Scents of Life

With palms together,

Good Morning All,

This morning the sky is cloudy. The grass was wet as I walked the dogs. There was moisture in the air. All of these are fresh and common to my senses. Gray, the seeming dampening of color, is soundless, mute stillness hiding the sun's rise across the sky.

I enjoy such mornings. This morning I went outside with small plastic bags and the dog's brushes. I brushed each of them in their turn. Then picked up all the dog waste in the area. I noticed the scent of the water in the dirt and on the grasses and shrubs. Earth. I noticed the feel of the dog's hair as it came off in their brushes. Doing these little jobs keeps us in touch with life. It is one of the things I miss somewhat about life in the forest. Life surrounded us there. Racoons, bobcats, skunks, deer, elk, coyotes, cattle: each with their habits and scents. There, when the dogs went out, they were on a mission to secure the property boundaries. They had work to do.

I would split the day's wood for the cookstove, check the water levels in the tanks, feed the horses and alpacas, and enjoy the wind as it moved through the pines. If nature called, there was no need to do anything but follow the call right there.

Here, there are apartments stacked nicely into geometric patterns. Each trimmed and painted. Toilets wash away the residue of our human processes in a sanitary flash. No scents of life, rather the scent of cleansers and soap permeate the air. The work we do is more the work of withered flowers than of human beings. We sit around, pale reminders of what we were. Still we keep at it.

Now, neither are good or bad. Life's processes are just what they are regardless of where and when. There is a purpose in youth. A purpose in age. A purpose in the mountains. A purpose in the city. It is our life's work to discover them.

Be well.