Beagle Therapy

Dear Goddamned Beagle,

I’m not gonna lie – it’s been a tough couple of weeks. More than a couple, really, and between the personal and the political goings-on, neither one of us has quite been ourselves. I mean, you haven’t even been going for my shoes lately.

It was time to get out of Dodge.

So we went to the ocean, where things are always better, and we walked on the beach, on the causeway, along the harbor.

We walked under the Beaver moon, huge and close and causing the tides to be so low we could walk across the bay, through the oyster farms, and then so high the water came up the marsh road and surrounded the low-lying houses, sudden little islands in the still, bright water reflecting the reds and golds of the leaves barely hanging on the trees.

You stole a fair number of roasted potatoes, Beagle, at your own peril – that expression, “hot potato” isn’t kidding, is it? Plus you actually do need to breathe, even when potatoes are in the room. Even when you’ve stolen a mouthful of them from a guest’s plate. Even when speed-swallowing them.

You almost caught that bunny we saw on the road, and if it wasn’t for that long line, well, I’m sure it would have been yours. Possibly somewhere two counties away, but yours for sure.

We stopped at the bakery, so actually-French that the weirdly pretentious pastries are endearing, and it turns out you have good taste in crusty baked goods. You’re even getting better at sharing, if we can define “sharing” as, “sitting and staring, barely avoiding ejecting an eyeball while concentrating intensely on the food thing without overly-crowding.”

We did some important research, catching up on back episodes of Catfish, and What’s My Line from the 50s. A bowling pin setter. A Rockette. A prize fighter manager. Those were jobs without email, or Facebook, with civility and signatures written in cursive.

Each day was more perfect than the next, bright and crisp and cool, a couple very windy, and it was only today as we were leaving that a hard rain started, ushering us home with a reminder that, like the leaves and the sun and that giant moon, nothing gold can stay.

I didn’t want to come back, but you reminded me that there’s a lesson there. A little unpacking, some hot coffee, some dinner in front of the fire. I get it now. Home is where the Beagz is.

Lesson noted.

Love,

Your Person