I guess I should finish packing for our trip.
Becky, of course, is pretty much ready to load her bags into the car. I realize I have been putting it off, and I think I know why. Getting ready for a vacation is a bittersweet situation for me, so I usually put it out of my mind until I have to act.
It’s not that I am not excited. I always look forward to the adventure. I anticipate with excitement the gazing out over vistas of unfamiliar landscapes. I embrace experiencing different cultures and foods even when these are not particularly exotic but merely a slight variation of my normal day-to-day.
I enjoy making attempts, however small, to get inside the spirit of the place I am visiting. I hope to come back with a clearer image of that spot on the map where I have lived for a time. I am grateful every time I return to have a new awareness that the world is bigger and even more beautiful than I imagined.
On the other hand, leaving on a trip means I am leaving the world I know, and I like that familiar world. I know I am leaving the comfort of the familiar. For a time I am saying goodbye to the rightness in the way the hours of the days seem to fall. At other times in my life I strove to avoid the commonplace, but over time I have come to embrace it.
As silly as it might seem, on this particular trip, I am having bittersweet feelings because Becky and I will be leaving Luna, our dog.
I was having trouble expressing this sadness/happiness. I didn’t care to come across as some crazy animal lover — although I guess I am. I figured other people would argue, “Yeah, It’s kind of sad but, after all, it is a dog.” I anticipate this argument because I am making the same arguments in my mind.
“Yes,” I tell myself, “Luna is just a dog, but so what? I know her backstory. I know that before we got her she was adopted then sent back, then adopted again and then rejected again. I read this fear of rejection into her oh-so-excited behavior whenever we return home from a trip.”
Now it is very possible I am over-projecting human emotions onto an animal. Animal behaviors are fascinating secrets to me. They rank right up there with Human Behaviors on the Unexplainable Mysteries of Existence.
In my inbox the other morning was a daily quote from C.S. Lewis. Somehow it helps comfort my bittersweet situation.
“I will never laugh at anyone for grieving over a loved beast. I think God wants us to love Him more, not to love creatures (even animals) less. We love everything in one way too much (i.e., at the expense of our love for Him), but in another way love everything too little.
No person, animal, flower, or even pebble has ever been loved too much — i.e., more than every one of God’s work’s deserves.”
Earlier today Luna and I finished our daily morning walk. We will take at least one more before we get ready to go to the kennel. Luna is already packed. (Thanks, Becky.) Now, it’s probably time for me to finish my own packing.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
