Spring Cleaning

Yesterday’s weather carried over from the night before, bathing the morning in fog. A light, steady rain washed away the last remnants of winter. The few stubborn patches of snow that clung to the shaded spots the sun couldn’t quite reach finally yielded to the warm air. Spring had arrived. A few glances from his leash, to the door, and back to his leash told me Hubert felt it too. I threw on my worst boots and oldest jacket, and we made the short drive to his favorite trail.

As we walked, the only sounds were from the raindrops on the trees, my footsteps in the mud, and the slow and steady panting of a happy dog. The woods are eerily quiet when its inhabitants aren’t making their usual white noise. When I was a kid, I always struggled to imagine where they all went when it rained. As an adult, I still do. But the silence makes for good thinking, so we ambled along while I spring-cleaned the thoughts that had piled up in my mind. Making note of the useful ones, tossing the rest¹ .

At the half-way point we came up to a pond, and I stopped to give Hubert a drink. I filled his bowl and stared out across the water while he lapped thankfully (and loudly) beside me. The mist had begun to lift and had settled at the tops of the trees. It made me wonder what the difference was between having your head in the clouds and being in a brain fog. After some thought, I decided it depended on how high or low you felt at the time.

The walk back was equally uneventful. Hubert led the way, playing connect-the-dots with puddles, and sniffing out skunk cabbage blossoms. His over-sized ears dragged alongside him collecting mud as he trotted from spot to spot. I tried not to let it bother me, and went back to focusing on the words to a Shel Silverstein poem I couldn’t fully recall.

Eventually, the trail dropped us off right where we had picked it up. Mind clear, and suddenly aware of how soaked we were, we piled back into the truck. On the way home I stopped for a coffee. Hubert got a donut.

Today was much sunnier.

¹ Steven Wright explains this more simply and elegantly than I ever could