Living

He wandered the road every day.  He got a pleasant feeling of comfort from doing a routine, mundane, tolerable activity.  There was no expectation, no time frame, no deadlines, no commitment. If he didn’t do it that was fine too, but he did it because of all those things.  Because that’s what he did, that was his life.  He walked.

He sniffed the usual bushes, marked the regular spots, heard the consistent dogs, saw the everyday sights, tracked the ordinary smells….oh hang on…. that’s different.  Interesting.

One day he smelled the different again and he got excited, then without warning, a flash of fur dashed in front of him.  He gave chase, he had to know what it was.  It was quick but so was he.  He bounded over rubble, bushes, he darted down an embankment and leaped up again, giving air between his paws and the earth, oh what delight.  He chased it to a near tree then it went down a hole.  He stuck his head in and sniffed, sniffed and sniffed so hard. He could smell it, he could see it, but he couldn’t reach it.  He wiggled his head out and gave a big shaggy shake.  Released any dirt or creek bed mud from his fur and refreshed his intent.

Then something caught his eye.  It was a curious seagull. He gave chance once again but this thing could not only run but fly!  The bird kept a safe but teasing distance from him. They were playing, it was so much fun.  Over the tumble weed, down the sand hill, through the sea weed, into the laps of the ocean waves, oh the joy of the wind in his jowls.  The air filling his lungs, his nose dripping with the overload of smells of the sea.  The sand beneath his toes.  Sand….he must dig, lie, roll and frolic in the sand without delay.  Eventually the seagull tires and flies away and he himself wanders home.

What an amazing day.  That would have to be by far up in the top ten amazing days.  He dreamed about that day often, and day dreamed about it, when on his walk the different smell reminded him of a day so perfect it no longer felt real.

His routine, ordinary days continued for weeks, months, years even, until one day a horrible bunch of teenage kids started following him.  They taunted him and pretended to give chase multiple times. They said things like ‘what an ugly dog’ and ‘lets see if we can catch it’.  He didn’t like what they would do to him if they caught him.  One picked up a large rock and threw it at him and it clipped the top of his skull.  It hurt but he was too scared to stop.  He ambled with his tail between his legs, looking for a safe place to hide, but there was nowhere.  Then the boys began running toward him so he darted onto the road, he didn’t see the car coming, tires screeched and the boys laughed. The car didn’t stop but the kids gave up the chase.  He scurried home, with a significant limp in his hind leg where the car had clipped him.  Maimed, in excruciating pain and still in shock from the event of the day his people took him to the vet.  They left him there.

He doesn’t remember much from that moment on except for the horrible humans that dragged him around on a tether and locked him in a cage.  By the time he saw his people again he had this hideous thing around his neck which blurred his side vision slightly, made it very uncomfortable to sleep and impossible to lick…well you know what.  In addition, he had a completely rigid hind leg, which was now blue.  It was no longer in agony but it was uncomfortable and awkward to walk.  His people took him home.

He felt safe and contented at home and his people were kind.  They bought him treats, gave him pats and tended to his wound.  The days became different than before but routine none the less.  He dreamed of the day he chased the black fur and played with the seagull.  Eventually he recovered, the crazy collar cone thing was removed, his blue leg turned his fur colour again, it bent and worked like before and he resumed his walking routine.

Life’s like that.  Filled with pockets of amazing, rare and wonderful.  Those days make the ordinary and mundane bearable.  There are other dives of trauma, awful and heartbreak.  Those days make the ordinary and mundane, a gift.

Life is mostly ordinary and mundane, so with every one of those days, make them….

Happy days xx