Starting in on Sunday morning philosophy

I'll get it started but I don't know if I can finish

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

People sometimes think you know what you are talking about if you write it down. Not all have the same exposure to editors and writers jacked on Columbian coffee, or hopped up on India Pale Ale, that I do.

Focus is hard to maintain. And philosophy is easy to start, but hell to finish.

Elmer Fudd cap on, I load the dogs in the back and head out.

Ella Fitzgerald starts baying out a lonesome version of the blues, and works her way into a scat, in a vocal range spanning three octaves, about the cars we pass on the way to the trailhead. Ginny paces from side to side silently, reserving her bay only for confirmed animal sightings, per her code. As Elvis knows, the hound dog excitement is contagious.

The bright greens of early morning, the fog clinging to the Rampart shoulders, the low angle light, sun peaking now -- ready to boil off the dew.

Battle park in the lot. Not only is it easier to unload, it simplifies getting them back in.

The little trail snakes down into the edge of the trees, toward the creek, and they can smell the willows. They love it. Wet feet, sand and mud, tracks, smell of muskrat, beaver and fox. Signs of life. Now we are living.

The trail bounces high on the banks up into the pines and expansive views – then back to the through the willows and the green-lined edges of water and mushy gravel. Cactus to lily. Yucca to cattail. Mountain mahogany to saw grass. From one side come the larger flows from the reservoirs above.

The draw is choked with red willow, bending over itself and the stream. A deer path, and snags enough to provide a bridge to Terabithia, so we carry on toward the trestle.

The light is really interesting now. It ricochets off the water. It is absorbed in the deep green blues of the spruce boughs. It filters through to cottonwood leaves.

But the path is rounding now, back to the car. I think of the O. Henry short “Squaring the Circle.”

“Beauty is Nature in perfection; circularity is its chief attribute. Behold the full moon, the enchanting gold ball, the domes of splendid temples, the huckleberry pie, the wedding ring, the circus ring, the ring for the waiter, and the ‘round’ of drinks,” wrote O. Henry.

“On the other hand, straight lines show that Nature has been deflected.”

We are on a straight line back to the waiting car.

I guess I will try to write it down. Hope people know what I am talking about. Sunday morning philosophy. I’ll start, but don’t think I can finish.

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