3.22.16 Here we all are

Outside this morning, the sun is warm as delicious toast, on a small breeze no coat day. As I stand up on the hill behind the house, nestled up to the broad steep conservation field. 

Far off in the distance is Mt. Toby, then Mt. Tom, and the Leverett Peace Pagoda ,visible as a small white speck 15 miles away, anytime the snow does not obscure its glow.

By my side , the pup is dutifully digging up the middle of an old stump, happily pulling out chunks , and bouncing over to show me, as he feigns a right, then a left , and I laugh.

Out front, some utility truck is barely visibly behind the hill and line of trees , and down the road somewhere is a siren that goes on and on and on .

Dante each day is learning to accept these surroundings as his own . When Shiva was still alive, she was a small ferocious no holds barred alpha, and he has never been more than middle of the road . As in, 'Do I really have to go out in the darkness to pee, on very own?'

Each day I put him out, when the tenants are at work, in the bright sunlight and brisk winds , to learn how to make this his own . And so he sits, tentatively at first, all by himself . But slowly, it becomes what he does . To dig . Listen. Bark a bit. Learn to sniff the complex news from all the smells in the air. Be content out in his beautiful yard.

I sit, looking out to the beautiful outwaters far below , still visible until the explosion of greenery arrives. 

I glance over at the forest by the ravine , because when you live in the country, or somewhere where wild creatures have been squished by humans and out of necessity come forth into our lives, you look and look for what seems like forever .

Until every now and then , there's the adult coyote waiting just out back, red fur shining in the sunlight, while their grey adolescent plays and plays in the field.

Or the bear rumbles by, or the flock of turkeys comes to suspiciously inspect your home, peering in the windows carefully with their side eyes. 

Last week the herd of deer playing in the nearby forest was so ethereal, barely visible, due to the land's ,colors and theirs. And then to see them line up behind the enormous one, and politely and carefully cross the street? Sometimes these things become engraved upon who you are and what you've seen. 

The clouds overhead rush by and cover the sun, and it's cold . I consider going back inside , to continue some pre-Easter-kids-and-theirs visit with some nice gift of energy that arrived on the doorstep just as I woke.

But the sun bursts through again, or that's how it seems. And I sit and bask , not in the life I would have picked out from a Sears catalog, this rest rest quiet resting. 

But here each of us is, with the same glorious deal set before us, seeing what we choose to make of it.