The Swan Dive

Traffic zoomed by us, distracted and weary. It was late afternoon; the sun played peek-a-boo with a few low hanging clouds, and the wind was downright rude in its behavior.

My studley husband had our dog, Booker, on leash as I walked alongside trying not to get tangled in the twenty-six feet of retractable line. Booker likes to weave, and I swear I end up walking twice the distance as I try to avoid his meanderings.

Despite “the leash-dance” walking our dog is a time of conversation, reconnection, and decompression. On this day my husband was sharing a work story when a swan, a huge swan, came into view.

(S)he was leisurely swimming in our creek, and seemed nonplussed by our standing nearby with mouths agape. (S)he was just so regal I had a hard time speaking whole words. I think some grunts and gasps came out, and my husband responded in kind. Booker on the other hand, wanted a closer look and wasn’t going to wait around for us. His sled-dog genetics went to work and he headed down the incline towards the creek.

I watched, almost as if in slow motion, my husband yanked forward nearly off of his feet. If he were in a cartoon the sound would have been, “Zoink!”

My husband yelped a little, and then I think he meant to say, “Booker, no!” But it came out as “Boo-noor” or some such mutation.

Instead of leaping to rescue my husband as he plowed toward the creek like a zombie water skier , I helpfully said, “Don’t scare the swan.”

Several more “Boo-noor’s” shattered the afternoon quiet before Booker, indeed, stopped. Therefore my disheveled husband also stopped.

The swan looked at us with a certain amount of apathy. Maybe it was tired, maybe it was lost, or maybe it thought “boo-noor” meant welcome. I don’t know, and I don’t care. It was just plain cool to be this close, unintentionally or not.

As we headed home I felt a warm connection to nature, to my husband, and to Boo-noor. It was the best part of my day.

P.S. I went back hoping to get a photograph, but by then the swan had found its way from the creek to the lake. Dang it!