The Perfect Morning

Took the Little White Dog with me this morning to take Little One to school. She (Little One, not dog) is in the midst of End-of-Year testing, which is very stressful for her. She frets and worries about it. We have been supportive by getting her to bed extra-early, keeping her physical activity up (relieves stress), and cooking high-protein breakfasts.

So after lots of hugs and kisses and finally watching her march up that long sidewalk to school, Little White Dog and I parked the car and took a walk on the town's Greenway. The stretch that we walk (not all the portions are connected yet; ours is about 2 miles long) has a variety of systems along it, including grassy fields, woods, swamp and bogs, and a good low wide creek.

LWD has some instinct hinting back to her forebears, but most of it seems to have been domesticated out of her. For example, she is so busy sniffing and wagging about racoon scat beside the trail, that she totally misses the brown rabbit running across the path 4 feet in front of us. As we progress, and she actually comes to the warm scent of the rabbit, she bounces around like the great hunter she is not, looking at me and saying, "A rabbit just went by! I'm sure of it!"

The blue was azure blue, as they say in the poem about the Mighty Casey, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Although I usually listen to the birds and bugs and sounds of nature, Tuesday is mowing day on the grassy fields I mentioned above, so I had the Ipod along. The songs lined themselves up in perfect form: Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," "I'll Fly Away," (this version from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack), Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone," and the Scherzo from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Who can beat a lineup like that??

When we got the creek, things got even better. This creek is about 25 to 30 feet wide, and the Greenway has a lovely covered bridge that arcs across it. This thing is SUBSTANTIAL. When you walk on it, your footsteps take on this lovely deep timbre because of the thick wood. LWD knows that when we reach the center of the bridge, I like to stand at the edge and watch the water for a while. My breathing slows as I watch the ripples, look for wildlife, notice the changes in foliage, and study the play of light on the water.

Today, the sun in the east was shining brilliantly on a large tree beside the creek. The leaves glowed as if lit from within. But I was not looking up at them -- I was looking at their reflection in the water. It was heavenly, and Joe Cocker sang through my head, "You Are So Beautiful to Me."

We walked the 2-mile stretch, twice, and came on home, to work on yet another project. That one deserves a blogcast of its own.