Westward bound

Please send some soothing thoughts to our pooch today. By the time you read this, I'll be winging my way to the Arizona desert to help clear out the Endicott West Arts Retreat, which has closed its doors after many fine years. It's a bittersweet journey, sad but not tragic. All things have their seasons, after all. Endicott West was a blessing and a haven for many good folk, and now it's job is done.

I'll be returning home to Devon in only two weeks...but that's an eternity to our Tilly. Howard is with her, so she's not alone, but she finds it quite tough when either of us is away...and, I admit, I find it hard too, striding through the world without my little black shadow. I once loved to travel whole-heartedly, until Tilly came tumbling into our lives, and now....well, I still love to travel, but not with the same uncomplicated joy. Now I leave a part of myself behind, and that part is four-footed and covered in fur.

I'll miss human family members too, of course, but two weeks is a blink of an eye to us humans -- and words cross the ocean so easily these days, connecting us all in so many ways. But with animals, we speak in a language of gesture, touch, body warmth, and our calm, steady presence...all things we can't email or Skype or tweet. Yet it's a good reminder that words are not everything. Even for us writers.

Speaking of writing, I don't yet know how this blog will fare during my two weeks in Tucson. I might find it easy, perhaps even comforting, to keep up my morning blog routine, or I might find that the tasks awaiting me there will require my full concentration. I'm playing it all by ear, gentle Readers. The days ahead will unfold as they will.

The drawing above is by John D. Batten (1860-1932).