The stuff of ritual

I've been watching this little dance for about six months now and have just this week recognized it for what it is. A pattern. A daily expectation. A ritual. So, I took the camera to the porch with me this morning. Sure enough ...

We get up, the coffee's made, Tal walks the length of the driveway and back -- to open the gate for the day and to retrieve the paper. Before he can get his second cup of coffee and settle in the chair Whitby's there and they settle in together.

In cold weather they're in the striped wing chair next to the piano. On these summer mornings, when the temperatures are in the low 70s, it's Tal's rocking chair on the porch. And, if for some reason -- like an early tee time or "o'dark thirty" Saturday fishing with his son -- Tal doesn't read the paper first thing, it isn't unusual to find Whitby sitting beside one chair or the other. Just waiting.

The stuff of ritual. We, all of us, religious or not, do it, ritualize our lives. Rarely do we notice when it starts and by the time we do -- if we do -- it's pretty ingrained.

I wonder. Do our rituals make us as happy as this one seems to make our little dog?


Tal, though he'd probably deny it, is pretty pleased about it, too.