Q: Name one benefit to a dog with a 13 year old bladder?
A: the Milky Way.
Age is fast catching up with Mac; lately he's having difficulty making it through the night without needing a trip outside. If I'm lucky, he wakes me up for door service. If I'm unlucky... well, let's just say brick and tile floors have significant benefits in the ease-of-clean-up department.
Last night he woke me around 3 a.m. I got him safely into the potty yard - canine cognitive dysfunction means sometimes he gets lost - and soaked in the stillness. No vehicle noise, not even the miles-away interstate. No dogs, no roosters, no coyotes, no breeze. Nothing. Totally silent. I looked up. In my head I heard Carl Sagan saying "billions and billions" - it was hovering around 30 degrees and I was in my jammies, but oh my... "it's full of stars." The new moon means there's no extraneous light; the silent hulk of mountains to the west was the only line defining the horizon.
Years ago, my friend Whitney and I talked about soul-scapes. She would curl up and die without the ocean, and so she lives in a coastal city. She loves the desert, but doesn't need it the way I do. I love the ocean - the smell, the sound, the way the salt sticks to my legs, the way it tastes... but I don't need it. We visit each other and treasure the landscapes, but each of us is happiest at home.
I am so lucky to live here, the one place on earth that completely fills me with peace and beauty. Mac neither sees nor remembers the night sky, so I treasure the rising winter constellations and the bright band of the universe itself for both of us.
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