The Morning After… it’s so quiet.

A friend noted, in a comment last night, that this might be due to a certain missing heartbeat.

Could be.

That heart beat pretty strong for a lot of years.

Another friend mentioned that the routines are different on that very first morning without your beloved dog, maybe that contributes to the unmoored… the untethered.

I can get behind that.

I suppose, technically, we are down twenty-five percent in terms of everyday beings in our household (I’m purposefully leaving out any mice, squirrels, bats… anything that has managed to find its way in (this week)).

That’s a big percentage.

Like, if you ate 25% less food that would be pretty impactful.

Or were 25% less cool or warm (or cooler like The Fonz (or, if you are way younger than me, Loki))…

Also – if we’re going for the additive – what about 25% funnier or calmer or kind(er)?

Significant all.

Some of those things could even be aspirational (I waffle on the 25% less food right now though, because – really – in these times don’t we all just want to wallow and have cake for breakfast (and not 25% of a cake (the whole effing cake))?

Sigh. 

It’s just quiet.

But.

The clink of the coffee pot as I take it out of its spot… I hear that.

The hot coffee pouring into my favorite mug, the one with the chip at the top of the handle… I hear that.

My steps on the wood floor, then the brick… then over the rug she laid on during her last weeks (I hear those).

I hear myself place the mug on the sailor’s knot rope-y coaster, sliding it toward me over the nubbly leather inlay on my desk’s top.

So… there are noises. What to make of this?

And here is where I land:

I think I am muting all the sounds that are here and happening, to make room for the possibility that some of her sounds are left behind.

Because if they are,

I don’t want to miss them.

Thanks for readin’.

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