bless you!

The Price of Vanity

Duncan got a bath this afternoon, a nice one with mint shampoo and lavender conditioner so he'd smell nice. The sun was still high and peeking through the windows above the mountains, bathing the apartment in bright, honeyed light, perfect for hunkering down for a good long brushing and pampering. He's never been afraid of the tub, perhaps because he loves the toweling-off part of the bath the best. He leans forward, nose to the floor, rump high in the air, tail wagging, and snorts and grunts while I wrap the soft towels around his head and rub hard through his ears and over his face. And afterward, when he's fluffy and his red hair is standing on end, he likes nothing more than to lay down in a sunny spot and let me brush him out, first with The Rake, and then with the soft bristles of his other brush, which smooths everything out, lays it flat and makes him look his most handsome.

And then, of course, there's the walk which comes afterward, allowing him to prance down The Run to show off for Jeffrey and Cindy and Pepper, Soldier, the Shepard mix in the balcony he torments from below, and the two new bony little female Boxers which have moved in, Bruno and Barry Manilow. After that, it's time for a quick gallop through The Glen and a walk around the park where he can find a nice pile of leaves (of which there aren't many as it still feels like Summer here) to roll around in.

I was watchful on our last walk, careful to keep him from getting too dirty, wanting to enjoy the softness of his coat and its sweet smell when he cuddles up to me tonight. But as he brushed by some low shrubs a yellow, twisted leaf caught in the hair below his ear and jiggled as he walked away. I reached down for it to pull it free and only when it was captured safely between my fingers did I realize it wasn't a leaf at all but a spider, the kind that tormented me in my youth, a big yellow and black garden spider, also known as a writing spider. It writhed and wriggled, twisting until its legs caught on my thumb. I shrieked, as I'm known to do in such situations, and shook it free. It bounced into the grass and scurried away into the shadows while Duncan just looked at me in that way he has, like he wants to shake his head in exasperation.

After my adventure with the snake and the fly a few months back, it's all I can do to get Ken to join us on our walks down The Run. Perhaps its best if he doesn't find out about this little incident. Agreed?

Comedy of Errors

It's astounding the number of things that can occur in a single moment, from the large events that shape the direction of our lives, to the minutiae of which I am so incredibly fond.

Our walk tonight started out as any other walk starts: I came home, changed out of my work clothes, fed Winnie some tuna from her fancy bowl atop our coffee table (she's been incredibly spoiled the last seven weeks), gave gargantuan Olive and precocious Pip their dinner of chicken kibble mixed with rabbit stew and blueberries (they eat better than Ken and I do, IsweartoGod!) and ventured down The Run with Duncan. It has been very hot the last few days (and tomorrow plans to be even hotter) so we were going slow and easy, enjoying the shade of the maples, birch and linden trees along the way, watching the succulent light from the low sun dance along the tips of the tall, wild grass, leaving golden footsteps on everything it touched, enjoying the rich scent of the freshly mowed grass (something that always brings me great pleasure, especially now that I don't have to mow myself and haven't done so for nearly seven years). It was shaping up to be a peaceful evening with Duncan plodding along beside me, head down, nose hunting out the peanuts Jeffrey scatters for the bluejays and squirrels. I was already envisioning making a spinach salad for dinner before settling down to read the latest John Irving novel which I have been enjoying very much.

And then all hell broke loose. In a single second I was ready to flee home, grab a bottle of Xanax (of which there are several) and spend the rest of the night trying to sort through the chain of events even as I convinced myself that such a thing was possible only in movies starring Steve Martin and produced by Nickelodeon.

A new dog has moved in next door to Jeffrey. She's a fat old Golden, nearly as wide as she is tall, with a white heart expanding across her face and down her chest. She's as loud as she is friendly and when she saw Duncan she announced it to everyone within earshot. Roo immediately forgot the foraging he'd been doing in the bushes outside Jeffrey's patio and launched (and I mean launched!) into the air toward her. He nearly cleared the shrubs, but not quite, which is what upset the rabbit who had been relaxing in the cool shade there. Duncan landed with a thud, which startled the rabbit, who darted out of the bushes right in front of me. I would have tripped over her if a wandering horsefly hadn't chose that moment to buzz by and lodge itself firmly between my eye and my glasses. I squeaked (which, admittedly, was not the most masculine of reactions) and reached for my face to free the bug which in its impatience had decided to bash itself between the softness of my fluttering and startled eyeball and the lens of my glasses (which is what I've observed countless flies do when confronted with an invisible barrier). The rabbit hurried toward the long grass on the other side of the fence and leapt right over the very long and very dark garter snake which, I presume, had also been enjoying the cool of the shade and the softness of the freshly mowed grass. It startled and slithered toward the shrubs where I was hobbling back and forth, my hands and glasses caught under the visor of my ball cap, the horsefly practically roaring at me in protest, while my feet danced back and forth, eventually coming down on the thickness of the snake, which coiled up around my ankle, its slimy skin all the warning I needed to determine that my situation had gone from bad to worse, which, of course, changed my less-than-masculine squeak into a full-throated and über-feminine scream which I'm not even sure the most-feminine of women would admit to being capable of. Duncan, who never barks at other dogs, decided to test his voice out on Ginger,  who was barking back while her two-legged companions scurried to the patio door to see what all the commotion was about. I was still dancing, clutching my face to free the fly, bringing my knees and feet up high like a Cossack having a seizure in an attempt to avoid the snake, which had vanished as quickly as it appeared. After freeing the cap from my head and knocking my glasses to the newly trimmed grass, the fly finally dislodged itself and vanished into the melting sunlight. And while Duncan ceased his barking Ginger did not, which resulted in a stern scolding from her people, who could only stare at me as I flailed around manically.

"Are you okay?" the man asked, his wide-eyed wife standing behind him, clutching his shoulders.

I froze where I stood, looking not for my glasses but for the snake. "Yeah," I replied, out of breath. "I'm good. I'm Curt. You're new. Welcome to the neighborhood."

(Now tell me that wasn't worth the wait!)

All Smiles

I can't say I blame Duncan one bit. After all, it is close to a hundred degrees and the air feels like hot sandpaper just opening the door and stepping out into it. The sidewalk is nearly impossible to stand on in my tennis shoes and poor Dunc does a little jogging dance from one foot back to the other whenever we hurry from the breezeway to the grass. 

The Run, with its maples and Lindens, is a blessedly shady spot, but relief from this heat is hard to find even there. It is the monsoon season in Denver, which means we get clouds and rain in the afternoons, which tends to cool things off a bit, and even though the clouds are already forming, Duncan was in no mood to wait. He hurried ahead of me to Jeffrey's patio where the squirrels and bluejays congregate for the ample food Jeffrey puts out for them. He's taken quite a fancy to Duncan and has started buying treats for Roo whenever we pass by. Duncan does his cute little dance. gives Jeffrey a high five, rolls over, does everything he know how to do to milk every last treat from the man.

This afternoon, though, Jeffrey wasn't expecting us. He was standing on his patio watching his two cats lurk their way through the long grass on the golf course side of the fence, a chocolate popsicle melting down his hand. Duncan appeared out of nowhere and didn't wait a moment for Jeffrey to offer a treat. He merely jumped up, latched onto the popsicle and bit it in half, his tongue lapping up the drippings as he went. Jeffrey didn't even have time to react and by the time I got there was laughing hysterically, a perfectly clean popsicle stick clutched in his hand.

"I am so sorry," I apologized.

"It's okay," he laughed and held out his hand for Dunc to clean up. "It's chocolate-flavored, but don't worry, there's not an ounce of chocolate in it. He should be just fine."

I could only shake my head at Dunc, who was all smiles for the rest of the walk.

A Right Way to Live

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

(Mary Oliver)

There is a moment, late in a summer's day, not long before the sun sets, when the shadows have grown so long they are like a blanket pulled across the world, when the light through the trees is an overwhelming gold, so vibrant it can be felt, when the birdsong is softening and lulls the crickets and night creatures awake, urging them to join the chorus, when the tips of the tallest, flowering blades of grass catch the precious light among their budding tips and carry it proudly, like lanterns held aloft, that is my favorite time to take Duncan for a walk down The Run to The Glen.

The voice of the trees is a soothing whisper and the cool air rising up from the grass is as rejuvenating as lemonade. Neither of us is in a hurry, which is the best way to walk, and step softly around the brilliantly illuminated wings of the insects which rise up and dance around our ankles before settling down among the thick blades of grass as we pass. The traffic dies down long enough for dinner and the spin of the world seems to relax and stop so that the night is frozen, caught in amber, captured forever in my memory as another perfect evening, the kind I will walk through in dreams many times long days from now.

Surely there is a right way to live, and when I am with Duncan on nights such as this, I'm certain I have found it.

All Aspects of This Life

My walks with Duncan have served as a reminder to me that there is no aspect of this life of ours that is unimportant, from the bending of the grass under the weight of the morning dew to the long shadows cast by the ants scuttling blindly across the pavement as the sun dips low on the horizon. I am as fascinated by the minutiae of the world––maybe more so–– as I am of the breathtaking and extraordinary sights of the big and obvious, the loud and bright. Roo is patient with me, sometimes spending long moments sitting at my side while I lean in to watch the slow crawl of a box elder bug up the trunk of an aspen or the light dancing across a bending field of fuzzy, purple thistles. 

And so it was this morning on our walk. Not far down The Run I spotted the button-cap of a mushroom, sand-dollar shaped and hued, with delicate, fingerprint lines racing from its rim to the bowl of its center. I sat down next to it and peered at it from all angles, but because it was so short, smaller than my pinkie finger, I could not see its underside however hard I tried. Some things, I guess, are to remain a mystery. And that is just fine with me, because what fun would life be without a few questions and surprises.

I must be doing something right by stopping and looking because no sooner had I finished my examination of the thing than Dunc leaned down and gave it a long hard sniff before turning to look at me as if to say, "Good catch. Good boy!"

When he is proud of me I know I've done well.

Of Dogs and Bunnies

"That's all you can ever remember is them rabbits." (John Steinbeck)

The bunnies have returned with a vengeance. Jeffrey's feral cat, Mama Kitty, pretty much decimated them last year, along with most of the squirrels that Duncan chased down The Run. Summers past it seemed that whole herds of the things lurked in the grass like little fuzzy stones, their ears pressed flat against their backs, their brown noses twitching as we approached. But after Jeffrey rescued Mama Kitty from a particularly nasty winter, the bunnies all but vanished, leaving Roo confused as to why he had nothing to hunt on our numerous daily walks. Unfortunately for Mama Kitty, but not so for the bunnies, a coyote got her some time last fall and the grounds around our apartment complex are now teeming with long-ears once again.

This morning saw the return of the first of the kits, tiny little things with stubby ears and heads too big for their bodies. They were on high alert and darted into the hedges the moment Dunc caught sight of them, but that hasn't stopped him from looking for them every moment since. It's hard to say we walked much at all today because it seemed that Duncan had only one thing on his mind. It was all I could do to get him to take his head out of the shrubs and actually move his feet.

It's so good to have them back but it's going to be a long couple of weeks.

Early Bloom

It seems Spring is over and we've jumped right into Summer, so much so that our Russian Olive trees have been blooming for the past week, nearly a month before they regularly appear.

I hadn't been paying attention and then one evening, after the sun dropped low and the air cooled, Ken and I took Duncan out for a slow walk down The Run, quiet, transparent clouds of gnats and other hovering motes dancing in the air before our eyes while a lazy breeze drifted across the golf course, the tall grass that grows along the fence line rolling under its touch. Dunc ambled ahead and Ken and I were doing what partners do on slow evening walks, talking about the unimportant things like the shape of the clouds or the falling snow of the cottonwood seedlings, when suddenly it caught me, that familiar buttery mint sweetness of my youth on the foothills of Pocatello. It stopped me dead and I caught Ken's arm and squeezed, startling him.

"There," I exclaimed. "Do you smell it? Close your eyes and smell it."

He did as I asked and nodded. "The Russian Olives?"

I could hardly speak, standing as I was, inhaling the sweet air, feeling the gold veins of the fragrance course through my lungs and into every inch of my body.

"Yes," I said finally, a smile spreading across my face. "The Russian Olives. They're here."

And everything will be good because normally they don't come until the middle and end of June, when I plan on flying east with my family. I'd feared missing them but Nature found a way. I will take a clipping of a branch, wrap those precious yellow blooms in a bag and carry them with me. Flowers for flight.