Each night when I take Sadie out to pee, I follow the same routine. Open my venetian blinds using the long pole I unlock my sliding door. I flip the light switch for my back porch, and slide the door open a quarter of the way. Sadie and I step outside, she usually rushing to the grass, and I step out onto the cold concrete, usually barefoot. I leave the door behind me open, the long blind pole hanging in the middle of the opening. I make sure Sadie isn’t running after a rabbit—if her ears are up, I pay attention. If she is just sniffing around, I know we’re safe—and I look up.
On a clear night, I get a good look at the stars. When the night isn't clear, it's OK. Over the fence there is a low glow from the street lamp on the corner, and it mixes with the mist in the air, giving the night a dream quality. Anything could happen in soft light like that.
When they are there, I spend more time looking at them than I do watching Sadie. I don't know many constellations, but that usually isn't the point. In the summer I will put a blanket down and put sadie on a string and we will sit and gaze at the stars and think of nothing. The stars will ask nothing of me but to be there, and I will ask nothing of them but their company. We will sit in companionable silence, old friends meeting again after time apart, until Sadie jumps on my face, or cries to go back inside.
A few times I've gotten lost in the reverie, missed her stand stock still, ears at attention, and then all of the sudden she's gone, running after one of the rabbits that lives in the bushes in the back yard. I call to her, and sometimes she turns right back around. Once she made it to the yard catty corner from ours, and I thought she'd be lost in the dark. She pranced back a few minutes later, and stood by the door, waiting to be let in. Last night it was raining, and Sadie wouldn’t go outside. We went through our ritual, up until I opened the door. She hurried outside, made a comical turn-around on three legs, and then hunkered right back inside
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Prompt post 2
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Beth,
ReplyDeleteBeing a dog lover myself I really liked the sincerity of this piece. The idea that stars are our companions along with our pets makes for a nice trimuvirate of sorts.
Your line, "The stars will ask nothing of me but to be there, and I will ask nothing of them but their company" is so honest in that wide-eyed way we should all still observe the world --not because we gain anything from the experience but rather because it is there.
It also resonates of "Stars," a song from the Broadway Show "Les Mis."
Good blogging!
Peace,
Dan
"Each night when I take Sadie out to pee, I follow the same routine." I think the acknowledgment of "same routine" is a good one, but wonder if what precedes works well enough. Isn't there a different way to say "I'm taking the dog out to do its business?" Took the dog out for a walk, I think, suits.
ReplyDeleteI like your last paragraph most, if I can be honest. I like your attention to "getting lost in reverie" and "ritual"--both are important, I think, for the details they bring us to observed with you: a dog's ears at attention and the importance of the everyday experience that's about a relationship and what that relationship with one's dog opens up in terms of having intimate experiences.
Thanks guys!
ReplyDeleteDan, Les Mis was the only thing I listened to for about a year of college. Stars was by far one of my favorite songs of the bunch, partly because it has always expressed how I felt about the night sky.
Since you've written about this theme in earlier entries, I'm curious now why you have this attraction, what helps uncover the fullness of what it's like to be there with you, gazing up at the stars in the summertime, what else might lie deeper here that can be explored.
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