Mocha found a new turn today. We started out on her usual walk-places but I could tell that she had been planning to discover new routes today. The way she navigates through paths, stopping to sniff the air, makes me wonder if she must have been a seafarer or in one of those ships during Magellan’s time, going on adventures and discovering new lands. Seafarer because she loves the smell of the sea and of course the running-right-into-it part, as if hugging it and saying ‘Ah! My old friend, how I have missed you!’
Today Mocha was tugging on the leash softly, not running off and taking in new and old smells serenely. I knew instantly that today’s walk was going to lead to a new clearing or view. And I was right. We went past her usual trees, she especially likes the one that has shoots growing on it after one side got hit by lightning. She suddenly wags her tail when she is nearing it and goes around it, as if she is encouraging it, and looks at the shoots lovingly, proudly, as though she planted it and tends to it. She likes the way I touch the tree barks while we pass through the forest paths and she waits for me to do it if I miss doing it. Sometimes I skip a few just to see if she is still keeping an eye on what I do, or is engrossed in her sniffing.
The walk was getting longer and I started telling her that we should be turning back now. I start saying ‘it’s time to go home’ 15 minutes before it is the right time for it, to give Mocha plenty of time to pick up the pace to where she has planned to go, else we reach home quite late. As usual, those words made her pace quicker and she put on her serious traveler face and started walking towards some more trees. I told her that the other side looked more interesting, as it was less denser but she ignored me and her legs started moving a little more quickly. I told her that we could go there as long as she didn’t make me run after her, and she looked back and just slightly reduced her pace.
Just as I was getting worried that we would be reaching a dense patch of trees, I could see that the light was getting brighter ahead. Mocha was leading us towards a clearing and the sun here felt wonderfully warm. I stopped and looked around while she walked right towards a rock, as though she was searching for it all along and it marked her destination. She looked at me. She does that when she wants to hear my views about the new places she has found. I told her it was lovely and was about to praise it more when she pointed to the right. I wondered what she wanted to show me but when I looked above all the trees towards where her nose pointed, I could see clearly what she was showing. It was a snow covered mountain peak and it was breathtakingly beautiful. I didn’t know that we were so close to the peak whose tip was barely visible from the highway, and that too only if you knew exactly where to look. My eyes were glued to the peak, taking in the delightful view; and I was certain without turning to look, that Mocha was smiling too.
