If we knew just how powerfully our thoughts,
words and actions affected the hearts
of those around us, we’d reach out
and join hands again and again.

~ Tara Brach ~
__________

This has been a year with so much loss, I can’t even count the friends, almost friends, idols, artists — people who mattered to me somehow — who have gone. Just as well for lockdown because I had simply stopped going to funerals. There were so many and that was before the pandemic.

And tonight I am sad because I am losing a friend and there is nothing I can do to keep her with us.

A finch meets a sparrow between the feeders.

I have done very little grieving because I have been afraid to let myself grieve and I’ll be better after a while, but there is so much grief. Knowing that so many of us are similarly grieving is not really as much comfort as one wishes. I remember when my mother passed and I was in Israel. I didn’t have the money for a plane ticket…

It is the final Saturday in February and the close of the longest month on the calendar. Yes, I know there are only twenty-eight days, but they pull double duty to outlast and outperform their competitors. Endless gray, gloomy, monotonous hours make it almost impossible to discern day from night and create a gaping hole of misery. This year forty-five inches of snow followed by ice and bitterly cold temperatures convinced me hell really had frozen over. I have a secret weapon. It helps me stand up, wake up, and face the next twenty-four hours. What would I do without my morning cup of Joe?

My black gold gives me courage, puts vim in my steps, stiffens my backbone, and lets me know I will persevere. My stalwart friend guided me to this point where we can applaud February’s backside and welcome March with her promise of spring in a…

With every passing second
It is getting clear
The purpose of my life and
The reason why I’m here
Nothing is more precious
Than this time with you
You’re the soil I stand on
You’re the sky so blue
I was born to love you

Just remember baby
To never let me go
You’re the air I’m breathing
You’re the God I know
Fill my lungs with life now
Fill my heart anew
Charge my barren veins with
A spark that I never knew
I was born to love you

This world may be empty
Meaningless and cold
Yet my life’s got a purpose
A meaning I do hold
No force can ever stop me
From feeling as I do
I was born for a purpose
And that goal is you
I was born to love you

Notes from a Small Dog, Four Legs on Two.
ISBN 9781910478271

This is my fourth Ani book by Sue Vincent, and definitely my favourite.
A combination of verse and prose, it captures a dog’s eye view of food, cheese, balls, snow, ownership and emotions, with the occasional entry from Sue herself.
This has 142 pages, 146 including the end credits and details of other publications.
The photographs match the chapters, especially Indignant Small Dog where the chosen picture is priceless above the first sentence
‘She hid the ball!’

I laughed out loud at that and kept that smile on my face until turning the light off.

We frolic with Ani in the snow, cheekily pilfer morsels from plates, plead with big brown eyes, and generally get our own way, even when we’ve been in the dog house.
We share long buried bones, commiserate when she’s forced to have a bath…

Image Credit: Purple Flowers https://www.facebook.com/133588706841665/posts/1692152337651953/