Life is Your Story

(Laurentians 2010) It's 1AM, I can't sleep and neither can my dog so I grab a headlight and we go out into the night. He leads me along a wooded path covered in memories of paw prints and explorations with dogs of past and present.  We are surrounded by giant pines and we can hear the whisper of everything that is alive and dancing through the forest. We find a spot unobstructed by trees where we can sit and take in the starry, country sky.  A deep, warm silhouette of colours and shapes waltz their way across the canvas and every now and then a star loses its grip and falls.  I feel a wave of emotion come over me. I wonder where stars learn to twinkle and why some fall while the others stay in place. I hold my dog close and kiss his head. I hold him never wanting to let go because my love for him is so great and our time together so brief. As we head back toward the house, he nudges my hand with his head, barks and gestures. Suddenly, we are startled by a  strobe of ...

My dog is brilliant and so is yours. Yeah they chase their tails and steal your socks and smell people's butts but they are still far more advanced than you and me in terms of their perception of time and life itself.  So I  was watching this series on Showtime called "The Big C" (actually quite good) and the main character decided to participate in a "make my life better" type weekend conference (led by the amazing Susan Sarandon). The metaphor/mission/message was delivered at the start of the weekend with participants receiving knapsacks that they had to fill with large rocks. They then had to wear the knapsacks on their backs over the course of the weekend until they were able to prove that they had let go of the past - stuff like regrets, broken relationships, money not well spent. I thought it was kind of cliche until that very night I caught myself doing the usual staring at the ceiling obsessing about the past - break ups, losses, failure...