The Confluence of Sand and Water

I have long been a believer in the incredible ability dogs have to channel pure joy. Through their ways of moving, communing with people and other dogs and the landscape they are a force of bouncy, paw-flailing, tongue-lolling celebration. Today I got my dog back after she had been away for a few days staying with the people that own her mother. I took her to the beach. This is what that looked and sounded like:

I have been mired down of late. Arguably in a sea of sadness for many months now, and newly stressed by some imminent changes (mostly good) and a hard decision I am weighing. My brain has been on a bit of a negative track and I have let it go there, let it ride the rails into some dark little tunnels. But I was on this beautiful beach today with this crazy dog girl and her enthusiasm was so ebullient that perhaps for a moment I have been able to shift and let myself feel a little bit of her unbridled goofy happiness. She loves the confluence of sand and water as I do. Based on how she gets 'zoomy' and runs in crazy dog-circles when we get to the soft sand on the beach, I imagine that she loves the feel of the stuff on her paws. The way it flies up and hits her belly in little disintegrating clods as she runs. And it's clear that there is something wildly amusing to her about the way water tastes and feels when she snaps at it, stomps her paws in it and play bows to the ocean at large. Then runs wildly away from it and back again in haphazard zig zags, paws asunder. Salty or fresh, Jespah finds water thoroughly wonderful, especially when it is moving in some way, either as the current in a rain filled creek or the rhythm of waves as they hit and slide up a beach. I do too. I just am much more reserved about it. So much so these days that it leaves me wondering whether I have forgotten my love for it. The salty taste of joy temporarily lost.

What this little clip also shows me is the glee that J has as she comes towards me. I have no illusions about dogs, I see them as creatures of the moment and of convenience. I know there are some people that are simply more important, more 'loved' to a dog, the ones they know, who feed them, interact with them, smell familiar. My dog, as with many, thinks most people are kind of marvellous, though admittedly myself and a couple of others are of more prime importance, but not really for sentimental reasons. Just because we are the smells and voices and hands of her puppyhood. I can understand that am special to her, and her approach in this clip is part of a our coexistence...part of the way I have trained this dog who is of  a sometimes difficult to train breed, to love coming back to me. Clearly she is anticipating some sort of wonderfulness to come about when she gets to me. A game maybe, or perhaps it is just the love of speed and soft sand and the edge of the water coming together at my feet. We are a confluence. Of dog and human, joy and sadness and elation and confusion, paws flying, tongues lolling, eyes shining.