One of the few places of solace right now is an escape to the beach. I can actually clear my head there. And recently, given all the childcare my household has tackled for my brother and his wife, these moments of quiet and natural ocean sounds are healing. Since Covid is still problematic and my county is still high on the list, it’s one of the places open air enough to enjoy with a friend or my boyfriend at a personable distance. J and I took off Friday to have a beach day and enjoy Lunar New Year. We got to the beach mid afternoon. It was breezy and cool, being the middle of February and all. The waves almost had a milky feel in reflecting the overcast but sunny sky.

There were very few people at the strip of coastline we set up at, but a few people walked the edge of the water so we were much higher up out of the path. A little dog, maybe 8 pounds, comes running in a serpentine “do I, do I not?” style up to us and goes and licks J’s hand. He runs back to his mom and daughter family duo, then comes back to J. Of course, my reaction is, “Yay, dog! Cute dog!” His Mom and Sister come closer to us but keep a safe distance. The Mom compliments J. She says it’s the first time in 5+ years that Brody has felt comfortable and safe approaching a male. J is a large guy. He looks like he could be a football player. 5’10”, solidly built, and probably even more gigantic to this little dog who has feared men most of his life yet out of the blue decides to do something brave and trust this one. He comes back again, gives him another love lick, and J gives him his hand to sniff and slowly and cautiously moves to pet him and Brody complies. My heart swells at the joy of this moment. I think, in my head, “That’s right Brody, you trust him and so do I. He’s a good man, and now man’s best friend approved.”

J is actually a self-confessed cat person, but he and I are both allergic (me, nearly deathly). He has always joked about tiny and small dogs being borderline annoying and yappy. It was a relief to see how he warmed up to this little fella. After Brody and his family left, he confided to me that if he were to be a dog owner in the future he’d want a cute little lap dog like that over a big dog. I was once again taken back at this confession. “The kind you make fun of for being yappy or foo-foo?!” I exclaimed. “Yeah,” he said. I shot back a sly smile and told him I would have never guessed. I told him one day if we got a dog as a married couple, a tiny cute lap dog, we might just have to honor him with the name Brody. He smiled and told me he’d like that.