Just a beautiful day

It's December 23rd and this afternoon, after grocery shopping (spent way too much) and getting gas in the car (spent way too much money for what little gas I got), I came home to my dog looking bored and kinda sad. Well, you can't have a sad dog, especially at Christmas, so I said, "Sully, let's go." I didn't have to ask twice; he was practically in the car before I opened the door. Off we went to one of my favorite places - a small park in Carrollwood with a basketball court, tennis courts, and a children's playground (never seen any children playing there but I hope it gets used sometimes). What's cool about this park is if you walk up the mound, travel west along the jungle fronting a canal with nice homes on the other side, and continue walking through a small grove of trees, you come across a foot path following the canal north at the far back end of some other very nice homes (without backyard fences - must be some sort of deed restriction). I think this frontage piece of land belongs to the county; I know it doesn't belong to the owners of the very nice homes. So, anyway, Sully and I ran for a bit through the "plain" and then walked up another smaller mound to a tiny beach along the canal. Sometimes there are some really cool shells on this bitsy beach. Not today, though. I looked for the pelican that used to hang around with the cormorants, egrets and ducks, but he/she was not in sight. It's been awhile since I've traveled this way so maybe the lone pelican decided to go back to the Gulf and hang out with other pelicans. I hope so. It must be lonely to be the only one of your kind homesteading in a place pelicans don't normally go.

Just past this little beach is wilderness. Here, I take Sully off the leash and let him be a wild dog. Actually, he doesn't roam far. Unlike my other more adventurous dog Kodiak (who died last year), Sully stays close to me and always watches to make sure I don't wander too far from him. I love this little wilderness. You can't see the nice homes on the canal because of the massive vegetation, and sometimes, like this afternoon, you can't hear one vestige of human beings - no thundering rap bass, no airplanes, no barking dogs, no shrieking motorcycles, no loud Hemi pickup truck engines, no hollering children, no neighbor hacking up her nicotine-damaged lungs - nothing but quiet, except for a small chirp of an unseen bird. For five seconds today I had this absolute bliss of quiet amid nature. It was like fresh water to a badly dehydrated plant. I dream of the day when I can live like this always.

Sully and I walked through this wildness, him sniffing and trotting forward to roll in the wild grass. Then we followed a barely trod path by a pond abundant with cranes and egrets and ducks, stepping through high grasses and weeds, praying there were no snakes hidden in the overgrown masses. Finally, we were back on the clear path, Sully running ahead to sniff and check things out. The weather was perfect - sunny, not hot, not cold, with a slightly cool breeze. You just can't get any better weather than what we had today in Tampa. 

It was an absolutely beautiful day and the best Christmas gift. Thank you to the universe.