On the Simple Beauty of Mia: Our Faithful, Furry Companion
Day 35
I press my nose against the soft, short fur on Mia’s head, and inhale. The clean, earthy scent of grass mingles with the warm tones of sun-baked air, and over it all arches a range of smells so complex that our pitiful sense of smell can only shrug and say, unwashed dog. The hairs on her head tingle the skin on the tip of my nose. I inhale again, softly, feeling her shaggy warmth against my right arm, which is pressed lightly on her side, feeling the regular rising and falling of her flank.
She takes a big breath, then exhales noisily through her black nose, twitching an ear, in all likelihood wondering why I’m hovering so closely above her, the brown bangs of my bedhead hair obscuring most of her vision. I can sense her decision to move a moment before she twists and rolls on her stomach, leaving my nose hovering in midair, the heady scent of dog lingering for a moment before dissipating into the bland nothingness of room temperature air.
Mia is not keen on snuggling with her humans. She gladly accepts belly rubs and head pats and ear scratches — oh, the latter with great relish — but she merely tolerates (quite patiently for the few moments it lasts) human appendages pressed into her personal space, and often flatly rejects snuggly appeals delivered in tones an octave too high.
Many a time, while prattling in baby-speak, have I caught a glance from her that suggests she finds my tone condescending. No, not that — just… unnecessary. She isn’t petty enough to understand condescension, let alone how to employ it in a gaze. No, she is a dog, and a gentle one at that, too full of simple love and devotion to think ill of her humans.
Even when I raise my voice to her, or lash out in misdirected anger or frustration, she thinks it is something she has done, rather than blaming me for being such a dingleberry.
Such is the beauty of our faithful companion: she need do so little to bring us so much. A simple cock of her head as she listens to our stream of foreign syllables, a playful roll in the grass, or a moment in the morning — when she lets me sniff her head and feel her breathing — is all that happiness requires.
This was my first post written after launching my new blog, Zero Fox Given, so I felt a bit of pressure to write something a but more…refined. However, after casting about for “proper” subject matter, my mind alighted on a simple thing that brings me happiness, and I wrote about it effortlessly, and almost without pause.
Originally published at www.zerofoxgiven.net on April 19, 2017