Back to Narnia

As the months continue I discover more and more ways my puppy is improving my health.  First, the obvious--she requires multiple walks every day.  Second, Uncle Grumpy and I challenge our balance and flexibility as we sit on the floor--then rise back up to standing--to play with her.  When she demanded more exercise we began taking her to the riding ring to catch sticks and chase balls.  Being a people-focused pup, she expected us to join in the fun so now we all retrieve sticks and chase balls, which has dramatically increased our steps per day.  Based on the slower-than-usual morning traffic in front of our property I have a feeling that the commuters are enjoying the frivolity taking place as they watch the spectacle each day.

However, she will calm down and let me sip my 2nd cup of coffee, write and read if she is hanging out on our patio.  Since she loves to squirrel away acorns and rocks in her puppy mouth I've taken to sweeping her favorite area before she settles in.  This has spread to tidying the rest of the mini b-ball court turned patio, which now serves as our hang-out spot.

While I sweep around the legs of the furniture and in-between my pots and plants I imagine that my leaf-stained and pitted concrete slab is really fine slate, fitted together like a perfectly-assembled puzzle.  I've also been taking mental trips to Great Britain and imagining that I'm the Queen's Patio Tender--maybe at Frogmore's thatched-roof summer house--and it's my job to maintain the area in pristine readiness, just in case one of the royals decides to sip tea en plein air.

Mental is the word.

To top off this lunacy I've started raking the mossy areas that border my humble patio, even though Uncle Grumpy will eventually blast the debris away with his powerful leaf blower.  In the morning the sunlit moss transports me to another place and time, this one actually part of my past.

It's May 1973 and I'm hiking with a couple of school friends, exploring the Lake Huron shoreline near Cedar Campus in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  The moss underfoot compresses with each step we take and we're pretending that we're in Narnia.  Maybe Mr. Tumnus will surprise us by stepping out from that group of trees over there?

When I rake the small patch of moss around my suburban patio I go back to that memory.  The world was all fresh and new, relationships were deep and I was soaking up every sensation because the darkness that had resided in my head and heart all my life was steadily lifting away.  It had only been about a year since I had read the New Testament straight through and took the words there for my own.  A new life had just begun.

I'm pretty sure there will be some fine gardens in heaven; I can only dream of how beautiful they will be.

Malott Japanese Garden at Chicago Botanic Garden