This is of course the obligatory, beautiful, sunset that just cannot be resisted. While traveling, I often get hit with how little we really do need to feel good. I am not doing without anything, but in reality, I possess very little. Real food, good bread, high-thread-count sheets, music, a lake, some wine, nice underwear, a body that works, solid people....well, you get the idea. This fading light is finding the very corner of my heart that needs it the most. Surprise...you are there.
It's another road trip.
Tonight is a lovely, cool evening being spent on the rolling, grasslands of Wyoming. Just over the border from 'big sky country'. I can't help but notice and yes, dwell, on that part of me that has gone missing. Mostly it is evident when looking around this familiar place or that familiar place and remembering, how, ever so recently, we were here together. Here. You and me. Alive.
How quickly, things can change. So much happens in the blink of an eye. So many trite sayings for the obvious facts of life and death. Like little jewels wrapped in delicate tissue paper and kept in secret compartments... somewhere. When we need them they are always there, to be brought out and presented to others in their time of need. Precious and beautiful but useless really. A treatment for the loss but hardly a cure.
What I am trying to say is that there are some events that can, and do, break a heart so badly that it is damaged & disabled. Still functioning, but not the same as it was. Tweaked and beating in another dimension. Jet-lagged. Obviously changed. Somewhat hopeful.
The Cowgirl memorial rock collection is coming along nicely. It's been a good summer spent visiting many of the places that she adored. Of course, she adored most places. Like most dogs, any stop on a road trip was fabulous...from roadside dumpsights (the best!), to meth-infested trailer parks, to the most pristine waterfronts...it was all good. It was hard not to get caught up in her enthusiasm but mostly it was always hard to get her back into the car.
So, I agonize over each and every rock before selecting them. It is a nice meditation and a quiet reflection on a life. Its not over yet. Solid and real like my girl.
Okay it's happened. Somebody finally revealed the whereabouts of their secret huckleberry patch. That, ladies & gentlemen, is the definition of a 'true' friend. This is just so exciting, I can hardly sit still to type. Of course, I cannot reveal the locale as it is now my top secret, and to add to the pleasure, there were saskatoon berries there as well. So, buckets were filled in a kind of obsessive-compulsive frenzy until we just had to stop. Blue food is so good.
Mossimo and Bonnell, how do we love thee, let us count the ways, as we eat, eat, eat the elusive and lovely huckleberry (and the saskatoon).
It never surprises me how callous some people are. You never can tell just by appearances alone. They look 'normal' and can even be polite but then they do the most shocking thing.
I was out at one of our local animal shelters yesterday. It is the one that takes 'owner relinquished' pets only. Somehow just that term is so, so sad isn't it? Of course, I suppose even I can imagine very extenuating circumstances when that would be the ONLY solution but really...most of the dogs here (and the cats too) arrive with the most flimsy of excuses from their people. The woman who runs the place and does almost everything, all the time, takes these pups in on a regular basis. She does so with few questions as to 'why' but with a few more about the personality and health of the animal being left. Her goal being to find a better, a real, a permanent home for these unwanted beings.
So yesterday I happened to get there at the same time a sweet, 3-year old dog was being left by her 'owner' ('moving and new place doesn't allow dogs' you be the judge ). After filling out the paperwork, he said a quick good-bye and was out the door...and to think he looked like a nice guy. I was stunned, as was the dog. Well, we loved the shell-shocked dog up a little bit and calmed her down and then she was led back to the kennels, to wait. She was devastated and it would take some time for her to be okay again.
I cannot help but think how under no circumstances would I have ever given Cowgirl up, willingly. I would have lived on the street before I would have moved somewhere without her. I would feed her before I fed myself. She was considered in every equation. When I sighed on with her it was for life. Even in death, I won't 'relinquish'.
Reality bites.
