The East, part 6: A Walk in the Woods

A quiet family day.

First, we hit the dog park. It’s a property owned by the university, but generally used as a lace to let your dog run around with other dogs. See how the people relate to one another? So how the dogs relate to one another? The big black guy is a Golden Doodle – I thought he was a Grand Pyrenees (shows what I know). Except I don’t get why he’d be a “doodle” instead of a “roodle,” considering he’s a Retriever-Poodle, but who am I to interfere in evolution? Whatever his bloodlines, he was a gigantic, curly, good natured flop of a canine who looked like a guy in a dog suit and I really liked him. The big white one was the same, from a different breeder.

All were super dogs, and their owners were convivial. “He’s a mutt, actually,” the black dog’s owner explained when I asked about breeds and showing. “Like Obama said, he’s getting a dog for the White House – ‘A mutt,’ he said. ‘Like me.'” Which did not make me dislike Mr. O as a person.

One of the girls had an Aussie, but nothing like any of the Aussies I know; she had virtually no undercoat, so her coat was smooth and close to her body. And she was a color I’d never heard of, a red tri. Brady, her name was. And she was a real lover. So I learned many things at the dog park.

Note the row of houses in the background.

Racing bikes and racing dogs. Sully chose family over dogs and loved the run-run-running. He was fine until just before we left, when he first ran straight through a mud puddle, then visited a just-arrived dog who tried to kill him right there on the spot. Sully turned around, bolted for the car and dove into the brand new, perfectly clean front seat – the only door open for sanctuary.

Then Dr. K took us to this wonderful ancient cemetery (yes, I know, Chaz – graves dated in the early 1800s do not constitute “ancient.” This place was so amazingly just like our New York neighborhood, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to take it home. Or live there. But not as a dead person. The grounds just felt so much like home. Different than Wales. But just as out of reach right now.

Stacked stone walls. It’s New England, where the fields yield far more stones than crops. So the settlers started by gathering the stones and building their borders up, one stone fitted tightly against the others. This particular wall is really odd – instead of saving the flat stuff for the top, these people used big fat rocks to punctuate the top of the walls. I kept thinking – but what if kids climb on this thing, and those big, unstable boulders get pulled off balance and . . .

Leaves on asphalt

Frazz on tree root

Balancing, as we all try so hard to do.

And he’s off

When worlds of wormwood leafmeal lie —

moss on roots.

Gorgeous daughter and the G

There are just paths in the woods that beg to be followed, eddies of evident order in the constant press of entropy. You gotta grab them while you can. The only thing is, do they lead anywhere you want to be?

Here is a deep hollow, with the Pawtucket River behind. The squidy roots of a couple of those trees really knocked me out. Sleepy Hollow and all. The open wood is romantic and easy to walk through – but at night?

G and Dr. K

The Frazz, exploring a granite stairs

. . . to find this rustic pavilion. This could have come from our neck of the woods, or any neck of the woods. See? The woods is part of our primal selves. It takes our secondary or tertiary selves to make something like them out of them.