I’ve started walking the dogs in a new place: under the bridge.

The bridge my grandfather did maintenance on during his career with the road department. He didn’t help build it, the story goes, but he started at the Washington end and swept the nails off before it opened. If you want to talk bridges, that is the man to talk with. He and The Gentleman had one of these talks not that long ago. It warmed my heart.

Tonight there was a party or a wedding happening – people were bustling around, down the river walk, scuttling in the breeze and gusts, dodging rain drops off the steel structure. Carrying packages, wearing suits and ties and heels. People with purpose. Full parking lots, shiny cleaned cars, a limo. And no one was taken aback by the sun setting, light streaking, drops glistening. I wonder about celebrations – what are we celebrating? What can we celebrate but the light, the rain, the company we are surrounded by?

Tonight, the dogs and I walked along the river, in the sunlight, wind and rain of Oregon. It was harsh and sweet, and I was thankful for the car’s heater when it was done.

There have been several mornings lately where we’ve walked this walk – it starts in glorious light – and we return to the car a couple of drenched greyhounds and a soaked human engulfed in dark clouds and a squall.  Still, we are thankful for the warm car and for my favorite coffee shop being across the street, and that the ladies there would’ve walked their dogs in a rainstorm without proper rain attire. We all must make due with the choices we made when we left the house in the sunshine.

16 Feb This entry was published on February 16, 2013 at 7:57 pm. It’s filed under Active, River and tagged Astoria, bridge, celebration, Columbia River, Grace, Grandfather, gratitude, Greyhounds, north oregon coast, Oregon, outdoors, rain. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.