the art of racing in the rain

Sara Gruen, author of one of my favorite books, wrote the following about Garth Steins' best-seller:

The Art of Racing in the Rain has everything: love, tragedy, redemption, danger, and best of all, the canine narrator Enzo. This old soul of a dog has much to teach to us about being human. I loved this book.

One Thursday morning, my boyfriend B picked me up from the airport following an unpleasant evening's worth of travel.  I was jet-lagged and grumpy.  He took me home, put me to bed, and mandated the remainder of my day would be spent catching up on sleep, and only after, reading The Art of Racing in the Rain.  He had placed the book on my pillow, along with a sweet card and a surprise subscription to one of my favorite magazines.  He takes great care of me.

I read several chapters that day but turned through the bulk of it on a beach in the Dominican Republic.  B warned I would cry.  He was wrong though, I didn't just cry.  I sobbed for the last fifty pages, my sunscreened face streaked with salted love for Enzo and for our own yellow lab, Myles.

Post-novel, I have grown increasingly aware of the ways B and I can show Mylie love even when we're not home.  Id est, leaving her in the melodic care of George Winston and Frank Sinatra, or turning on the Racing Channel, Enzo-style.

billy collins

If there is only enough time in the final

minutes of the twentieth century for one last dance

I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,

say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.

My palm would press into the small of your back

as the past hundred years collapsed into a pile

of mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,

just as the floor of the nineteenth century gave way

and disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.

There will be no time to order another drink

or worry about what was never said,

not with the orchestra sliding into the sea

and all our attention devoted to humming

whatever it was they were playing.

[Billy Collins, Dancing Toward Bethlehem]

henny youngman

We always hold hands.  If I let go, she shops.

van goethe

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

[image via THREAD]