Small moments

It was cold, wet, foggy, and rainy this past weekend in the middle of August in Fort Collins, Colorado. The high was 53 degrees Fahrenheit. In August! We were all happy it cooled off from the upper 90's of July but this...this was a little extreme on the cold front.

Nonetheless, early on Sunday morning, I woke up and decided our husky black lab Mexican wolf mixed dog named Zorro, deserved a long and tiring walk. He hadn't been getting as much exercise as a dog of his stature should be. Of course, the weather was not making this easy and neither was the fact that I had been a bit lazy on the walking front.

I loved how it was so quiet and that no one seemed to be out at 6:30 am on a Sunday. It was as if I had this strange fall-feeling-summer-looking town all to myself. We walked the 8 blocks or so to the neighborhood dog park and found no dogs nor humans there.

The dog park is nice because there is a track that surrounds the whole of it. I began my first lap as Zorro promptly made 3 large poos all in a row. I think he was very excited to have the dog park all to himself!

I was lost in thought about that whole difference between being alone and being lonely. I was enjoying being alone so much, as if I hadn't been alone in a very long time. Come to think of it, it HAD been a very long time. Summer had been busy with kids' activities. I felt like for the first time in a long time, my quiet time outside with the dog was finally my own time.

Of course, a lady showed up with 2 dogs on the opposite side of the dog park. I was feeling unjustifiably interrupted, as if someone walked in on me in my backyard dancing around and singing at the top of my lungs. But Zorro quickly hurried off to greet her dogs and smell their bums, obviously not feeling intruded upon.

As I caught up to the lady and the dogs, she told me how beautiful Zorro was. (He is in fact, a beautiful dog!) I heard and understood her, but realized that it was difficult to do so. I wasn't sure why this was at first but then as she and I continued walking the track together, as if we were old friends, I understood.

She was a plump lady, probably in her early 40's. She had short brown-ish hair streaked with gray. She wore glasses and sweat pants. She had a kind face and gentle eyes. She talked about getting her 4 and 7 year old dogs at the humane society and how often people don't want older dogs but she felt blessed to have these 2 great companions. We talked about Zorro and how we had had him as a 7 week old pup. She couldn't pronounce the 'Z' in his name. And when she told me one of her dogs names, I couldn't understand her. I thought she said "Thathie". She didn't seem embarrassed or shamed at having to tell me 2 more times before I realized her name was Sadie.

When she turned her head and wasn't looking at me, I asked her what she thought of all the rain we'd been having. She didn't answer.

A moment later she smiled kindly and told me it was really nice chatting and that she had to go. She called her dogs and off they went.

After she left, we had the park to ourselves again but it felt a little different this time. I ended up not feeling intruded upon at all, and indeed felt like I'd had one of those short but meaningful interactions. I talked to this woman for maybe 5 minutes but I was touched by what a sincerely nice person she was. She made my quiet time on a Sunday morning even more enjoyable, more relaxing, and more lovely just because of what kind of person she was, just because she was one of those people who is easy to be with. Who cared what her hair looked like or what she did for a living, or even if she could hear well. She was a real person who brought real joy with her to that dog park.