Luna

Luna approaches me as I walk up McBryde, her lanky saunter and pink panting tongue now a familiar encounter on my morning walks. Her person, a modestly friendly young man in shorts and t-shirt, always stops and lets me pet her. Today was no different.

            “Hi Luna!” I call out. “How are you today?”

            She is tentative at first, then recognizes me. Heads over to sniff my outstretched hand and then does the big doggy leg lean-in. Immediately, my black velour pants are all aflutter with white dog hair.

            She turns to look at me with her two-colored eyes, one blue, one brown, as is common with Huskies. Her lean-in is solid. She wants me to hold her up. I’m delighted to oblige.

            “She’s a hot dog today,” I note.

            “Yeah, a little,” her owner acknowledges. Of course, I don’t know his name, just the dog’s.

            “It’s supposed to rain this weekend,” I offer.

            “Oh, that’s bad!” he exclaims.

            Baffled, I eye him more closely. How could rain be bad in this severe drought that we’ve been in for the last three years? Why only this morning, I’d read a horrifying article in the SF Chron about how the rice fields of the Sacramento Valley are only at half capacity because of the drought. The photo of the brown cracked river bed where the rice used to flourish almost made me cry.

            I had to turn the page.

            So, when this young man says that the rain is bad, where has he been?

            I think he sees my look of confusion and so he backtracks a little. After all, you would have to be in either heavy-duty denial or an idiot to not know the drought is killing California.

            “I guess the rain is good,” he says now. “But for me, I have to walk her. In the rain, this is difficult.”

            And I think, maybe this is most people’s reaction to the rain. If it inconveniences them, then they don’t like it. Never mind that we can’t live without water!

            “Doesn’t Luna like the rain?” I ask.

            He shrugs. “She don’t care. Once, I think it was last year, it rained a lot and we got caught in it. It was a mess.”

            I nod, wondering what kind of mess it could have been. Muddy dog mess? Sure, I know that dogs do like the mud and water. Then they come home and shake it all over the house. It is a mess.

            But what a wonderful mess at this point in the drought. Yet, it’s not like one afternoon of rain this weekend will end the drought. It’s here to stay and will only get worse. I have constant anxiety over it and there’s nothing I can do about it. Eco Anxiety. Eco Grief. It’s a thing.

            “Well,” I offer, “I know you have to walk the dog come rain or shine.”

            “Yeah, but if I had a smaller dog, it wouldn’t be such an issue. But I had to get a Husky.”

            Luna continues to lean into me; she’s in no hurry to leave. But I can tell that her owner has had enough.

            “You two have a good rest of your walk,” I say, starting down the street.

            “Yes, you too, Ma’am,” he says, his standard goodbye to me every morning.

            As I walk down McBryde, I notice the Monarch Butterflies flitting about, the crows cawing atop the telephone wires and the cars whizzing by. Our life is so vibrant and active! How can this world be drying up before our eyes?

            I can’t think about it anymore as I turn the corner at 30^th street and head down the sidewalk, the too bright sun bearing down on me. I really hope for the rain this weekend.

            And that Luna gets soaked! And makes a BIG mess!