Well, fall's here, it fell on me this Sunday while drinking beers at a street concert in Annapolis. There were a few hard-core frolickers who kept dancing when the wind and the rain set in, but I got all cold and shivery and dragged my co-partiers inside where it was warm. Sunday started in sun and ended in cold, and since then, I celebrate each luxury-moment of sunwarmth I find. I regret all the wasted moments of Summer 2010 and vow to scramble like that squirrel from the Ice Age series to savor every last moment of sun before darkness and death set in for the winter.
So much for beauty! Admittedly, I'm SAD. I have had to reject my Canadian origins and live with you Sunlanders, in the interests of my sanity. Which also requires celebrating moments of beauty. So help me out here, what was your last most beautiful moment?
Mine was playing in a local stream, with a friend and her 3 dogs, mixed-breed lunatic half-stupid pitbulls. I'm actually a cat person, but I do enjoy running wild with dogs in the woods. They show an innate enthusiasm and appreciation that mirrors mine. They're alive to scents and excitements that I'm not privy to, but I have full respect for their exuberance. Even for these dogs, who were better at chasing sticks than finding them.
I spent a recent weekend camping with a pleasantly mixed-breed dog who degenerated into a begging thieving cur around the campfire, slinking around trying to steal my shishkebab, and licking droplets of pancake batter off the rocks. We joked about writing an anti-"Call of the Wild" novel where the hero-dog returned to its atavistic roots as a human-subordinate coprophagous beggar and thefter, basking in its role as useful scavenger of scraps and trash, in a human tribe.
We now celebrate dogs as the heroes we wish we could be, brave and bold enthusiastic humpers and gorgers and players and sleepers, but that's not the role they filled, historically. But that doesn't undermine the pleasure of watching a happy dog run splashing thrashing though a stream, chasing a stick, or alive to a thousand scents while following a dirt path.
So you, what was your last most beautiful moment?