The natural world, life, and dogs.
Just before waking up this morning I was embroiled in a fast-moving dream, with many characters and locations. Toward the end, a friend and I are running away from something – a bar fight? an assault? – and I have a mark under my right eye, not quite a black eye but noticeable, enough that… Continue reading Dreamscapes
The following is sampling of the sorts of thoughts that flit through my mind while I’m out running in the forest with my dogs. Since they can’t talk to me (except through their body language), for much of the time we’re out there I’m carrying on an internal dialog with myself. While the specific threads… Continue reading Random Thoughts During a Winter Run in the Forest
It's 7:47 am and the weather app on my phone says it's minus 2F outside. I suspect it's actually a few degrees warmer, but certainly in the single digits. There are no clouds in the sky, portending a gorgeous morning once the sun rises high enough to spill her bright and warming light through the… Continue reading Diamonds on the Snow
Without music, life would be a mistake.Friedrich Nietzsche Music is the background to our lives. What music we listen to, sing to, dance to – or create – changes with us as we grow and evolve, from infancy to the day we die. It expresses our innermost emotions, gives wings to our desires, and memorializes… Continue reading Music
When I was about eight years old, my family got a puppy, a beagle-mix we named Trinket. Oh, I loved that girl. While she wasn’t the first dog in my life, Trinket was the first dog who grew up with me, a part of my life from age eight until I left home at eighteen.… Continue reading Swimming in Circles
Yesterday I enjoyed one of those times in nature that leave me awestruck, enthralled, fully engaged, and grateful. Everything was perfect: the weather, the snow, and the company (my dogs). We started early in the morning, running up, up, up the mountain on freshly-groomed trail, the rising sun breaking over and through the tops of… Continue reading Into the Woods in Winter
Snug Hugs I still remember my father’s wonderful rib-cage-crushing hugs. Slow squeezes that started easy and just kept snuggling down. Oh, how I miss them. He knew how to make sure I knew how much I was loved and cherished, all in a single hug. A hug is like a boomerang - you get it… Continue reading Hugs
kerfuffle (noun): a commotion or fuss, especially one caused by conflicting views. We had a kerfuffle here in the wee hours, 3:00 am, two days ago (Wednesday, January 22nd). Something woke Conall. He let out of low growl from his post on the floor beside my bed. That woke me. Conall stood, took a couple… Continue reading Plea to Universe: Enough Skunks, Already!
Your life can change in an instant. You may not immediately realize the breadth of the change or the full range of its implications, but you’ll always remember when the change happened. Mine changed one morning on a beautiful mountain trail. It was August 2003. I fell. Hard. And as a result, my brain no… Continue reading A Quart Low: Life with a Hidden Disability
My last post was about snow and how one's attitude about snow can make all the difference when living where snow happens. That post - and being snowbound at home most of the day today after a dump of about nine inches of new snow overnight - got me reminiscing about an encounter that happened… Continue reading Snowbound: Stumbling Upon a Lawyer in the Woods
Wild Sensibility 