Resolutions and Animals on a Cold Night Walk

It was just me,

And Sophie,     (The dog)

And Moe.        (The cat)

This is a Monday evening. December 23rd. It snowed about 3 inches two days ago. It's cold! Very cold. The Weatherbug app on my iPhone said it was 15 degrees (-10 C) outside. 

Didn't stop me,

Or Sophie,

Or Moe!

Moe

Yes, our silly Tomcat loves to go walking with us, believe it or not.

It used to piss me off if Moe went with us on our nightly walk. You see, it's like this:

Walking with Sophie is fun. Like all dogs, she loves to be with us. She'll do our pace, ie that pace determined by the human. Do it gladly, unquestionably. Frequently glancing up at you to see if she is making you happy. She rarely disappoints. That's just her nature.

Moe is totally different. He has his own pace to life. And like most cats, sometimes he doesn't care about your pace, your desires or your happiness, well, you get the idea. 

You sort of have to be a bit patient with Moe when you take him for a walk. He has his own agenda. He'll lag behind a bit, then catch up and "buzz" by you, showing off. He is, sometimes a bit aloof, but he's not ungrateful, he shows his affection frequently, but it's on his own terms.

Sophie likes to stop and smell interesting things. I don't always understand the why or the what of the smells she finds, but I let her indulge.  Moe, interestingly, stops to investigate things also. Maybe not smells, not sure what the heck it is, and he takes a bit longer sometimes. After all, he is a cat. And, well....

It used to infuriate me when Moe would lag behind and make everybody wait on him. It's like, "I'm supposed to be in charge here, you need to follow my direction, do what I want you to do. Quit screwing around and let's make some tracks".

But then, somewhere along the line, I decided that maybe, just maybe, Moe might have a better idea.

Maybe it's a Carpe Diem type of thing. Maybe it is Moe's way of seizing the moment. Stopping to smell the roses? Could that be?

Who knows.

But I was thinking as we walked, that there were 3 very distinct personalities on the trek, this cold and cloudy night. Me, the human, had the leash and a flashlight, supposedly in charge, Sophie with her eager smiling face constantly observing, smelling, sensing, exceedingly happy just to be outside doing something with the rest of us, and then Moe, also very alert and observant, but with a very different goal. Not that I had any kind of clue what Moe's goal was. But then, who am I to judge. I despise people that judge others, for whatever reason. I don't even feel like I should judge animals like Sophie or Moe. I don't know what it's really like to be a cat or a dog or a buffalo or ....

But I don't always end each post of this blog with the phrase "Carpe Diem" for no reason whatsoever. You see, I really feel like each day is a gift of some sort. If you live to be 70 years old then there should be 25,550 daily opportunities for Carpe Diem. I think we ought to seize as many as we can. I bet we've all missed a few.

And to me, Carpe Diem can take various forms. Tonight as we walked, and Moe made us wait up for him for a few minutes, Sophie and I "seized" the opportunity to look around, see the sights, really take the opportunity to observe. We looked at the tire tracks in the snow, saw many Christmas light decorations, smelled aromas from neighborhood fireplaces, heard the sounds of the wind in the trees, etc.

We stopped. We waited. Instead of exerting effort at enforcing our will upon others, we paused and let, in effect, others dictate upcoming events. I'm not necessarily some sort of control freak, but I'm very used to organizing my own life. I'm not always, personally, comfortable with just "going along for the ride".

But I'm convinced that there is something to just letting life happen. You get to experience lots of very interesting sights, sounds, smells, emotions, etc, that you just might otherwise miss if you are constantly busy organizing your own destiny.

So, my resolution for the new year is to let it happen. More and more.

An extra special Happy New Year and Carpe Diem, my good friends.