Flight and pursuit

It felt like the end of the world. The air was thick with smoke, the sky a putrid grey-brown that turned the sunlight into a deep apocalyptic crimson. Ash rained from the sky. Breathing was a hazard. It was the fall of 2020 and wildfires were ravaging the west coast. A small fire that had been burning not too far from home suddenly became massive - consuming 100,000 acres in just 24 hours - and began heading right for us. When it came within a few miles of our town, I gathered up my dog, Guthrie, and we fled.

Guthrie is a tall, slender, Doberman mix with floppy ears and intelligent eyes. She has the countenance of a queen and the disposition of a clown. She’s clever, intuitive, loving, sassy, and has been described by those that know her as “quietly unrelenting.” She’s been my best friend and closest companion for over a decade and throughout that time has been a constant source of strength and joy when existence feels impossibly absurd.

When it comes to emotional support, Guthrie’s go-to tactic is to tell me to do something for her. When she sees that I’m struggling she responds by telling me to pat her butt, give her treats, take her for a walk – whatever it is that she’s identified as something that will make her happy – and it works every time. There’s a kind of magic in making Guthrie happy that is healing, sustaining. Watching her eyes light up when she sees a tennis ball or a really great stick is like stepping into a sauna on a bitter-cold winter day. For at least a moment, all suffering melts away and the only thing of significance in the entire universe is what it feels like to see joy in Guthrie’s eyes. So, as the fire raged out of control and steadfastly maintained its trajectory toward us, I knew the only way to soothe the primal terror that arose when imagining my home engulfed in flames was to take Guthrie to the place that makes her the happiest – the ocean.

The look on her face when she smells the salt in the air and the joy she exudes as she romps through the waves is palpable and infectious, and the joy that watching her brings me is unparalleled. Every celebration and most weekends are spent at the coast. We clumsily run through the dunes, sinking in the soft, warm sand with every step, and splash around in the frigid waters of the Pacific. My favorite part of our time spent at the ocean, however, is watching Guthrie chase the seagulls and sandpipers along the shore – her long, graceful strides silhouetted against the golden glow of the setting sun. She pursues them with a blissful, lupine tenacity, as though she is unleashing all her ancient instincts in one giant burst of vitality. But the rapturous look of pride on her face when she eventually returns unsuccessful says that catching them isn’t the point, that they aren’t prey but playmates. It’s an incomparably beautiful experience to witness the transcendent glee she radiates as she endlessly engages in a game she knows she will not win.

Our retreat from the path of the blaze landed us in a small town called Seaside – a classic coastal town with brown shingled houses and small businesses bedecked in seashell décor. We were out of mortal peril, which was nice, but the possibility that we might not have a home to go back to lingered stubbornly in the front of my mind. Our first order of business was therefore to get to the beach as quickly as possible. We made our way over small dunes along sandy paths carved by years of foot traffic through a field of tall beachgrass that rippled delicately in the ocean breeze. As soon as we reached our destination, Guthrie, eyes gleaming, raced for the water and began playfully battling with the seafoam. We spent hours chasing each other along the shore and splashing around in the surf.

A smokey haze obscured everything around us, the smell of cinder was pungent, and the sense that this was the end of days still clung to my psyche. But despite the omnipresent reminder of what we were running from, I felt peace. As I sat in the sand watching Guthrie gleefully chasing the gulls, the tide creeping in and the ominous burgundy glow of the sun slowly sinking behind the horizon, a warm rush of contentment washed over me, and a kind of weightlessness set in. I recognized in that moment that if the world was actually ending, if tomorrow really wasn’t going to come, there was nothing I’d rather be doing than watching Guthrie chase seabirds along the Pacific.