Pictures of my dog in an orchard

On Thursday, I finished two grueling exams at school and then I grabbed the dog and we drove out to the country. Autumn in the mountains has been beautiful, my classes are entertaining for the most part, and the red haired wildling I live with gets funnier and more handsome every day.

Yet I've been preoccupied. It seems like dark times have fallen on my family; that's what my sister and I decided the other day over the phone. Cancer and sickness and stress and sadness. And here I am tooling around in the South, far away from everyone, feeling useless. Trying to figure out what to send to the person getting a stem cell transplant, what to say to the person waiting and waiting for the brain scans to come back.  

Sometimes when things feel heavy, I put the dog in the passenger seat and we drive out to where the roads are long and empty. It makes me feel very alone, but in a comforting way, like the way things feel back in Vermont. This time we ended up at an orchard, in a sunny field where I threw apples for the dog over and over. I sat and watched her raw, unbridled joy, her manic tongue lolling enthusiasm for the day- this one bright day. This one bright afternoon. And I thought about nothing, and took a hundred pictures, and here they are.