Cracked Window

Two dogs and water. Enough to bring to mind my dogs, not in a Portland fountain but following me forever ago as I race off a boathouse roof. A kid leaping toward a Florida lake below, the dogs airborne too.

Sadie and Rogue followed my two brothers and me everywhere, including Lake Sybelia in Maitland. We’d take turns underwater next to the neighbor’s boathouse, watching the dogs belly-flop into the water, black Labradors sinking then rising, sheathed in a fountain of bubbles.

I thought of telling my story to the young woman at Peninsula Park as she threw a tennis ball for these dogs to chase. Instead I hid behind my camera, peering into the past.