“Hi buddy. Hi. Good morning. How are you?”

(Mask. No glasses. No headphones.) 

It was quite warm this morning. About 8 degrees. Much toastier than the 1-degree walks of last week.

I spent the first quarter of my walk emptying out thoughts. Worries. Lists. To-dos. To-don’ts. They all bubbled up.

Once the bubbling was done and dusted, I settled in for a bunch of looking and noticing and daydreaming. It’s my favourite part of the walk. It’s the time when good ideas happen and hope surfaces after what might have been a tough previous day.

Suddenly the tough stuff slides away and I notice all kinds of much more interesting things.

Tiny plants lining the path, reaching for the sky. Little buds beginning to appear. Others already unfolding their petals to the weak morning sunshine.

I look up to a canopy of trees … like a neighbourhood hat, tucking us in, keeping us safe.

I spot the bark that looks like the feathers of a bird, tentative blossom testing the temperature before it fully blooms musk or candy pink or marshmallow white.

I see a roller door, uncharacteristically raised at this early hour. Inside the garage is a workbench, handmade from splintery scraps of wood.

An old tan-coloured dog wanders up to the hand I’ve offered him.

“Hi buddy. Hi. Good morning. How are you?” I say as he licks my hand and directs it to the back of his neck, behind his ears.

His owner is stalking the edge of the between-houses park. He’s not wearing a mask and I think he’s probably woken up in a fog and forgotten.

The dog follows me, bumping his nose on the back of my knees for a while, then disappears around the corner in pursuit of his briskly-striding owner.

Further along the path, closer to home, I see a man in a white coat. It’s no surprise during these strange times. As I approach, I realise he’s wearing a dressing gown. He gets into his car when he sees me, doing some sort of fictional fumble of the seatbelt.

I pass and head around the corner myself, up the hill towards home. I don’t think the man drove off.  I think he got out of his car and took his dressing gown inside, to be quite honest.