COLORADO COLLEEN: A Dog Named Kep at No Name Rest Area

Copper, at right, resembled a puppy in this picture, but she was about 70 dog years at the time. Playful and cordial, she retained a puppy spirit even to her last moments of life. This post introduces another dog: Kep. I'll post her photo once I've got it downloaded.

I had packed a picnic. I was marveling at the slow, green river and the intoxicating Colorado landscape as I spread the soft flesh of an avocado on multigrain bread. In the distance, cliffs and buttes showed their true colors. A snowcapped peak peeked over buttes and cliffs and rock formations. It was a little cold for dining al fresco, but the vista mitigated cold fingers.

I was tossing a salad of baby butter lettuce, pink grapefruit, shaved almonds, dried cherries, roasted beets, and goat cheese, when the dog showed up. A Border Collie. My weakness. (One of my late, great dogs, Friday, was part Border Collie.) This Border Collie, a tri-colored female, sniffed around. As I am wont to do with any dog--much more so than any person--I struck up a conversation. Like my girl Friday, this dog had a profound, sentient look in her eye. Soon, she brought me a big stick.

I'm trainable, so I tossed the stick, which she quickly retrieved and dropped, prepared to dash and fetch again.

"You know that's an endless game," the dog's "mom" called from a few picnic tables away.

"This is making my day!" I called back to her.

Coincidentally, the week before, I had gone online to look at Border Collie rescue websites. I'd had dogs for 18 years, but have been dogless now for more than 18 months. I miss them both--Friday and Copper--terribly. I live with dog ghosts in my house, lingering in the spots where they slept and ate and played. I still expect the dogs to welcome me when I return from travels, still sense them in the doghouse in the secret garden or around the spots they preferred on the front porch. Both lived to the ripe old dog age of 108 years, so I have a trove of dog memories to revisit. But I haven't felt ready to commit to another dog.

Yet.

Still, those Border Collies. With their beauty and intelligence and agility and intensity, they're my favorite furpeople. Instinctively, this dog and I understood one another. My sweetheart finished making the sandwiches, ate his lunch, and smoked a cigar while I abandoned the picnic in favor of the dog and her big stick. Eventually, as is typically the case with Border Collies, Kep wore me out before I could wear her out. She brought a smaller stick, and between bites of lunch, I complied.

Eventually got to talking to the woman with the dog, whose name is Keppy, a derivative of her formal name, Kep's Kep. "Kep," I learned, was an old Scottish word for dog.

There's more to this story. Stay tuned.

THE WRITTEN WORD: What Are You Waiting For?

"Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand--and melting like a snowflake..."

-- Francis Bacon, Sr.

COLORADO COLLEEN: Ski Eavesdropping

In addition to awe-inspiring natural scenery, I enjoy the visual delight of unexpected combinations of multi-colored ski togs against crisp white snow, along with the international assortment of people who ski Colorado. In fact, a sidebar pleasure on the slopes and in the lodges is people-watching. And people-listening.

Overheard in an Apres-Ski Hot Tub in Avon, after skiing Vail:
• One high school boy to another, discussing the terrain park: “You have to face your fears.”

• A skier from Maui: “I don’t want to grow old on Maui. There’s no good health care. I want to move to Colorado. Those 70-year-old guys in the jumpsuits out there on the slopes? They’re having fun.”

• A University of Denver student on living in Colorado vs his native Connecticut: “The only thing I miss is the seafood.”

Overheard on a Bachelor Gulch Chair Lift:
• Two skier buddies from Great Britain, discussing President Barack Obama:
“After the last guy, they need somebody with a three-digit IQ.”

A Conversation in the Gondola:
• A middle-aged skier from Los Angles with his high school-aged rider nephew from the east coast, explaining why they met for spring break in Beaver Creek: “He wanted to go to the beach, but I said, ‘You’ll have plenty of opportunities to go to the beach, but a week of spring skiing in Colorado—now that’s a great vacation.’”

BUNGALOW: March Light Marches On

In Colorado, March is the month that returns light to us. Days grow longer, stretching into evening. This time of year, green glass holds the slant of illumination cast by the setting sun aligned with the front door. These belongings --gifts from family and friends--seem to enjoy the natural spotlight so much that I found myself pickup up my phone to grab a photo.

Goodbye, March: You were the month in which I bid the blogosphere hello.

NAMASTE': The sacrum, the sacred

The sacrum, the triangular bone at the base of the spine, gets a lot of attention in hatha yoga.
In a workshop with Jonathan Reynolds of the San Francisco Bay Area, he taught that the sacrum is considered a sacred bone, thus its name. He also mentioned that the sacrum is the one bone that does not burn, but is left on the funeral pyre.
Does anybody out there who might be reading this know if this is true?

APRIL FOOL'S DAY

Does anybody have any great ideas for April Fool's Day stunts?
Gullible, I always seem to fall victim to this day.

NAMASTE': Start Your Day With Namaste'

In this photo taken in a Las Vegas in Oct. 2008, mannequins practice yoga at a class convened in a shop window near Cirque de Soleil in MGM Grand. Talk about finding the stillness in the pose!


As days grow longer, I'm setting an intention to put my yoga practice first--that is, to practice first thing in the morning. I've only actually made it to the earliest class maybe a half dozen times, but I always felt marvelous afterwards and noticed how smoothly my days seemed to unfold.

One day while practicing in the still-dark morning, at 6 a.m. at Yoga on 6th, a list of reasons occurred to me as we made our way through the 90-minute Bikram series. I went home and drafted this list, which my I gave to my yoga school to post around the studios and locker rooms.

Top 10 Reasons to Practice at 6 a.m.

10) No traffic.

9) No searching for a parking space at your yoga school and no parking ticket threat.

8) You show up on your mat with less junk in your mind.

7) Get the kinks out early and feel better all day.

6) Rev up your metabolism right away.

5) If you put your yoga practice first,
you won’t get derailed during the day and miss class later.

4) You’ll have your evenings free. (Or can come back for a double.)

3) You’ll face your day with a clear mind and a calm spirit.

2) You’ll show up with sparkling eyes and a yogic afterglow.

1) Change your circadian rhythms, change your day.
Change your day, change your life.

Pack your bag the night before; set your alarm; and practice daybreak yoga.


That said, I'm posting this at 1.21 a.m., so I doubt that tomorrow will be the day I resume this discipline.