maybe the way he leaps up immediately to greet me when i come home, and even though i have no food in hand he doesn't look -too- upset. or maybe the way he nuzzles up against me when i come back from a run despite the fact that i'm all grimy and sweaty. or maybe just the fact that when i'm feeling my lowest-- or maybe even my pensive best-- i can sit outside with him leaning against my hip as i stare up at the night sky and stroke his fur. he's really getting fuzzier now. well. that's good, right, since then he won't look like a goat anymore. :D
dogs are always there for you. actually i think dogs are maybe a bit like humans, too. we all need a little bit of touch, of contact, of warmth.
although he did abandon me when my parents walked back home with doggy treats and food bags. humphs.
grizzly old doggie. (= but i guess that's another way that dogs are like humans. they leave, alright, for better things. better people.
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this was a little bit of an email i wrote about one of the days overseas. hmms.
"This was during the first stop of my journey, at Hai Kou. That's "sea mouth" in eisenish. Basically throughout Haikou there runs three rivers-- I don't know all their names, but one is known as the "Mother River" because her waters have nourished and fed generations upon generations of Hai Kou daughters and sons for years on years (I am more or less transcribing what my grand-uncle said). You must have taken geography in Dunman, for Sec1 and 2 at least-- do you remember how rivers begin to meander as they reach the open sea? Well, these three rivers meander too; their waters are placid and calm, gentle ripples that bob the boats upon them with quiet wavelets that are more restful than, say, nauseating. And yet-- and yet-- if you were to stand on this tiny little islet-- little more than a strip of sand dividing the confluence of the three rivers from the South China Sea-- you would see this little miracle taking place. On the left, there would be the placid, nurturing waters of the three rivers. On the right, the storm-tossed, tempestuous and violent tantrums of the South China Sea, breaking again and again upon the shingled sand in white-foam-tipped fingers that reach and claw, hungry for victims. The undertow is so wicked that no one is allowed to step into the water.
I stood on that islet of sand and I saw the magic that nature creates, everyday. :D I guess that was a frolic, too, in a way. Hmms. I really hope my memory hasn't played me false and that I didn't write the above in your letter, because it all has a rather familiar ring to it."
suddenly i want to be right next to that sea again. or failing that, at least near a sea, with sand crinkling up under my toes and the warmth of the sun beating down on me. i want to feel the sea's winds-- from as far across the world as right behind me-- in my hair. it probably wouldn't hurt to have my dog with me :)
although knowing him he'd probably leave too. but the sea-- that would be enough. the sea, with all her wild tempestuous storms that answer to no man's hand. the sea, who is all-embracing, accepting, who can be harsh and unforgiving, who can be as gentle as a lover's caress-- and bear none of his infidelity-- who is governed by no laws save that of her own. who is full of soul and heart and emotion, but brooks little hurt that she cannot withstand, and goes on to obliterate even as her waves wipe clean the slates of sand on which we write our broken names.
oh well.
yay abby likes white oleander! :D AND YES SHE ADMITS THAT THE BOOK IS THREE MILLION TIMES BETTER THAN THE MOVIE. yay! :D another janet fitch convert. if only for the first book, at least.
which reminds me. i really ought to buy paint it black, anyway. even if the language is coarser and cruder than in white oleander, it is worth... remembering.
i flipped back through old blog posts and twitter entries today. and i realise-- six months since ishi, almost 2 years since jon. and i remembered a girl who pressed cold fingers against colder glass watching the rain that streaked the window like tears.
where is she now, i wonder? i don't see her-- often-- in the mirror anymore.
ah well. enough weird musing.
touch till you can taste all the time we are wasting