Shopping for Dog Food

• By Eileen Vandergrift
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I came out of the pet store tonight with a 25 pound bag of dry dog food and was stopped in my tracks by this compellingly beautiful sky. I put the bag in my trunk and just stood in the parking lot taken by the strange, darkening beauty of it. I felt unmoored as though this skyscape were the kind of vision available to astronauts looking down on the earth from deep space. Something of an inversion between the darkening blue and the greying clouds was just beautiful to me.The twisting and floating of clouds, as though shaping an ocean of curious silence, settled something. After a few minutes I got in my car but hesitated about leaving. As I reflected on my stall, I recognized that I’d been inside all day bathed in bright artificial computer light and that I had missed an autumn day passing just the same without me. Sometimes our losses aren’t dramatic at all, they can be as simple as neglecting attention to the world around us and losing moments of beauty that might well have resulted in wonder. It’s a good day when I can find dog food and wonder in the same quick trip!