MountainMornings

I love having a vivid dream that wakes me up with an “Aha” moment, propelling me to either: book a dental cleaning; cut my hair; get a divorce; or say, start walking. Last night I dreamed I was dropped on a mountain with two Corgis and had to herd them downhill to a field. OK, there was more that included a rabbi and a priest but I won’t delve too deep into our collective unconscious. I’m pretty sure I know where this doggie dream came from.

The week before, I was making my usual excuse at a party for no longer taking a daily meditative walk – my dogs just can’t handle it. For years I would head out the door with two dogs and walk two miles across the little spit of peninsula we called home on the Jersey Shore. It was a perfectly flat, beautiful road appropriately named Buena Vista Avenue. I’d catch sight of egrets nesting in the trees, greet my fellow walkers and bikers, and generally feel as if I did something right, even if that’s all I managed to accomplish in a day. Stress melted away, like a Calgon commercial. My Welsh Corgis loved to walk – I remember a Vet telling me once that walking your dog was like taking a kid to the circus every day!

Now I’m almost two miles from a paved road, on a long, gravelly, mountainous driveway, with a 15 year old 100 pound dog (Buddha) who can’t walk well, or even get in the car anymore, and his two year old, little housemate (Miss Bean). Bean starts heaving and gagging as soon as I manage to corral her into the car; she has been car sick since the day we brought her home from the great no-kill shelter in town, Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA. She should have come with a warning, “Beware, cute but barfs in car.”

The constellation of events that triggered my dream include my recent excuse-making ploy, followed by my cousin Anita recounting her tragic hiking tour through Provence while I was tasting my first Absinthe (yes, it’s legal now), and then reading in June’s Real Simple magazine that three 40 minute walks a week can lead to a 2% growth in the Hippocampus. Yep, we can prevent brain shrinkage and presumably memory loss if we would only hike a little! I swear, it’s on page 12, “The Simple List.”

So, I’m off to buy hiking boots, and maybe a Taser, just in case I meet up with a bear on the way to the street. Tasers are legal, right?

The Driveway Beckons