Walking with J's Gracie

while my friend heals heals me.

Gracie is all senses -- she marks and sniffs and watches, swims and shakes and admires.

Gracie likes me and trusts me -- she waits at the door for my arrival and jumps on me eagerly, she looks at me while she walks, she holds no anger, and she doesn't sense mine.

Gracie is kind -- she pauses when I have to go downhill on the wet stepping stones more slowly than she and when I have to stop to retie a shoe lace. She even lets me take an occasional cell phone snap.

Gracie likes the lake and Abbo's Alley as much as I do -- the goats and chickens, the ducks and water, the paths and views, shadows and light, the greenhouses and their magic, the creek and bridges, the crocus and fallen trees with their fungus.

We walk each morning at 9, and for an hour or more I think only of Gracie and the pleasure of walking with her.

I am grateful for her company.