Athena log October 22, 2021*

Today she digs in the garden, still. Though Tom does not want this, at least it is less than before.

At night and in the late afternoon she plays zig zag, high speed, intense circle dances around Tom. She doesn’t nip, she corrals. And then he pulls out the blue tug rope and swings it in the air, catching it. Releasing it. She watches him and thinks, Oh, what fun he’s having.

But she is eating another wood chip and he resorts to sliding the rope along the ground in long arcs in front of her. Like a mouse sprinting by. When she is bigger, will rabbits be less intimidating?

She has full access to the backyard and it is perfect for her and Tom. Tom’s loves all together in one place. Magical in that way. The way of: who you meet and when you meet them. The way of: how your stories merge and follow a new path. Then, you make a turn, as if you’re walking along a web and you come to a knot where one life intersects the next. And enter: Athena.

“Oh, Athena, stop digging there. I just filled it. I just filled that hole. I’m gonna fill it with rocks.” Tom says. He works.

“She’s digging while I’m filling the hole.”

• recorded on October 22, 2021, posted today, a day when I am out on my own, writing, at Ghost Lake. Athena is in the city. I miss her. I also miss my grandchildren, my daughter, my my sons in Montreal and Vancouver and Edmonton. I write about them, too. I don’t post those writings, though. : )