I promised you I’d tell you about that blonde on my arm, Millie, my Golden Retriever puppy. Right now she is asleep on her bed in front of the wood stove on a chilly spring night. Asleep is not quite the word for it. Zonked. Crashed. As in totally tired, as only a busy puppy can be. Earlier in the day she had her first visit to the GUIDEPOSTS offices in Manhattan. How exciting meeting all those new people and new smells.
So this is where Daddy goes every day? Oh, look! This person has food in her desk drawer. Can I have some? Wait, let me run up and down the hallway to blow off a little steam. Hi there, you seem nice. Wanna pet me? Uh-oh, I think I had an accident….
Then it was into the Jeep for the three-hour ride to our weekend house in Western Massachusetts—Millie’s first visit there too, now that the weather was warming up. She was a little carsick and the look on her face when we finally parked in the driveway was like someone who had just gotten off a bad ride at Six Flags. As soon as she hit the ground, though, she was off like a shot, tearing down the hill out back right for the woods.
“Millie!” I yelled. Coyotes, bears, mountain lions. Skunks! “Millie!”
All the books say not to run after a puppy; they like being chased. Stay still and call them. I immediately ran after her.
“Millie!”
She made a sharp right turn into a neighbor’s yard and raced around to the back porch where she encountered a black Lab named Simon through the kitchen window. Simon came out and played and chased her for the next hour until they both dropped from exhaustion.
I gave Millie some extra treats with dinner and now, here she is, snoring gently by the stove, as oblivious to the world as can be, her big adventurous day at an end.
And all at once I want to freeze everything in time—this moment, this day, Millie’s breathing, this incredible feeling of peace and contentment that has swept over me. I want to grab that feeling and hold it so tight I will squeeze every drop of happiness from it and always remember what this moment feels like. I don’t want time to ever move again because I would be perfectly happy living in this moment forever.
Edward Grinnan is Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of GUIDEPOSTS Publications.
