Friday night after class I rushed home to have a wee bit of family time, settle the kids in bed, and walk the dog. My hope was to get to bed at a reasonable hour before my 6:30 morning alarm. I did indeed enjoy a bit of family time, I read a great Roald Dahl book to my son and, pleased with how the evening was progressing, I had only walking the dog left on my list. Yes, I was anticipating bed by 11:00.
A beautiful evening for a walk with Diesel. A mild temperature, no rain, and some down time to myself. On the homeward stretch I made the ill fated decision to give Diesel his freedom and unleash him two houses away from our house. Sadly, the moment I released him he flew down the back alley, after what, I did not know, but I hoped it was a cat and not a raccoon. Diesel cowardly slunk out of the yard he had trespassed into, shaking his head, as if trying to cast off an evil spell, but I soon realised he was trying to shake off an evil SMELL. That being the smell of very close range skunk spray.
My heart sunk, and I was furious with my own stupidity of taking him off leash, and angry that this domesticated animal of mine returned to his primal urges at the most inconvenient times, not that any time was a good time to be skunked. It was also gradually dawning on me that my goal of an early bed time was not to happen….
Still steaming, I entered the house and told Ron what had happened. He wished me good luck, then I returned outside with peroxide and some Skunk Odour Remover, that we fortunately happened to have on hand.
I set this up with some humour to smokescreen my frustration, anger, and a lot of feeling sorry for myself. It was to be a long evening…. and yet there was a gradual shift in my thinking. I hate this expression “ It is what it is.” but I needed to have some acceptance of what happened, deal with it, get over it and move on.
I started the first application of deodoriser, and Diesel settled in for the grooming, the washing and rinsing. I shifted my body to become more comfortable and instead of hovering over him, I sat beside him. With man’s best friend by my side, a mild evening and my backyard to myself, I spent the next two hours, focused on this cleansing, and truly all else was lost from my mind.
The stillness of the night had settled in. The anger dissipated and was replaced with a calm and a satisfaction of doing something so simple, yet gratifying. I had a sense of aliveness. I had surrendered to the event and cleared my emotions. In a sense, I was "going with the Flow". I was allowing for the space of that moment, the connectedness to my dog and to the beautiful evening. In some bizarre, satisfying way, this evening had become magical and grounding and invigorating. This was a gift - I was no longer the victim, but a person with intentionality.
The stillness of the night had settled in. The anger dissipated and was replaced with a calm and a satisfaction of doing something so simple, yet gratifying. I had a sense of aliveness. I had surrendered to the event and cleared my emotions. In a sense, I was "going with the Flow". I was allowing for the space of that moment, the connectedness to my dog and to the beautiful evening. In some bizarre, satisfying way, this evening had become magical and grounding and invigorating. This was a gift - I was no longer the victim, but a person with intentionality.
Three days later I am reminded of this as Diesel approaches me with his loving eyes and the ever so subtle smell of skunk that lingers.
This could be Vitality…..
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