As I walked along I found myself thinking of love. I was thinking about how good it feels to love. I was thinking about how much I wanted to love and to feel loved. It was a bit of a walking meditation and I experienced love as I walked along.
I felt love for the leaves and the sky. I felt love for the path through the woods. I thought of all the people and places I loved until it filled me up. I was crying a bit, as I thought of how much I wanted to love and be loved.
I used to walk my dog in these woods when he was alive and healthy. I thought of him, as I always do when I walk there. My dog, Murray, was a particularly gentle dog. He befriended every being he met.
Occasionally this brought out insecurity in me. I would worry that I wasn’t special to him. Sometimes he would have very extravagant greetings for others and more subdued greetings for me. I’d feel taken for granted. It sounds silly, but that’s how I felt. As I continued walking, I wished I had a sense that he really loved me as much as I loved him.
I came to a cemetery near the end of my walk. It was almost Halloween, so my mind automatically started conjuring images of cartoon ghosts and spider webs around the cemetery. Then I looked at the blue skies and the trees surrounding the field of tombstones and a different view slid into place. I realized I was standing in a monument to love.
Every tombstone was a memorial to someone who was loved. I walked around looking at the fresh flowers and small statues left at the gravesites; the images carved in the tombstones; the prayers and the jokes and the declarations of who these loved ones had been. It was all love.
As I stood contemplating the love all around me, I heard a woman’s voice yell something that included the words “Don’t move.” I turned in time to see a large brown Labrador retriever barreling toward me. As he ran by me, he jumped up on my chest and aimed a kiss somewhere in the general direction of my face.
His momentum kept him going past me, but soon he returned and made another attempt at licking my face as he raced by. This went on for several minutes as the woman walked up and apologized for her son’s dog. I shrugged and said it was okay as I tried to protect my torso from the impact of his jumps and to turn my head so I didn’t get the full facial slurp.
When the woman and the dog walked away, I realized something about Murray. He too, had been very jumpy and slurpy when he was young. He was also perceptive.
It didn’t take much time of me turning away from jumps and big slurpy kisses for Murray to understand that I didn’t like that. He stopped kissing me on the face. He stopped jumping on me. He communicated his enthusiasm with barks and wags and smiles. He respected my boundaries. All along, he was showing me love in his quiet, gentle way.
I was recently walking in the woods on a glorious autumn day. The weather was warm. The sky was blue. The leaves on the trees were in various stages of turning from green to rust and gold. It was beautiful.