It has been a week for watching time pass. I had a blast racing the clock at the time trial. I’m taking a remote course this week that means I’m effectively living on Eastern Daylight Time (dang, 8:00 EDT is early). And my son graduated from high school a week ago and is launching himself into a grand new adventure. So, of course, I think about time.
I think about the eighteen years since I landed in Victoria, carrying this baby. I think about the time that has passed from this boy’s start in school. Now, he’s teaching me. He spent another evening at Hartland with me last night, helping me get my mojo back after a really tough series of crashes on Sunday. (“Dude, are you dead?!” –the mountain biker who rolled up behind me and wouldn’t leave until I demonstrated that my brakes and my brain were all still working).
I just about turned around within 100m of the car park last night, feeling stiff, battered, and frightened. But D cajoled me onward to a favourite learning spot of ours, the Kokanee Highway.
I can now pop a wheelie about 30% of the times I attempt one, and he ever so gradually led me back through learning steps until we were rollicking over rock gardens again. He gets so wonderfully excited when I do things well (“OMG, Mom, that was (pardon the language, ma’am) UNMOTHERF******BELIEVABLE!!!”) that it just makes me want to stretch more and more. Which is the very crux of a gifted teacher.
This morning, I took a different look at time and decided not to look at it all. I did this crazy thing and went for a run without a watch of any kind. Usually, I’m of the opinion that if there isn’t data, there wasn’t a workout, but something (probably Coach’s orders to run very slowly) compelled me to leave the Garmin behind. But I took the dog. I always take the dog.
Hamish is eight years old. He’s a flat-coated retriever, a dog whose Peter-Pan goofiness is actually written into the breed standard. When I take him to the park and tell people he’s eight, they usually reply, “…months?” Today, the dog who used to run Thetis Lake with me for three hours, probably covering at least eight times the distance I did (loop de loop de loop), started lagging about a kilometre from home. Thank goodness I didn’t have a watch. I wasn’t tempted to say, “hey, Dog, get your act together, I have to run for another four minutes and 37 seconds.” I just stopped. And we walked home. When he flumped down in the garden, I could see grey hairs on his chin.
So the eternal puppy is getting old and it’s making me sad. I don’t want to think about having to let him go sometime sooner than later. The last dog I had to put down, years ago now, just about did me in. The other puppy in that photo, the blonde one, is nagging her father and me for a young dog for each house. But she’ll be legally able to drive my car in a month and will be making her own way out of our worlds in a few short years. Letting go of children who are launching is turning out to be bittersweet. I’ll miss them, but this is a time for happiness as they grow and mature into their adult selves. But dogs? Dogs just leave. I don’t know if I can do this again.