Early Morning Walks and Thoughts

OK, earlier than usual morning walk...
Thoughts are another thing. I am finding lately that I don't even dream in my sleep anymore - I think in my sleep. (?)
No rest for the wicked, you are thinking?

Anyway, I have decided months ago that I will go for a walk earlier in the day. Let's say upon rising...
I began training myself setting the alarm earlier than usual for me to get up and have a set routine.
Walk down to the beach and all the way to the end of East beach, take the shuttle up the cliff, shower , breakfast, writing, emails, other business, meetings, "current gig", another gig while conducting ongoing anthropological studies (in more mundane words TV viewing/listening) and so on... (absolutely no time for chores - how wonderful is that!)
Great plan. Except it has not quiet worked thus far.

Today was the day. It was to serve double duty. As I cannot (or will not) multitask anymore, the best way to gather/focus my thoughts in a subject is during a walk.

As I was expressing my concerns and giving my opinion to the Aid of a "Seriously Big Guy" last Friday - feeling the need to clonclude our conversation - I suggested that perhaps a consultant and some research could yield some rather dramatic and timely results, etc., etc..
To my surprise, I was asked to present a proposal myself ... and, giving the importance and possible enormous consequences, not only to myself but to many, I need to really give it a good thinking before putting pen to paper...

I failed miserably at it. Not one thought on the matter.
I kept on being distracted by the mammoth houses going up everywhere and the continuos loss of our luscious vegetation.
What is going to hold up aaaaall this concrete a few years down the road? I'm asking myself the same question each time I change my route going down the hill. Hmmm...
Ooops! Another human (suffering) interest story of luxury homes sliding down yet another hill? Hmmm?!
All that loss. .. All the lamentations resulting from human greed/inadequacy.
How could have we prevented that? The question will be repeated again and again. And again.
Perhaps the same way we could have planned not building in a swamp... again...
Or keep on allowing "cardboard" construction in hurricane and tornado alleys as well as earthquake zones?
Gee... I wonder if steel and bricks will be ever take hold in residential construction?
Hmmm... well, maybe not as long as we have aaaall these trees left to harvest!
Who needs them anyway?

The sun is shining. Given that we have rain forecasted for almost all week, I am not surprised a bit that in our little corner of the world, somehow we manage to have this glorious weather on a consistent basis.
I notice there are many people down at the promenade.
These people are different that the "later in the day" people.
These people are totally task oriented. No eye contact, no smile, no hello, no acknowledgment of anything other that their own existence (OK, I am assuming).
I am genuinely surprised. So unlike White Rockians!
I can see a mass of bobbing dark figures moving in both directions. (It could make a good scene for a sci-fi film.)

The fog is out there in the middle of the bay. Thick.
Clouds hang over it to the South, East and West creating this unending wall.
Washington has faded into it, along with the San Juan, Gulf and Vancouver Islands. Can't see Point Roberts either at the Western tip of Boundary Bay. It has a definite elegance and at the same time an eerie as well as an aloof beauty to it.
There is a feeling of loss, of unpredicted solitude. Of deep mystery? Of heightened awareness?
Yet, indifference can be smelled in the air along with the salt - the bobbing bodies just passing through.
I am observing the "would be observers". Absent!
The tide is in and soft.
A couple of huge cranes are perched on individual rocks half submerged in the water. They like that - I'm concluding lately. Are they going to stay around?
A lone mallard!?
A dozen or so Canada Geese, that I suspect have decided to winter with us - having stayed behind the large migrating flock that left sometime in the middle of last week.
I can see some dark silhouettes flying in close formation - barely above the water. I can also hear the whistling of their wings.

Fog has an ability to obliterate that which not immediate.
It is soooo obvious people are soooo into themselves - distant. Walking like automatons with all there is to see at this moment - all of it reduced to a few hundred yards of life.
Sand, rocks, flora, fauna, blue skies above us - sunshine, others, and so much more!

I count two babies. One of the moms is sketching near the pier.
Three people in total make eye contact and exchange smiles and hellos.
I am at the end of East Beach now and the tide has began its way out. Tidal pools are forming. Shimmering, lightly ondulating, lulling surface...

As I get myself up to the road to catch the life saving shuttle up the cliff, I notice these huge black eyes, lovingly looking at me.
There is eye contact. Steady eye contact. No wavering.
However, it is not a stark stare, it is soft and warm in its persistence...
My heart melts and I can't help but smile back.
As I stand at the stop, he hardly takes his eyes of me.
I can't get over it. I keep on smiling back, holding eye contact.
He knows that "I know".

Hmmmm, I didn't know that The Ocean Promenade Hotel was dog friendly and their sidewalk cafe busy this time of day... I shall take note of this.
I am getting really curios. He looks like a white Labrador. There are no white Labradors. A Dalmatian comes to sit at another table. Maybe he is a Dalmatian with no spots!?

He still looking at me with his loving black eyes. I am still smiling.
Finally, I break down and cross the street and ask to interact with him.
His young and beautiful "mother" as well as others, are surprised as to how he greets me. Needless to say we got down to smooching right away - apparently, behavior reserved only for family members.
I am in heaven.
She suggests "we" must have met in another life. Absolutely - I think...
She noticed how focused he was but could not guess what he was looking at (had another dog in mind).
Ohhhhhhh... Love at first sight. It happens!

Her five months old baby Skyla was one of the most beautiful baby girl/child I had seen for quiet a while... (and I know a number of great looking lads! Hmmm... No lassies - only intelligent, handsome, adorable boys and young men - how nice is that?) The smiling eyes and lips on the face of that precious little bundle - as she heard her name - was enough to melt my heart all over again.

Almost missed the shuttle! (Mad dash after it)
This morning, not unlike any other times I go for a walk, especially down to the beach, I feel grateful to be alive and for the location I live in. For our benevolent climate, and our breathtaking view as I can never tire of it.
That view that I find myself checking regularly during my waking hours at home or about the peninsula.
I suppose I must be in constant prayer because I have come to instinctively mutter: Thank you God, each time I catch a glimpse of a new little corner, or vista, or changing colour in the sky, clouds or waater. Every single glance brings something new, spectacular and immensely pleasing into view!

And the sun is still shining, higher, it feels waaarm and it is cozy...

As I was about to enter the building it came to mind that I should remember how alive, content, grateful and blessed I felt this "early morning" the next time I am asking myself in pity: and now, what did I do to deserve this?
Because inevitably I would also have to ask: what did I do to deserve this gift?

©2005

PS: "He" is a 1 1/2 year old Wheaton Terrier/White Standard Poodle cross (hair kept really short) named "Clue". Ahh-ha!

Love and blessings to one and all!
mischiefstruck

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