this thing here

I brought the dog to the park where she frolicked in the crisp air of winter. It was cold and she loved it cold. So did I actually, as long as it was winter I preferred it to the heat. At the park there were other dogs, and ducks on the icy creek waters, and a light fluffy mist from the lake effect settling on the branches, creating an other worldly sharpness to the scene. Then the clouds got thin but not enough to break in the mid morning sun when Faf and I headed to up the mountain trail. It is more of a wooded hill really not a mountain, but I think of the relative distance and the relief I feel when inside of them, surrounded of them. Years go by in either direction and I breath deep of the steep climb and relief of escape. When the snow makes a dust and stays lite and airy, the gray wash seeps the range and a sharp, utterly pristine air projects from each surface. Every dribbled line of bark and amber fall grass on each short ascent and rise sings like the summer. Silent and certain - as beautiful as youth.
Babe had some advice for me. "You're all surface" she said, "you've stopped getting deep into it." She wants the dirt I thought. I've got dirt but I imagine to protect Buttercup I'd stop talking because she's dying. I could make mistakes and those are easier to take if everyone lives and moves on and can assume their own responsibility though that is not what is happening here. I'm afraid to write because I feel the need for permission. I want a mentor or God or others to tell me with clarity and pure definitive certainty to speak my thoughts or not in this way. Silence, then Babe adds her two cents - she says tell it and don't hold back. I can't think of anything but Buttercup with the cancer eating her up and how I leave and how many of my friends fall away and are actually not friends. Big deal. Every time I think about telling you the story now my heart beats slower and time gets shaken up. The story is halted by the march of time and the fear that I am over the edge and a dirty lone wolf-type creature. This is how it gets written down only. What I have found is not something altruistic or profound but instead my fear is confirmed and love and cowardice. I had wished for something more, I think, analyzing and wasting time. At the same time that something more is delivered - Love in an abundant rush. Then the voice shatters and comes to present in tiny shock waves like broken glass or crystal or even something more, reverberating in the present state and I follow the ripples forward, mostly. This means I think, fairly soon, I'll be living forward. On listening, I hear the present. Stay tuned I tell myself. Stay tuned I tell you.