Category Archives: Walk

I forgot to tell you…

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I forgot to tell you about all the magic we’ve been seeing on our morning walks. This week, it was two beavers, one on each side of east McMurry Pond. Two herons flying together, floating east along the Poudre River. A dog park full of tennis balls. Fog and a light mist softening everything until the sun comes out and warms it away.

This morning, Sam wanted to see another beaver so badly, was so sure he’d see one again that he barked at a log in the water. That happens sometimes, doesn’t it? We want something so badly, want so much for it to be true that we see a beaver when it’s only a piece of wood floating in the water.

The sun has been orange first thing in the morning. Sometimes it’s pale, and other times it’s lit up like the ball of fire it is. Everything green is turning yellow, orange, brown, and gray, so when the golden light of the sun reflects off the turning of the green, it feels like we are walking in a dream.

I forgot to tell you that Dexter is feeling better. We’ve stopped giving him the anti-inflammatory, (although if he starts to get worse again, we might try another type, because that therapy did seem to help, except for the trouble this particular one gave his belly). He still “maybe might probably but we don’t know for sure” have cancer, but right now, in these moments, he is happy, whole, and so loved. We have decided against doing a CT scan (the next step we were offered) because it would require him being under anesthesia again, cost $2000 (wth?!), and:

  • the results still could be inconclusive
  • the scan might reveal “something,” but it might be unclear what exactly that something is
  • it might confirm the cancer, give us a very expensive picture of it, but the treatment for that type of cancer isn’t a cure, doesn’t result in much more time, and the time you get might not be good quality, so isn’t something we’d do anyway (for this cancer, this dog, this family, it wouldn’t be the right decision)

So we continue to live with the uncertainty–which isn’t all that different than what life is always like, the nature of things as they always are. We never really know, can’t be sure or certain about much of anything, and everything is constantly changing. Impermanence is the only thing we can count on, so for now, we are knowing just that.

I forgot to tell you that I bought myself flowers. They remind me that while impermanence is real, that death comes to all of us, sometimes quickly and without warning, life is so beautiful.

I forgot to tell you, kind and gentle reader, that you don’t need permission, you don’t need to earn the right to be who you are and do what you love. You were born with it, that light and deep knowing, that thing that is yours to manifest, that only you can embody, that only you can do and be. There’s nothing that needs done first, no mastery or skill to be learned before. You can take the one, tiny step right now, walk right into the thick of your life, stand in the center. All you have to do is decide, start, begin.

And, I forgot to tell you this:

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Good Fortune

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Two nights ago, Sam and I woke up to the sound of a cricket in the house. Before I woke up enough to understand what it was, Sam was already in the bathroom investigating. Once I got up and turned on the light, it stopped and I couldn’t locate it, so the cricket had to spend the night inside, behind a closed door because the tub and tile in the bathroom amplified its already too loud chirping. He woke me up at various times throughout the rest of the night, and I had to keep wrapping my head in a blanket to be able to sleep.

I looked again in the morning, but still couldn’t find it, so it spent another day inside. Eric said it probably would die, because something that small couldn’t survive for very long without anything to eat, and as far as I know, we don’t have anything in the bathroom that crickets like. But as soon as it started to get dark outside, a riot of noise started up again. This time, I snuck up on him, and before he saw me and stopped, I at least figured out he was somewhere on the shower curtain, which was bunched up at the end of the rod. I pulled it open, looked and looked, but still couldn’t find him.

Then something jumped or fell onto the pile of dirty laundry on the floor. I moved around some towels, and there he sat on one of Eric’s white t-shirts, practically glowing he was so green. He hopped around, so it took a few tries, but I was finally able to trap him under a water glass.

how can something so tiny make so much noise?!

Crickets are a symbol of good luck, fortune. People even make elaborate cages for them because they think keeping them inside your house brings extra good luck. I took him outside, released him into the yard, and as I did, I made a wish (not sure if that’s allowed, if it works in this case, but it never hurts to ask) that Dexter not suffer much, that he have an easy death when the time comes.

I also dedicated the merit of the “cricket rescue.” This is a Buddhist idea, that you shouldn’t hoard the merit of your effort, but rather offer it for the good of all beings. Through good deeds and practice, your hope is to benefit all, not just yourself, to somehow lessen suffering in the world through your effort. I find myself recently dedicating the merit of just about everything. I am trying so hard, that it all feels worthy of dedication. Not just when I meditate or practice yoga, but when I feel afraid or panicked, when I cry, when I am too tired to keep going so I choose to rest–all of it a genuine effort to make things better, to ease suffering. May other beings benefit from my effort, from my struggle.

And this morning, even though he’d reverse sneezed a few times yesterday, Dexter had a great walk. I let him lead, make the decisions about which turn or trail to take, which meant going backwards around the ponds and way back around by the edges of the horse pastures near the Farm. We even went to the little dog park, where I haven’t been with him since the last time we were there and he had an episode of reverse sneezing that was bad enough he asked to leave. He even found a tennis ball there, and on the way back, we all saw two white tailed deer. Dexter is happiest when he’s walking (hiking, running, or playing), so to give him that, to share it with him, is indeed good fortune.