The perfect setting for a dog is an arroyo. It's almost as perfect for the dog's owner because the arroyo contains the dog and keeps it visible.
My little sweetheart and I were walking an arroyo the other day when we stumbled upon a gravel peninsula that jutted out into the bend of the arroyo. It was perfectly flat and weed-free. Someone had built an elaborate stone fireplace there. Small trees blocked out the world from this little spot.
I was almost laughing at myself. There was nothing spectacular or grand about this little spot. But my heart skipped a beat. Then I started fluttering my eyelashes.
If somebody has been in a certain racket for years and years, and can be affected like this, they must be doing something right.
You might think that one would resent somebody else's earlier discovery of this special spot. But instead, I tried to visualize them in a tangible way: they likely had children or dogs.
This experience is probably something that happens to many people in one form or other. There is something semi-universal in people's romantic yearnings for a hidden paradise. You see it in various movies and books. (Shangri-La, the Garden of Eden, the 1890s in America, Europe prior to 1914, the perfect retirement town, etc.)
The universality might be connected with children's memories of visiting their grandparents' home, where everything seemed out of date, that is, where time had passed them by. A person can spend a lot of money traveling and not really relax into the paradise of Granny's house as they remember it.
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| from pinterest.com |
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