Monday Mimisms ~ Rottweiler Road

We were driving down this road on an impromptu adventure.  A dead-end gravel road. Rain. And Papa's homestead. We wanted to walk the tract of land, find our acreage posts and stakeout the lay of the land.  It is a perfect
spot for house building, that is, if you love privacy.  I have a secret wish that one day soon he will want to make this his home. 

It was good to drive into silence and mist, away from the pressures of traffic. Once I saw the wisp of a little ghost girl peeking out from behind a pine tree, but other than that, usually not a soul. "I don't remember the brush being this thick last time," I said, "and........  when out of the blue from the middle of nowhere two huge black rottweilers sprang from the woods and began chasing and barking around our slow-moving car. Oh great, we thought, there goes our plans for woodsy leisure time.  We followed them - or they followed us -  all the way to the end of the end of the road. They ran through a hole in the wiry fence and towards a faraway pond. Out of sight. But not out of mind.

Who do they belong to? Where did they go? Are we safe now?  When will they be back??! It's not like anyone except the ghost girl would hear us screaming for help.

I looked at him. 
He looked at me. 

"I am not getting out of this car."
"I'm not either," said he. 
So we decided to stop at the only house on the entire road and see if someone knew who they belonged to so that we could continue our task.  We would ask them to contain the dogs until we finished our walk. No such luck. No one at home and we were greeted by yet another HUGE barking dog with large teeth and a snarl.

"I'm not getting out of this car."
"Me neither," said he. 

But as we turned around and drove back towards the highway we began to talk about the land.  As if it breathed and beckoned a visit from us, his I-am-afraid-of-dogs mantra (and mine)

seemed to wane when we said hello to the flat sitting rock which offered a place to tell tired tales....and the curvy creek line that runs by the fence, all seemed to say 'Come in'.
One peek at a colorful bed of mushrooms and I forgot all about gnarly teeth and black barking dogs.

"Come on!" said the rain-soggy boy of mine. "I'll show you! It's just through that thicket."

"But what about the dogs?" 
"I'll protect you."

I stopped in my tracks.
"Do you have a gun?"
"Nope."
"Then how are you going to protect us?"
"With these, Mama," holding up two fists, at which point I bent over laughing at the rain-deluded boy.
"You're going to kill two rottweilers with your own two fists?"
"If I have to. Let's go."

You are so your mother's son.




I left the car running and the door cracked (just in case I had to make a mad dash and outrun a Rottweiler) and followed the adventuresome spirit.  Through the path he'd made in the woods we walked under the shelter of wet trees,  making a mental note of the location of quick climbing low-lying trunks, traveling farther and farther away from the car.  

Just ahead in the thickness of cool rain was my brown-eyed boy, giving me a look with my own brown eyes that I never, not once, could resist. He wanted to explore, to be in the woods, and I needed to follow.


 "Here we are," he proclaimed.



 And there it was. A lofty sanctuary. Hidden away under pines and spirits. 
He made it to the top in record time while my mind traveled back to his boyhood backyard willow tree - how fast he could scamper to the top and hide from me. 
How much he loved that tree. 

It was my turn. I set one hand. One foot. One hand. One foot......until...I stopped.

"Do you hear dogs barking?"
"Yes," he stated matter-of-factly.  It wasn't lost of either of us that he was safe and I was not.

"Son, my feet are not far enough off the ground for you to be smug at a time like this. Let's get back to the car!!!"

The branches were laughing. I know they were. 
"Those dogs are way over there. They won't come to us unless we're bleeding," said O Wise Boy in the safety of high bark.

"That only happens in the Jaws movies, son, and although it is raining cats and literally dogs, I do not want to test your blood theory today."

"I could sit here for hours, he said. It is so peaceful here, Mom. You can look down and see everything that's happening on the forest floor."

You DO have tree genes!  You are so your mother's son.

And suddenly it didn't matter. I knew that I would climb right up there with him and wait out the cavalry. It wouldn't be the first time we'd held onto each other in uncertain lifeboats. But today in the highness of leaves in the sanctuary of my Papa's shadow, I knew it was more important to stay than to run. It was his place and he wanted me in it.


 So I climbed into the space of rain where all was still and peaceful
knowing this day 
was about the walk

and the rain
and him




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