Hello friends!
This month, I got caught in a current I didn’t see coming.
April has arrived in full force, and the rain hasn’t been messing around. The thunder still makes me paws at the porch, gathering just enough courage to make a run for it, but between the storms, something else is happening. The air smells different. Fresher. Like the earth is waking up and stretching in every direction all at once. The trees are reaching higher, the garden is beginning to pop, and even my hoomans seem to be shaking off winter and stepping into something new.
From the yard, it all looks familiar – same grass, same garden, same mud. But the light in the woods seemed a bit different, so I decided to take myself for a walk and explore what had changed. I trotted down my tree-line trail into the ravine.
Before I could see the creek, I could hear it. It was roaring! Not the usual chatter, but something louder, stronger. The recent rains had turned my quiet creek into something… bigger.
I picked up my pace, excited to see what was going on. When I got down the ravine, I could not believe my eyes. My creek looked like a river. The shoreline had disappeared. My trusty log bridge – completely underwater.
Challenge accepted!
This new creek was inviting a big adventure! I ran in, ready to cool off and sink my belly into the water…but the current had other plans. Before I knew it, my paws lost the ground beneath them. The current lifted me, twisted me sideways, and started carrying me downstream. I paddled hard, trying to find my footing, but I wasn’t in control anymore. The water decided where I was going, how fast, and when I could stop. For a moment, I was just… in it. Then, just as quickly as it had taken me, the current pushed me onto shallow ground. I scrambled onto a sandbar, soaked, breathing hard, heart racing like I had just run a 5k.
I stood there, catching my breath, watching the water rush past like nothing had happened. That current had carried me farther and faster than I ever would have gone on my own. I checked myself over – four paws, two ears, one tail. I was okay.
But as I turned my tail back toward home, something felt different. My hooman greeted me the same way she always does. She toweled me off, rubbing my belly with her usual commentary on my thick, wet coat and impressive level of mud. To her, I looked exactly the same. And she was right. Nothing about me looked different, but I wasn’t the same dog who started out on that path earlier.
I suppose that’s what a strong current does. It doesn’t change how you look when you come out of it. It changes where you’ve been inside yourself while no one was watching. It also made me wonder… how many others look the same on the outside, but are still catching their breath from a current no one else saw? Maybe that’s worth remembering the next time we pass each other on the trail. It’s easy to miss what a current has done to someone else when all you can see is a fluffy coat.
So friends, if these April showers are finding you in a stormy season, or you are caught in a current you didn’t see coming, it’s okay to feel unsure. Just keep paddling – you will find your footing. When you’re in it, it’s hard to tell what’s happening or where you’re going. But you are still moving forward. You are changing, even if everything on the outside looks exactly the same.
And sometimes the strongest thing you can do is let the current carry you through – because the very thing that pulls you off course might be the thing that shows you a path you never would have found on your own.
So take a breath. Trust where you’ll land. And when the current feels stronger than you expected, just go with the flow.
I will bark at you next month.
Your friend,
Jack Jack Canine Explorer 