From The Desk of the Dog: The True Meaning of Life

Hello everyone!  It's Runtly, the ever so entertaining Jack Russell Terrier, JRT, for short.  Mom has been busy involving herself in a bunch of political hoopla and I told her she needed to back away from the computer.  I decided she needed to come back to reality and understand the real meaning of life.

I took her outside and told her to listen.  Just listen.  We could here birds chirping, crows making that nasty sound they make, I don't like crows.  We could hear people talking and geese honking.  

I told her to take a good look around.  For one, there were hundreds of trees for me to pee on, although she didn't seem to be impressed with my take on trees.  So I kicked pine needles in all directions, with all four feet at the same time, just to show her my toxic masculinity, silly humans, and that did make her smile.  Then  we looked and saw all the birds who were chirping and the cawing crows.  We watched the ripples on the pond made by the lonesome duck paddling across the water.  I wanted to make him go really fast, to see if he could kick up a rooster tail, but Mom said that wasn't a very good idea.  

We walked for a long time and I told Mom to smell the air.  She looked at me with the same tilt of her head that I give to her, but it didn't take too long for her to catch on.  We sniffed the air.  We could smell the rain that had fallen the day before.  We could smell the hamburgers cooking at the fast food joint up the street.  I think I'd like to try one of those.  We could smell the burnt toast aroma from a little bistro that really should change their name to "The Burnt Toast Factory", because they burn it everyday.  Bistro.....I like that word....Bistro.  I wanted Mom to get down on the ground so she could get a whiff of what I can smell down here, but she declined.  Too bad, she doesn't know what she's missing.

I told Mom to just pay attention.  Pay attention to what was going on around her all the time.  There is always something happening! It could be a squirrel or leaves blowing across the road.  It could be the wind blowing up against her face or an airplane in the sky.  It could be a tree limb cracking or a siren in the distance.  I can hear those a mile away and I don't like them one bit!

We sat on a bench and I set in her lap.  Just the two of us, me and Mom.  She says that's not proper grammar.....grammar swammar.  I looked deep into her eyes and she scratched my ears and the side of my neck.  I really like it when she scratches the side of my neck.  I gave a big sigh, Mom does that too, and curled up in her lap.  I closed my eyes and took a short siesta, without a care in the world and we just enjoyed that very moment.    And that, my friends is the true meaning of life.  Mom says I'm not supposed to start a sentence with the word 'and'.  Dogs can roll their eyes too.  Woof!

Clean Slate

There is a long, wide, sidewalk that snakes through this place.  It is actually a golf cart path, but a long wide sidewalk paints a better picture in the brain.  Depending on the direction of the traveler, the walk either starts or ends going uphill or down.  It passes between two small bodies of water.  The long, wide sidewalk has a canopy of Loblolly pine trees that tower over fifty feet above, blocking out most of the sunshine, yet creating an umbrella effect during a rain. Although the Loblolly is part of the evergreen family and are 'ever green', they still lose their needles.  The many thousands, or millions, of three needled clusters that cover the ground are a testament to their shedding.  The number of needles in the cluster is how the pine species is recognized.  Loblolly 3, White 5 and Red or Jack have 2.

During the latter part of autumn and into winter, the pine trees, in their quest to stay green, shed their needles onto the long, wide sidewalk, making it nearly impossible to see.  Along with the dreary winter rains, the carts that use this path, leave behind muddy tracks that seem to be eternally ground into the cement.  This process leaves the long, wide sidewalk looking as if it is depressed. Then, as if a desperate cry was heard from afar, the rains came again and after them came an angel with a leaf blower.  

The path is clean again.  It's newly bathed surface cuts a stark contrast to the fading brown needles that line both sides.  It beckons the traveler to come again, to walk the path, to contemplate there, beneath its grand canopy, because now it is a clean slate.

What would it do for the soul, to look upon each new day as a clean slate?  To realize that what happened yesterday is still there and there is no need to drag it along into tomorrow.  To understand that each awakening is a chance to start again.  To see where the mistake was made and to know how to avoid it.  To wake and to realize what a gift that really is.  To have another chance to make things right, or to forgive, or to love.  To come to the realization that life is to be lived and not taken for granted.  

Step out onto that long, wide, clean slate of life and whether it takes the journey north or south, be most grateful for the opportunity.