Squelching through the Mud

The wind in my face, the dogs on the leash, running with me. The mud squelching beneath my shoes as I brush through the grass to the narrow strip of land beside the canal. It's' a little piece of freedom to walk my dogs in a busy city filled cheek to jowl with people rushing here and rushing there. But on a slightly wet Saturday morning, on a piece of grass no one goes to because it's too muddy, I have the space to myself and my dogs. That's freedom.

I share it with the kingfisher, which swoops past periodically and if I get too close. A flash of blue and brown and red. He fishes in the large monsoon drain I walk past. The egrets are around this time of the year, migrating from north to south away from the wintry lands. So I see maybe one or two of those. Sometimes a little grey one, sometimes a pair of large white mature ones.

I see little wild weeds with little bell like flowers and purple centres or little mimosa plants with leaves that close if I touch them. I see the dwarf coconut tree, bearing fruit. The old tyre that has been there so long, it's half covered with grass growing over, embedding it into the earth as part of the landscape.

My dogs love it. And I do too. Sometimes I sit with them next to me, savouring the silence and peace and solitude with just my dogs for company. It's not that I'm alone as there stacks of flats just across, towering above and a construction site nearby with private condominiums sprouting up. So I'm never alone. But I feel alone enough that it feels good. There is a peace that nature and solitude bring that cannot be had otherwise.