Goddess and I stand on Shirley’s sad little holy dock feeling the heavy moisture that is suspended in the air. The lighthouse is muted across the marsh and the gray sky makes it appear as though a set in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. The sweat from the run that I just finished is making me cold so I grab the leash and pull but Goddess is content and doesn’t want to leave.
Steam is surrounding my head which is still red from the three mile sprint. My bare legs are warm enough for the moment but will soon turn cold. I tell Goddess to come on but she stands defiant and stares at me. I sigh.
Then I sit down on the wet cold dock and the back of my legs sting. Goddess sits down beside me wearing her fur coat. I call her a bitch. She happily licks my face.
Egrets and marsh hens are below us in the mud of low tide. The marsh grass has the last hint of golden to it but will soon turn brown and die. When it does the tides will carry it out to sea and eventually wash it upon the beach. The marsh itself will have been cleansed of the old making way for the birth of a new which will come in the spring.
A white egret flies behind us and Goddess runs down the dock after her. I take this as my cue and jump up and quickly catch up grabbing her lease and walking towards home. She spies the empty Gator-aid bottle in my hand and I give it to her. She carries it in her mouth.
People love to see her do this. I finish the Gator-aid after my run and just hand her the bottle. She leaps to take it out of my hand and if people see it they laugh and point and speak. Goddess has a huge fan club.
Back home I turn on the hot water of the outdoor shower. The temperature is 37 degrees but the house blocks the wind and the water is hot. I’m addicted to the outdoor shower and opt to use it most of the time. There’s something quite spectacular about standing there outside, one with nature, as yourself.
It strikes me that most people never do this and I feel sad because they don’t know what they’re missing.
Then it strikes me that most people would think I’m crazy to take an outdoor shower when it is 37 degrees. Well, I tell myself, it won’t be the first time that I’ve been called crazy.
Goddess waits for me on the porch as I grab the towel and quickly make my way into the warmth of the house. She follows me still carrying the Gator-aid bottle. While I dress she holds it between her paws and bites the top off then licks out what is left.
As I watch her my thoughts drift to a Board Chair who chose to remain anonymous. I’d had a flat tire and changed it in my driveway. It was one of those mornings when everything was just going wrong. As I worked, Goddess kept licking my face as though offering encouragement and love. I wrote about it and Jerry Rainey took offence.
“You wrote about a dog licking your face,” he said.
“Yep,” I replied. “Love is love.”
“You shouldn’t be saying that kind of stuff,” he admonished.
I look at Goddess who is lying on the beloved back deck licking green Gator-aid out of the bottle. I ponder all of the love that she has given me through the hardest of times. I love this dog.
Then I think about my friend Joe Daniel, also a former Chairman of the Board that I worked for. We had a long talk on the phone last night and we laughed and cussed and made plans to get together soon. With Joe we built a shelter for men, a shelter for families with children and a shelter for people living with HUV+/AIDS in a three year period of time.
We shared vision. We also shared jokes. He once brought Dianne Fuller and me the resume of someone he wanted us to consider hiring. He kept telling us she had great assets. We opened the file folder and it was a Playboy Centerfold. It’s hard not to love Joe.
Like it’s hard not to love Goddess.
And I don’t care what anybody thinks about it.
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