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27 January~2008
I enjoyed a quiet weekend - with nothing planned, just got up and took long walks on the Greenbelt in the cool mornings. I also went around in the backyard and examined all my trees - the oaks, the ashes, the old apples, the spruce tree, and sat in the chair at the base of the Juniper with my pets around me.
There is a clear strength in living in one place for so long, and I was very aware of it on these midwinter days - in the texture of the bark of the trees that I planted, in the companionship of my border collies who like nothing better than to sit in the yard with me, or to walk the meadow and woodland trails. I sense something very positive and hopeful at home and walking the Greenbelt paths, which I suspect is because I have a unburdened heart
I am a simple man, who has accepted the turns that life has brought. I love nature and wilderness and animals and Saturday night dances and clear cold January mornings.
Those who share our life experience are travelers, who step in beside us for a while. On Saturday night it is usually just for a few minutes of pleasure when I dance with women whose greatest beauty appears when they are happy and smiling. My longest and most loyal traveling partners have always been dogs.
I am honored to have walked with them from the pine and spruce and fir into the openness of timberline, to have pitched a tent in the highest trees and sat beside them to listen to the divine in the wilderness silence, to watch the alpine sky fill with thousands of stars.
My journey with Ben and Maggie has been a good one - since
they were puppies, when 15 miles into Bob Marshall Wilderness of
Montana they put their nose into a Grizzly Track in trail dust.
That was 2001, when they were both barely a year
old.
We still have many paths ahead of us, that we will
share in joy and love, with hearts filled with the same
devotion to wildness and freedom.
And I wonder about my other dogs - Bud and Wolf and Boogie and Cody and Jenny. What is it like over the top of the Great Divide? Do they sense the love I still have for them? Will they be waiting to see me again? My heart tells me they will, and it will be one magnificent journey on that last uphill climb.
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