Dirt

The word for today is DIRT. I like DIRT, I like getting dirty. Now I worry about what the search engines and the censors and cyberspies will think. (Though there is nothing untoward about my statement.) I don't usually worry about getting dirty. I don't often get manicures or wear fancy clothes. I like the DIRT of the earth--mud, soil--that kind of dirt, outside dirt. Not dust bunnies or grease stains or sweaty soiled clothes lying in piles. I like DIRT the way I imagine pigs do; the way I know dogs do.

I don't make people take their shoes off when they come into my house. This may be a mistake because my floors get very dirty. I notice the difference when I go to friends' who do ask me to take off my shoes. Their homes seem more ordered, sometimes more serene. Some of these friends do not have animals.

Here I come to my point. I like dirt because my dog likes DIRT. It makes her happy. It makes her happy to pad around in the thick swampy mud. It makes her happy to run through the woods and accumulate dead leaves and branches and burrs of all kinds in her coat. It makes her happy to roll on her back and wave her paws at the sky after a fresh snowfall, then right herself and nuzzle her snout a few inches into the snow. And though I do not do these things myself, it makes me happy just to look at her, to experience her total joy and abandonment vicariously.

Friends of mine know, if they bring their dog for a walk in the woods with me and Rosie, my springer, most likely mud will be involved. When it is, when the dogs are slick and coated, I make my offer. Full of guilt and pleasure I say I will wash your dog.

Rosie and I have many rituals. One involves "tubtime." I hold a treat over the bathtub, she jumps in, I direct the sprayer at her paws, then her legs and her underbelly. I flush out the dirt the way she was trained to flush out birds as a hunter. I watch with great satisfaction as particles of dead leaves and clumps of antediluvian mud slowly fall from her body and float forward to the bathtub drain. Once she is thoroughly rinsed I wrap her in a bath towel and rub her down. She jumps over the side of the tub, shakes her entire body and runs around the living room, looking for a soft surface to press against. Black watery streaks drip along the bathtub wall. I take a sponge and wipe them away. I fold the dirty towel and lay it over the side of the tub. The shirt I'm wearing is splotched with water. But as long as I've done my laundry, a clean dry shirt is just in the other room.