I had a bad day. Okay maybe more than a few. Sometimes I feel the need to suppress my frustration and after a while all those little stresses come back to bite you in the ass. Maybe I should have addressed those little things and I would feel less the sadness now, or, maybe it is just now where I am, that I would have been anyways.
Probably what I really need is a long walk along the shore. Just me and my two dogs Lucky and Candy. Lucky is a black and white spotted pointer, and she will dart ahead at full speed. Her tail dips low and her ears pull back and the gallop of her stride sounds like a race horse on a track. She stops, the turns and runs into the water up to her belly and takes a big mouthful of water. She shakes her head at the salty liquid, and turns to gallop off again, still immersed up to her knees. The water splashes as her paws hit the water, and I swear I can see a smile on her face. She loves being off her lead.
Candy, a half beagle, half mutt, who thinks she is people, would pull ahead while her harness is still attached, but as soon as I let her off she slows her pace to just about that of what I am walking. She always walks just off my heel, sometimes so close I can feel my heel hits her jaw and with a loud clop her mouth clamps shut, but her pace never waivers. I stop and whistle for Lucky as she has gotten just a little far from me. I yell "here Lucky...". She stops dead in her tracks and rounds toward me and starts sauntering back at a diminished pace. Candy takes two paces from behind me to in front, sits and looks up at me as if to say, "I'm here!!".
The shoreline is rocky and glistening in the sunlight. Sea shells lay open and exposed, drying in the warming sun. The waves ooze to shore in a solemn chant as they have for millions of years. The gulls chant and bicker for the scant remains of food on the cliffs as the daisies wisp in the breeze above. With the mellowing scents and the symphony of the ocean, and the joy of two creatures, who truly love unconditionally and risk free by my side, the bad can only fade.
