Doggy Love 2 (May 2018): "New Friends"

 Almost six months ago I wrote about my little madness of adopting an adult pit bull, living in a small apartment. My daughter's father said to me lapidary as he visited us, "Welcome to slavery" and predicted that it would not last more than a week. My mother was concerned about more practical matters, according to her perspective, such as what would I do with the dog to travel with an hypothetical future suitor. I wrote at the time that my canine companion had forced me to enjoy wonderful moments of solitude and nature during our frequent walks, in addition to facilitating contact with my neighbors; but as with all magical loves, I find it interesting to tell what happened after the initial infatuation.

 After eating four pairs of shoes and four TV controls, I think our ear sharpened enough to detect any suspicious noise from his immense moving jaws so we could save shoes out of his safe place. Aegon did not eat the sofas and when we are with him, he fills us with his constant desire to live, play and love. When I am not home, he just sleeps peacefully.

His presence and constant walks opened the door to other unexpected encounters. Every morning at the same time we coincided with a friendly senior gentleman with a walker. Gradually we went from the polite  "Good morning"  to sharing a short talk every morning, I see so many wonderful people immersed in the maelstrom of repetitive activities to survive or prisoners in the narrow individual cells of their lives, who do not realize the importance of being able to establish true contact with another human being. Perhaps we both had the time, the sensitivity of the soul and curiosity, to allow ourselves to simply be curious about the presence of others. My morning friend is a famous trumpet player, who was a music professor and directed great musical bands for important entertainment figures. Being able to sit down for a while to talk about flowers, his music or our lives illuminates our souls with that brief human sharing. We are so tied to our minds, designed to analyze and survive, that we forget that it is all about the experience of transcendent consciousness, that just wants to feel, expand, create and share in this journey that we are giving ourselves.

My grey giant, in a world where I did not have my ways to connect with other people, took me out of the apartment to create new paths of encounter. Gradually the other doggy persons around me have been connecting, going from the introductory questions about our four-legged friends to our own lives. Now we have the dog park gang and we invite each other so we can match for our children to run, while we share fragments of our lives.

Tibaire Cristina Gonzalez