Evening Dog Walks

One of the changes that happens when I am home alone is that I become responsible for all the walks with Poppy The Brave.

Our usual practice is to go for a walk every morning after I have read, prayed, and calisthenicized. She also usually gets an evening walk as well provided by one of Na Clann.  When there is no-one here, of course, this also falls to me.

In Summer it only makes sense to walk at night, both to protect puppy foot pads from hot concrete and for the somewhat vain hope that it will be somehow noticeably cooler (it never seems to be, no matter how much I hope).  Later is better from both a concrete cooling and "less people out walking" perspective, so often we will wait until 2100 or later to start.

By that time, most of the normal people living their lives have gone inside; only the occasional dog walker like myself is out, likely with the same ideas on dog feet and general temperature.  It certainly cuts any need to converse or even acknowledge to a minimum, just a general awareness to float to the other side of the street as needed to avoid unpredictable dog encounters (or, I suppose, unpredictable human encounters, or even the predictable ones).

Dark here is not like dark at The Ranch: the dark there is truly the dark of night when the moon is not up, with only the stars giving light.  Here it serves more as a backdrop to the pooled streetlamps and darkened houses with their windows lit.  The occasional car passes, a late night driver on their way somewhere effectively after hours, their identities and appearances reduced to blocky shapes, moving lights, and the whoosh of the air as they drive by.

As we walk and turn through the streets, the flicker of air conditioning units cycling off and on make a steady and predictable back beat to our footsteps.  Random sprinklers sound as we go by:  sometimes one can see and move around them, sometimes they are hidden in darkness and one can hear the sound but not see the outer spray until it strikes one in the foot - or face.  Motion sensor lights flash on as we pass, hyperactive sentinels that - in these early hours of darkness - probably attract the same amount of attention as a car alarm did when they had become so common that no-one acted when one sounded; by contrast porch and window lights occasionally meander on and off.  We are walking early enough that people are, on the whole, not ready to fully surrender to the softness of sleep.

On a good night, there will be a breeze which will blow the air around - even when it is hot, it offers some illusion of relief.  It also sets the trees to blowing and creaking, which makes a nice backdrop as the two of us pad our way through the suburbs.  How the squirrels and birds, who likely shelter in the same trees overnight, feel about the wind is never revealed; at least in the morning when they appear on the back porch, they simply will not speak of it.

There are no great mysteries to be worked out walking in the neighborhood at night:  the traffic is predictable, and only the evening hares and the wandering toads proclaim that life is continuing on.  If there are great discoveries to be made about the universe, they are not apparent in the faded stars or gentle underlying hum of power and life that passes us as we continue on.

In a way, I suppose, it is really reflective of the modern life:  each of us small self contained, sealed units, visible only to passers-by as flickering lights and the hum of power, pools of life which are visible but unconnected in the continuing darkness.