Pink Snow

Yesterday, while on his evening walk, The Poocherooni reminded me why we get along so well:  we're just alike.  He dawdles.  I dawdle.  We remind each other to look, really look, at the world.  The dogwoods have been losing their blossoms this week.  The petals have been falling like pink snow.  They blanket the sidewalk at one end of the Heather Garden.  Last night, The Pooch stuck his nose to the ground as if in a trance, his path sinuous as he traced S's in the petals with his nose.  I had no choice but to admire the last of this spring's dogwood blossoms.  This morning, The Poocherooni had to sniff recently upturned earth underneath a tree.  As he did so, a bird trilled like a flute above us.  In the tree perched a cardinal, calling with all his strength to a potential mate, his red plummage made more dramatic by the contrasting emerald leaves.  In this world there are sad, tactless people full of venom.  They will tell you that you're not competitive, that you're not good enough, that they don't want you (even though they don't bother to take the time to know anything about you).  This happened to me yesterday.  After a bout of self pitying, I went into the Heather Garden.  The sight of water droplets on grass made brilliant green by rain shot the funk to hell.  I have conclused that the battle between the dark forces in the universe is not one of good vs. evil, but one of  venomed people (Pessimists:  The Venomed Ones) who try to squash the zest for life in the rest of us (Optimists:  The Zesty Ones).  As long as I have a place to walk like the Heather Garden, and for as long as I have the company of a soul like The Pooch, the Venomed Ones will lose.  Here's proof.  This morning in the subway, I looked down.  Someone had littered. A subway card lay abandoned on the ground.  The back of the card faced up and the word beaming toward me read:  Optimism.