Happy New Year!
I hope.
Anyway, I welcome you to the New Year. Why not?

Fog.
Our morning walk began, appropriately enough, in heavy fog. No sun. Cold. Damp. A slight but persistent icy wind.

How appropriate, I thought. No sign of a sunrise. Not near here.
Sadie, however, seemed oblivious to the fog, the damp, the cold, the politics. Before our walk began, I told her we’d try walking without the shoulder harness but she’d have to do “Good Walking” with no Pulling. She’s strong and pulling hurts my back and knees but especially my ankles and arches. The harness helps prevent her from pulling, but doesn’t really eliminate it.

She did good walking.
And I noticed that, up close, she is still as beautiful as ever. No gold or red from the rising sun, but still beautiful.
Indeed, the fog shrouds what is distant, but up close? Bright signs of beauty still beckon. If we bother to look.

Looking more distantly–ominous, if not downright evil.

Even so, the lonely mourning dove coos on her thin wire perch.

Soon, the sun does begin to shine. Darkness, like cancer and greed, always eventually loses.

We cast a long shadow.

The bees still buzz their magic.

I look for patterns and they are there.

I look for color and it is there.

Thank you Sadie.

—————-
Tales from an American Childhood