At my age we have to be careful of the men in white coats brandishing strait jackets.
Especially when it comes to the unexplainables.
I verbalized an extraordinary occurrence to only three people.
The first dismissed me out of hand and changed the topic of conversation immediately and never got back to what I had experienced.
The second asked me quite seriously and with concern: Did you hear voices in your head?
The third nodded carefully and said: Oh, I totally get that.
So here goes:
I was on this spectacular beach on a gorgeous day sitting in my beach chair. A young man passed with his dog and we exchanged pleasantries. This youngish black dog looked me right in the eyes as he walked past, he was on a leash. Dogs do this with me sometimes as if desperate to communicate their thoughts.
The young man went a distance away on the sand, the tide was out. He began to train his dog. I am familiar with that having trained a few. All the commands obeyed were rewarded with tiny treats. He was good, the commands were simple, one word, clear. Memories flooded me. There is nothing like a quivering dog, rooted in a stay, waiting for a release. The joy shared by trainer and trainee is immeasurable.
I just couldn't stop the tears. I was alone so there was no one to see, feeling utterly sad, missing my Ansa so much, how she loved the beach, how we frolicked, she was a great paddler but hated swimming. And paddle she did once she saw water with this wonderful grin on her face. Sometimes tears can hurt right down to the toes. They did for me that day.
A large perfect feather wafted down onto my lap and I held it to my cheek and stopped crying. And clearly I immediately sensed I could walk the beach, an impossible challenge.
So holding the feather I got up off the beach chair and walked and walked without pain and then turned around and walked back to the chair. An unimaginable feat. I held the feather for a while and then carefully inserted it into my camera bag for safe keeping and walked a little more, I came back to the camera bag and the feather had vanished. I searched high and low everywhere within quite a radius, no feather.
I had the strongest message again that the feather was merely a temporary sign of greater things to come, to stop hunting. To be still.
Which I did.
Three days later, I was having breakfast with my guest-friend in my local diner when I looked up and standing there in front of me was a person I love dearly but who has been long absent from my life for many, many years. We both burst into tears. This reunion has been exploding with joy ever since. In ways I could never have imagined. This remarkable event is now all connected to the dog, Ansa, the tears and the feather in my mind.
Coincidence? Well yes, says my reality check.
But something else? Well, perhaps yes. Though I am far from being a woo-woo person.
But this whole experience?
Inexplicable.
