Hurry, Hurry

I’m so ready for cooler weather I may be imagining things. But this morning my large garden spider on the front porch disappeared.

Yesterday she spent digesting her latest catch. That usually results in deliverance of an egg case in a few days. I expected to see her, considerably rounder, hanging on her freshened web over my front steps.

But she’s gone. Poof! There are other very early signs of weather relief.

The light has changed. Not radically, like when you’ve been away and come home in September. But it’s perceptible, more than just my opinion.

Our house is set on a true north-south axis. The porch where I work faces south. All summer I’ve enjoyed indirect light through several large windows. That’s best for the work I do on a computer screen.

Yesterday, however, the direct sun returned. Its brilliance caught the plane of my window sills, sending a reflected glare into the room. A promise of what’s to come in winter.

Yes, winter. Although in August we yearn for cooler weather, we’re thinking small—wanting the gradual ease offered in autumn. Less heat, cooler walks. Car interiors closer to human body temperature when you get in.

But that seasonal glare on my windowsills becomes a burden as the weeks pass.

I must draw the shades and that means I can’t watch the birds come to the birdbath or flutter in the shrubbery, confirming their independent existence.

And the shades don’t do the whole job. They don’t reach the lower set of windows.

For the lower windows, I have arranged several rolling wicker file baskets. As the sun’s spotlight travels, I rise periodically to move them so their open lids will block the glare.

But shifting them disturbed my Lab, Rosie, who liked to lie by those lower windows, keeping an eye on things.

Her cancer was confirmed in early July and she left us three weeks ago. So it has been a sad time around here.

If you’ve lost a pet, you know.

You know how a dog announces her absence everywhere you look. How she had favorite places you will never be able to walk past again without a pang, or an actual pain. Words we use to mask the heartache.

One of Rosie’s favorites was an old bathtub. She wanted to jump in the day before she died. Maybe the fact she couldn’t was the first sign I had of how close we were to the end.

Now, I won’t have to worry about disturbing her this winter when I roll the wicker files around. Or worry that a skunk will spray her in the woods. Or that she’ll nose a copperhead and receive her third bite.

I won’t have to vacuum up all that undercoat she shed twice a year. Or be quiet rolling over in the bed at 5 a.m. so she won’t hear me and think it’s time for breakfast.

I won’t worry about abandoning her when I travel to see my grandchildren. Or about leaving her alone while I have dinner with friends.

There is such freedom to a dogless life.

But I’ve hardly ever been dogless before, and never while living alone. It is very strange. For one thing, I watch a lot of dog videos, and reels, begging the question of whether I get another dog.

But do I? Do I look for another dog, a senior dog?

Well, I am looking.

Readers can contact Hale at bfhale2017@gmail.com Her new book, This Familiar Heart: An Improbable Love Story, is available at the Fayette County Record office and bookstores everywhere.