Walks with Dogs

Here’s my world. These are the hills west of my home at autumn sunset. It’s quiet and  and only occasionally peopled. There might be a few dirt bikers or another dog walker, but encounters are surprising and rare. The experience is usually absorbed, grateful solitude.

My dog and I hike here all the time. Inconveniently, that’s when inspiration for writing comes. The challenge: to bring the fresh sage and the soft air and the quiet hills home and transcribe them for an audience. Like delicate desert flowers, the ideas and images fade to gray by the time I get home. They have to be resuscitated with text, images and, soon to come, sound bites and movies. Nevada is the country’s best kept secret. A quarter mile from my home is the vast stillness that may seem forbidding at first meeting, but soon becomes refuge.   

 

Recently I found one, then another styrofoam cup out here, snagged on brush by green ribbon, decorated with stripes of bright crayon colors. The balloons had burst, but inside each cup was an intact, folded note from nearby elementary school; a request to return the note, stating student’s name, the date, the school, the classroom. They had been out here for a few months, but the notes were clear and dry, the cups bright and visible from considerable distance, despite some recent rains. I wrote notes in reply and  went  to the school, where I was invited to the classroom and got to meet the team teaching young married couple,  and the students. What we learned: the wind direction, the distance, the date of discovery, the durability of the cups and notes. They had launched over a hundred balloons, but only 3 or 4 were returned.  

My visit was ceremonial. The teachers were delighted to get a response, the kids were bemused and impressed. A formal picture was taken: me handing my note to a student. I was beklempt the entire visit remembering how much I love the earnestness of first grade.

So these hills bring  starkly etched encounters, jackrabbits, cottontails, wood rats, crows, magpies, mountain bluebirds, hawks, potato bugs, beetles, moths, butterflies, snakes and lizards , a vagrant horse, dogs and their owners, all in their seasons. They are never the same twice nor the same year after year.

This blog is my styrofoam cup and the web my classroom. If you find the note, bring it back, write to me.

CATEGORIES AND POSTSRecent posts in  dogs feature fun facts about my relentless Border Collie, rescued four years ago; the last night and parting dream of the dearest departed, Roger,  who left this life January 30, 2008; defense of coyotes, protest of the sissification of dogs; a plea to make the world more dog friendly; soon to come history of the recent TrailSafe campaign against steel jaw traps (yes, they lurk all over the Nevada outback) and more.

Politics posts are recently about torture and why restoring our nation to sanity and humanity must be first priority of the Obama Administration. But there’s also the sunny day I made eye contact with Obama, and much more.

Spirituality posts are the typical American eclectic mix of Buddhism, Hinduism, Yoga, Native American, Judaism, Christianity, self-help, Oprah, Cosmo, Carl Rogers, Alfred Adler, Dr. Laura (my secret perversity: I listen to her show, just turning off the political rants), Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Stephanie Miller and the Moops, Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert and so many more voices all roiling around in the high speed blender of the Western mind. Follow the links.