Maggie had both a very strong will and a very strong preference for sensual pleasure. She was very much a Taurus and very much a Hedonist. I could tell you she was the perfect dog, and that would be the absolute truth. I could tell you she was perfectly behaved, but that would be an outright lie. Once, in her salad (and a side of spaghetti) days, we were out playing ball in a Santa Fe city park. In her genes flowed enough retriever that she would generally bring the ball back to me consistently without much prodding. On this particular evening, I threw it long, and turned my back to check out something behind me. A minute later, I saw her running toward me with something bearing no resemblance to a dog ball in her mouth. It was triangular in shape, orange with yellow goo running off it. It was, most assuredly, a slice of pizza. “Maggie!” I shrieked. “Where did you get that?” I ran toward her to spot a young couple picnicking with a pizza box on the ground several yards behind her. And though they seemed much calmer than me, I approached with a degree of mortification, trying to appear contrite on a little brown dog’s behalf.“Oh my God, I am REALLY sorry,…” I said to the young woman. She just laughed and waved her hand dismissively.
“Oh, no worries at all--she’s welcome to it. She is sooooo cute! My dog is in Colorado and I miss her so much. I’m so happy to see her! Would she like some more?”
Thus, the effect those big jowls and worried little eyebrows could have…cheating women out of their dinners with nary a complaint. The rake. If she could have grinned and flashed a cape, I’m sure she would have. Zorro the Pizza Thief. Catch me if you can!
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It is hard for me to take in that her sometimes-bold, often low-key, always full-of-heart spirit no longer treads the earth, that a whole month has gone by and she has moved on, out to wherever perfect sweet spirits go to disseminate their love to beings who so need it. I could tell you that she was so very evolved that she may well have reincarnated as a human. But sometimes I think the State of Dog is a notch above that, so patient, giving, accepting, and unconditionally loving that humans are way outclassed.This afternoon I decided I needed to get out into nature—and what better way to say goodbye to her than to bring her spirit along with me for one last hike together?
Maggie was my constant hiking companion, and for a smaller dog, could go and go at high altitude without ever tiring. New Mexico is littered with hiking trails, and at one point in my life, we hit a trail practically every day. That was also the era in which I owned a red Mazda Miata sports car, and Maggie fit comfortably in the co-pilot’s seat, her soft, tawny ears flapping in the breeze as we drove up the mountainside with the top down. I was tempted to buy her a scarf and goggles for such occasions, as I know she could have pulled off the look with great panache. Instead she settled for a steady stream of drivers at lights, glancing over, spotting her, and bursting into huge grins at her utter cuteness.
Today I felt her happily jump into the passenger’s side of my Celica and take her place next to me, watching the traffic flying by, her mouth open, panting with excitement. This was gonna be THE BEST hike! As we pulled into the parking lot for the trailhead, she began turning around and stomping in her seat, ready to be let out right that second. When the door opened, she tore into the woods, then stopped beneath a particularly fragrant tree to roll and roll, until her body was coated in dirt and pine needles. The trail meandered beside a small creek, and Maggie would run a few feet to wet her paws and take a quick drink, then charge back and lead the way.
Me? I was lagging considerably behind. Walking slowly and lethargically. Schlepping, if you will. Why’d you bring that big thing on your back? she asked me. I don’t know, I said. I guess I thought I needed it. Heaviness. Weight. She flitted quickly past me and on to something far more appealing: a lizard darting through the brush. My thoughts turned to all the problems I had had this past week—arguments with friends, people who weren’t doing what I thought they should, humans whose actions I found stupid and insensitive, a panoply of anger, powerlessness, frustration, and disappointment. I became distracted to such a great extent that I completely lost track of the fact: I was in the woods on a glorious summer afternoon. I looked up and noted the greenery around me, watched a dragonfly flit by, saw some brilliant red leaves putting on a show in the bushes. And just ahead of me, Maggie, throwing her entire body into a deep, deep sniff of the base of an oak tree, every muscle in her body shaking, wide awake with the thrill of that penetrating scent.
We walked a bit further--her quickly, me sluggishly. The scenery here was uninspiring. A bunch of withered oaks and sycamores. Why wasn’t there more water flowing in the creek beds? The hills looked all yellow. What, was there a drought or something? Shit, I could’ve stayed in NM if I wanted to look at something dead like this… And damn, it’s hot—couldn’t they have routed this trail through some shade? Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts—I sure had a cornucopia of them. Meanwhile, Maggie was up ahead, where I could sense that a lot of Not Thinking was going on.
Suddenly, clods of earth began flying through the air in one long stream. As I approached, I could see her nose burrowing into a hole in the ground. “Maggie!” I reprimanded, having seen this behavior at least 1,000 times before and knowing where it would lead. “Stop it!” She emerged with her entire honker coated in dirt flecks, panting, and then began to dig in earnest. In New Mexico, land of a million prairie dogs, this behavior could have gone on for days. I tugged on her collar and forcibly removed her from the crime scene. Even so, she was grinning ear to ear, as if she’d just eaten steak tartare with a side of salmon. The trail wound on beside the mostly-dry creek bed, and finally I decided that I’d tolerated enough of this half-assed nature and deserved a reward: lunch. I looked up to see several cairns marking a flat alcove that also held the remnants of an old chimney. Cairns are little rock piles set up by the wee fairie folke, and generally imply that some sort of magickal something has happened on the spot. I figured it would probably be a good place to sit peacefully for a while. Now, Maggie may have been a huge fan of the sights and sounds native to the woods, but she also was quite attuned to the sight and sound of a deli wrapper being unraveled and the smell of a roast beef sandwich wafting through the air. I shared with her some of the lunchmeat and a few treats I’d brought along to supplement. She was now 100% convinced that this little forest was the single best place on the face of the Earth, bar none, and was panting and smiling and rolling her sausage body over and over in the dirt to prove it.
Even though I have utter contempt for people who bring electronic devices into the woods, I whipped out my Blackberry and decided that since an hour had passed, I was entitled to check my messages. But they were not really the messages I’d been hoping for, and left me with a sense of loneliness. My friends were out having better times than I was, hiking worthier trails, expending their time more wisely, doing things I could have been doing if I weren’t hanging out on this loser of a trail in a dried-up canyon that had seen its day, just like the rest of California. (And hey, BY THE WAY, what happened to the waterfalls mentioned in the guidebook, anyway??)
I fed Maggie the rest of my sandwich and she bolted back onto the trail, ready for the next adventure. We walked about 5 minutes and I realized I had a rock in my shoe that would turn into a blister if I didn’t slough off my big heavy pack and extricate it. Maggie had run ahead toward a short spur that led toward the water. I followed. As we walked further in, I sat down on a huge slab, laid down my pack and removed my shoe. As I was shaking loose the rock, I glanced up to see a beautiful little inlet with a large, heart-shaped rock at the center of it.
Even I had to admit that this was a rather impressive sight, even in the state of California—and in San Luis Obispo—can you believe it? What little nerd grind of a Cal Poly engineer allowed this to happen? A dash of mysticism here in the home of Disbelief and Rational Thought? Shocking! Surely they didn’t know it existed or they would have drilled it for oil or blood or something.
Maggie looked up at me. Why is your face all scrunched up and why are you talking to yourself out here in the middle of nowhere? Take a load off! And with that, she dove from the creek bank into the water, flipping and splashing and doggie-paddling around. And then I discarded my other shoe and plunged my toes in the water, too. It felt cold but not unbearable. Five beautiful monarch butterflies fluttered by in a blue and cloudless sky. Cattails on the banks nodded in the breeze. Just below me, someone had placed burgundy rose petals, as if in offering to the heart rock. Maggie paddled back and shook her wet head, drenching my torso. Each drop fell against my hot skin, cooling the burn of the noonday sun. Brimming with contentment, my dog then proceeded to plunk her thoroughly soaked, 40-pound body on top of my lap, leaning back into me with the full force of her sopping wet body. I put my arms around her and squeezed her against me like a sponge.
So this was joy.
