Complicating VS. Simplifying

Simplifying is what I'm all about just now. It's taken a sad turn, though, with the death of our 'last pet.' We knew we wouldn't get another pet when we lost her and we knew it was coming. In the past, we had 'overlap pets.' We initially got another dog for company for our first pound pup, Lucky. Lucky came to us in 1981, fully grown, probably a year or year-and-a-half old. That second dog was an Old English Sheep Dog. His name was Oscar. Some of our friends called him 'Damn Lucky.' Because he was adopted from the pound even though he was a pure bred dog. He wasn't 'show quality.' Anyway, Oscar just got eleven years of life and after his passing the younger Chalow was adopted from another family (they got her from the pound) and we found out she was born around the time of Oscar's death. Lucky got seventeen years (he always was Lucky!) and gave it up in 1997. Chalow carried the canine role around here admirably until last Monday. In this picture she basks in the morning sun while waiting for someone to come along at the front door. In the last few weeks, she was too deaf or weak to muster much response to the mailman and we were forced to listen for him or check on his arrival ourselves.

It will be simpler not owning a pet. But one spends the first five or six decades of one's life complicating things before we realize that simplifying is the order of the day. By then entropy is chasing us relentlessly. And we will never win. A full life, in some ways, is a complicated one, with other creatures to look after and trip over, with drawers and cabinets and closets full of things we've acquired, art we love on the walls, a place stamped with our personality. But after a while things press down on us and we have to look to more lightness.