It was difficult yesterday to decide how to honor the fifth anniversary of That Day.
On one hand, we shouldn’t forget the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. On the other, that attack was carried out by terrorists who wanted to disrupt our normal ways. You could make the argument that the best response is to go about our normal ways, as if the terrorists had no effect on us.
So I tried to go about business as usual. In our household, that means tending to the livestock first thing in the morning. As soon as I stir, the two indoor cats – Maggie and the Cat Formerly Known As Princess – want to be fed. Then Maggie demands affection by walking across my keyboard until I pet her for a few minutes.
Our dog Bodie has to go out and mark territory in the backyard. His appearance scatters the four outdoor cats we share with neighbors – Ferrilla, Chinchilla, Jemimah and Wuss – who often loaf on our patio swing. They’re a nuisance, but thanks to them our yard is relatively free of other nuisances like birds and rodents.
It’s a trade-off, but it wasn’t a calculated one. One February afternoon in 2004, I noticed a gray tiger-stripe cat watching me as I split firewood. The feline was there the next day, and the next, and I foolishly mentioned this to Martha.
Had I not, the cat might well have wandered off to a good home. But Martha kept a shed door open and placed food and water inside. The cat got a name, Ferrill, a homonym for feral. As the weather warmed, the cat grew larger. I thought it was just the result of regular meals, but that was wishful thinking. The cat was pregnant. Her name became Ferrilla and she delivered three kittens in our shed.
They were all skittish alley cats, eager to demonstrate how well they could use their teeth and claws. It was a lot of work to catch them so we could take them to the vet for vaccinations and neutering. We had nightmares about hordes of diseased kittens, and so we persevered.
After those duties and my breakfast, it’s time to take Bodie for his morning walk if the weather is even remotely clement. Bodie is a shepherd-collie-miscellany mix from New Mexico, likely of a canine variety known locally as “Rez Dog.”
His route requires some calculation. The idea is to get somewhere that he can just run around so he will be tired and idle for the rest of the day, and then we can get some work done. But he chases vehicles, and thus the dog-exercise zone must be distant from traffic.
There’s a good spot near town, and I will forswear further details because if it became more popular, there would be more dirt bikes and ATVs to tempt Bodie. Then I would have to drive farther in the morning and contribute more to global warming.
Suffice it to say that yesterday morning, I walked along the Arkansas River for about 1.5 miles while Bodie put on at least 5 miles, racing down to the river, then up various gulches and ridges, bounding through sagebrush and disappearing in the weeds, which have reached astonishing heights and density from this intense monsoon season.
Bodie has chewed up seatbelts and upholstery in my old Blazer, and he’s a pest in a lot of ways. But his enthusiasm for the world around him and the joy he exhibits in running and leaping are contagious. He makes me feel better in ways I’ll never be able to explain.
There was a dusting of powder on the big peaks – the snow line was at 13,500 feet, give or take. Neither distant aspen nor nearby cottonwoods had started to turn. The sky was so clear that I could almost count the rocks on Mount Shavano.
The sky held no jet contrails, which got me back to thinking about this time in 2001, and then Iraq, and then Dick Cheney’s disgusting statement Sunday that domestic debates about Iraq policy amount to support for terrorists.
For a while, though, Bodie and I were able to ignore all that. We beat the terrorists. It felt good while it lasted.
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
