If you take a dogsled ride at Krabloonik, outside of Aspen, after you take your thrilling ride but before your dinner in the restaurant, they ask that you thank every furry member in your dogsled crew.
Everyone starts with the Alpha who looks like he could've starred in a Disney
film. There was another yipping silly dog who constantly licked my shoes. My guess is he'd never known a still moment in his life. I have and forever will have a soft spot for clowns.
But I was most drawn to a timid member in the back of the pack. I petted her and told her she
had beautiful feet and ears and eyes. And thanked her for pulling my fat ass around the wintery wonderland. I pulled ice chips from her paws and her muzzle. Then did something you're never supposed to do with a wild dog. I looked her full in the face.
"What's her name?" I asked
The handler was an overgrown kid with a jacket too small and windburnt wrists, "Oh we don't name the sled dogs." "What happened to her ears?" I wanted to know. There was scarring and a line of fur loss. Franken-ears almost but didn't mar her beauty in the least.
"Ohe was talk
when she should have been listening and the dogs turned on her. The pack disciplines their own." He wandered off to take our group for cocoa. I looked down at her again and in a quid pro quo moment I'll never forget I told her my marriage to the Harvard graduate was over. That
I heard him on the phone with his mom laughing at my wanting a publicist because all my roles were so small and worthless. And while that wasn't the core of the cause it helped explain it in a nutshell, who he was.
The dog told me she would have loved to have chased a rabbit
earlier but had this chain on. I undid her chain and smiled at this connection I'd made on a New Years Eve night. And walked away. Then I realized she was loping after me, got up on her hind legs and hugged me again. I took the whole of her in, the smell of frigid terrain and
wet for half her life dog, with stars in her eyes.
Decades later I take with me into a new year a soul connection with a certain doe eyed Husky. Doubtful she is on this earth any longer. But wherever she is I'd like someone close to smooth her ears and tell her I love her.
I'm just like her. A thank you and a hug and I too will get up tomorrow and run another hundred miles,
unhindered through the snow.
And I would have named her Freya. #HappyNewYear2022
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