Dog Heaven
The blog has been quiet, I have been recharging in the following ways:
- A rest week after some of the most intense gym work of my life (I have blown away every PB I ever had), It’s scary and thrilling to push your limits with immense amounts of weight, a tad dangerous too.
- Recharging the mind with intense reading (what do I read? Well, This week its Ivan Turgenev & Norman Mailer, and some exceptional Japanese comic novels)
- Recharging with writing, I have been furiously productive recently, but it’s all stuff that does not quite fit here.
- Recharging my bank account with lots of hours at my new job. It’s satisfying in a mindless worker ant kind of way (an ant that carries XML in its jaws, but an ant nonetheless). I miss training full time, it felt somehow more vulnerable & ferociously alive.
- Recharging the soul, with long walks with Lilly. When you get a cramp in your muscles, people talk about “walking it off”. Well, if one’s soul gets a cramp, you can “walk it off” in nature very effectively. Trust me, it works.
Today Lilly and I “walked it off” on the mud flats surrounding the great Salt Lake. Even on Memorial Day weekend, we had it completely to ourselves.
Click on the pics for a bigger view.
Despite the absolutely stunning beauty; It’s a foul, muddy, semi-disgusting place, covered in rotting fish, dismembered bird skeletons, and random garbage, like this chair waay out on the flats. It’s total Dog Heaven, and cathartic for humans in its own way.
click on this image for a panoramic shot of lilly rolling in some sandy goo.
Frequently the Salt Lake smells like an ocean mixed with a landfill. Lilly spent most of her time rolling in the sand, splashing in scum, and nosing dead things, discovering one rotting wonderment after another with the joy of a child on Christmas morning. Her happiness lifted my own spirits.
Filed under: from home
Wonderful stuff! When can we talk? I’ll be in CO after June 20. When are you guys going there this summer?
Much love,
B
Glad to have you back
That chair picture is wonderful. It laso suggests some interesting possibilities for art - cool/weird things to build there, like the things Andy Goldsworthy (do a google image search on that!) builds.
i presume the flats flood from time to time - ah, the lake is big enough to have tides…? - and so the fish get stranded.
I admire you for selecting somewhere that makes your dog so happy.
-K
Picture should be titled Lilly contemplating Narnia.
kate-
even more horrible than stranded, there are mucky freshwater marshes & several canals that drain into the lake, and this carp probably lived in one of them, then ventured out into the lake, and was killed by the toxic salty water.. nothing can live in that lake but flies and sea monkeys.. (really, brine shrimp!).. I am not sure what kills the birds, but there are bands of thousands of dead bird skeletons…
mom,
actually, that is antelope island off in the distance lilly is gazing at, but I understand your sentiment..
it really feels like another planet, a stunningly beautiful planet, to my east coast-reared soul…
it would have a much better reputation if it did not smell worse than my brother’s old apartment
which one? well, take your pick!!!!
Oh, I cannot idlily sit here and take this abuse. Some of the worst smells I have ever smelled have been a result of you. How about the Bagel-with-soda-poured-on-it-under-the-passenger-seat lovliness? Or, for that matter, every car you have ever owned? Do I even need to mention some of your cooking adventures?? Kim Chee, rice, and Grape Jelly for gods sake. I’m not making this up people.
ah david, such memories we have of our early 20’s, your smelly apartments, and my trashed cars…
luckily, in our early 30’s (mid-30’s for me) we are now both well “civilized” ..
as for that purple rice & kim chee, yes, that was a special moment… but david, so was your rotting couch/chair you named “earl”
(you know it’s bad when furniture gets a name)
Is the man who lived with brie (yes folks, BRIE!) in the air vents of his car for years (YEARS!) really casting aspersions at his older brother? Let’s play fair, boys. Ya both stink