July 17
It’s a fine point, the prior comment. There was roughly a year of my childhood during which time I was so thoroughly convinced that I was in fact a dog that I abstained from speaking the king’s English & opted instead for barks, grunts & whines. & my food in a bowl. & as I understand it, much to my parents’ credit, they did little to discourage the delusion. Certainly, my brothers would have done everything in their power to foster my canine sensibilities. What spurred my transfiguration back into the human fold I do not know—only that I sort of resent it. Dogs achieve a kind of perfection, utterly given to phenomena, utterly incapable of dissemblance. A dog’s joy dwarves the moderated human’s. Maybe in childhood or in moments of unparalleled exultation in which the will folds in upon itself & ipseity gives out completely. Otherwise, we are bridled, reined in, filtered even when we perhaps ought to let an emotion unfurl in us to its fullest conceivable degree. The ratiocentric mind wants what it wants, a semblance of order, a scaffolding by which to build the narrative of our days & weave each one with the next into some seamless whole. & so where does rich joy fit into that, or play, or sudden, graceless rest? This sounds increasingly like a greeting card with a glossy picture of a drooling lab on it, I know. But all to say that I have the utmost pride for thinking myself a dog for such a long while. What an extraordinary accomplishment, out of all that I have done & seen.
There was one trail run in New Mexico, Rio en Medio, where Wils & I bolted beneath the looming ponderosa pines, their fallen needles soft underfoot, the swelter of the creek parallel & that endless azure sky filtered through the boughs overhead. That smell of sun in the ground, the pinon, the muted footfall. At our turnaround a few miles in, when she was in front of me & I called her name, I could have sworn it was her spirit I saw, so complete was her joy. She was literally aglow with contentedness, & if I were less wary of sounding like some Santa Fe pseudo-metaphysician on a Castaneda trip, I’d tell you that just then, briefly, she seemed transcendent, auratic almost. & that smile she wore has never left me. Running back to the trailhead, we wove in & out of one another’s path, our steps rhymed, counting off the same cadence. There was a fluidity of motion that seemed to dissolve our distance. & that seems the particular talent of a dog—to erase instantaneously & completely the associative detritus we bring to them & to pierce directly that part of us wanting after earnestness & sincerity & simple joy. & I can safely say that I relied on dogs to usher me through the now-done darkness of the winter. Piper, Autumn, Maximus & Moose, & especially Cinder-pup, who seemed to have that peculiar well-pool of quiet wisdom & frenetic puppiness in his eyes. All of them told me to wait, to wait. & then Willa come home to me, & every evening I hear her sighs & snores & think it the highest companionable grace. Humans are alright, after all, but I’d not trade that year as a dog for anything.
Cindie--
Wils--
There was one trail run in New Mexico, Rio en Medio, where Wils & I bolted beneath the looming ponderosa pines, their fallen needles soft underfoot, the swelter of the creek parallel & that endless azure sky filtered through the boughs overhead. That smell of sun in the ground, the pinon, the muted footfall. At our turnaround a few miles in, when she was in front of me & I called her name, I could have sworn it was her spirit I saw, so complete was her joy. She was literally aglow with contentedness, & if I were less wary of sounding like some Santa Fe pseudo-metaphysician on a Castaneda trip, I’d tell you that just then, briefly, she seemed transcendent, auratic almost. & that smile she wore has never left me. Running back to the trailhead, we wove in & out of one another’s path, our steps rhymed, counting off the same cadence. There was a fluidity of motion that seemed to dissolve our distance. & that seems the particular talent of a dog—to erase instantaneously & completely the associative detritus we bring to them & to pierce directly that part of us wanting after earnestness & sincerity & simple joy. & I can safely say that I relied on dogs to usher me through the now-done darkness of the winter. Piper, Autumn, Maximus & Moose, & especially Cinder-pup, who seemed to have that peculiar well-pool of quiet wisdom & frenetic puppiness in his eyes. All of them told me to wait, to wait. & then Willa come home to me, & every evening I hear her sighs & snores & think it the highest companionable grace. Humans are alright, after all, but I’d not trade that year as a dog for anything.
Cindie--
Wils--
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