An early morning with our dog

Conflicting seasons
London, ON
November 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The scene: Our driveway in suburban (other) London. It’s 4:46 a.m., and I’m out with the wonderdog because today’s a road trip day, and dogs don’t much care that adult-like stuff has to get done far away from home.

So I walk our little furry girl before my wife and I can finish loading the car, tuck the pup back in her bed with our homebound kids, and set off into the cold, windy darkness.

There’s a wrinkle in our plans, though: The season’s first blast of snow. It isn’t enough to book a ski day, but the car is covered with it, and I need to fetch the snow brush from the garage. But first, a photo.

Calli waits patiently at the other end of the leash as I quickly compose this seasonally transitional scene. I could complain about the chill and the misery, but I won’t, because it doesn’t change anything.

Whine or no whine, the temperature will still be below zero and the car will still be blanketed with the white stuff. Besides, that’s what seat and steering wheel heaters are for.

Within seconds, I’ve got what I want, a simple little vignette in the dim light of our driveway. I kiss the dog on her head for being such a good girl, then bring her in one last time.

Soon enough, my wife and I pull away into the blustery pre-dawn, the friendly light from our front porch slowly winking out in the rearview mirror.

The weather gets worse as we merge into the highway and accelerate into the featureless murk, the driving snow furiously painting the landscape ahead of us. I blink away the fatigue and focus on staying between the lines.

Silently, I count my blessings.

Because while this may not be a momentous moment by any stretch of the imagination, it is, to me, another step among many, another sliver of time to be remembered and tucked away.

When they read the story of us, it’ll be built out of moments like this. Something tells me the next few days will offer up a few more of them.

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