The Lone Cattail

I went for a walk with my fully medicated dog this morning.  Her pain seems to be well-controlled for now as she hasn't belly-flopped on the floor in days looking at me like, "What happened?" We have found the right dosage of meds for her weak and aging limbs, her kind vet and I.  No longer is her tail tucked between her legs as she ambles around the house like a zombie dog from Night of the Living Dead.  For fourteen years we'd play catch every single day in our wide open front yard.  She'd take off like a bullet shot out of a high-powered machine gun, a blonde blur racing towards the whistling ball.  Then she'd sprint through the air back to me and drop the noisy orange ball at my feet before kicking it with her right front left paw.  But the arthritis of age is getting to her these days.  I launch the ball and she just looks at me like, "No thanks.  I'll be laying right here in the sun."  So to get her daily dose of exercise, we've started to take slow walks around the neighborhood.  Which I love.  The walks we used to take were all about me and my heart health.  She just came along for the fun of it and because she hated to be left behind.  We'd fast walk for 45 minutes with me tugging on her lease while she peed.  Or yelling at her to "Leave it!" when she could hear but was ignoring me, obsessed by the allure of some critter's trail she was smell tracking.  But no more.  Now the two of us amble the neighborhood, greeting other dogs, chatting with neighbors, noticing the mostly green world around us.  It's ok to slow down.  On today's walk I saw this regal 10 foot talk cattail.  Ten feet tall.  How have I not see that before?  Odd to see it on the side of the road here in the woods since it's considered an aquatic plant.  But unseen standing water must give life to this reed. Just that thought makes me smile.  Cattails are associated with the number 1. The number representative of beginnings.  Just don't give cattails to a British person to put in their house as it's considered a harbinger of death.  Life and death.  These themes are unescapable.  I feel like bowing to this lone, graceful reed that I've never noticed before even though I've lived in my neighborhood for seven years.  Driven this road a thousand and ten times.  I also bow to my dog for in her need for a slower pace I am noticing so much life around me.