It
was almost pitch black as Isis and I began our nightly outing tonight.
It was silent except for the sound of our footfalls. We walked along for
awhile enjoying the cool air, fragrant pipe smoke, and each other's
company. We took the usual route,and when we turned back to meander
toward home we saw the moon as she was just cresting the horizon, waning
gibbous, so large and orange that it was startling. She looked like a giant, golden cat's eye, watching us as we made our way through the darkness.
Last night on our walk Isis paused, staring intently. It took me a
moment to realize what she was so fascinated with. She was looking at
the moon! She was transfixed, captivated by that same orb that drives
writers, artists and lovers mad. What could she possibly be thinking?
What hold did it have on her? Did she find it as beautiful and
mysterious as I do? Never have I wanted to know what a dog thinks more
than I did in that moment. And never did I need words less to understand
or break the magic. And so we stood and stared for a moment in shared
silence until our footfalls sounded our way home again.
Draw me like one of your French Poodles.
You
couldn't ask for a more beautiful day to kick off Autumn. Sunny and
cool, the air full of the anticipation of Fall, I'm transported back to
my childhood.
These were the days of pumpkins and Indian corn,
of cornucopia and anticipation of what October would bring. Soon we
would begin coloring Jack O' Lanterns and planning our costumes for
trick-or-treating. There would be bags of candy from which we could choose ONE piece. The rest must be saved for Halloween visitors.
It was time to learn about harvest, of golden haystacks, time to
anticipate the changing colors of the leaves. We would collect them for
class projects and try to replicate their colors with crayons of orange,
yellow and red. To this day the colors of the Fall palette are my
favorite.
Soon the morning dew would be replaced with frost--
jackets in the morning but shirtsleeves in the afternoon. I remember
rushing home from school to change into play-clothes to make the most of
shortening afternoons. To play until dusk meant keeping up with
sweaters, which would invariably end up lost, hanging on some
neighborhood back fence. Evenings would grow cooler, filled with the
aroma of the first hearth-fires of the season.
And now, that
imperceptible something, whispering through the leaves, calls me forward
as much as it calls me back. The Fall somehow always seems more full of
promise than any other time of year, even Springtime. Like the ticking
of the eternal clock calling geese to take wing and the heart to beat
faster in the breast of the stag, it-- whatever "it" is comes upon us
again. My heart, like that of the stag, beats faster in anticipation.
