Summer light before the solstice starts back towards winter.

The light stays at a dim gray level, under the clouds, later than it seems like it should. Lets the dogs have more time looking for squirrels, out on a soccer field across the Westside. Brave hunters, out on the land.


Takes a longer time to walk there, but if the sun stays up that long, I guess we have time. It's been a long time since I've been out that way. Running around on a soccer field. In the middle of tract homes on streets that have names after glamorous locales like Reno Way and San Jose Street.


I used to live on Reno Way. Once my boyfriend found a dead body in a van at the end of our street. Most of those crappy old houses are torn down now for mini mansions that all crowd together for ocean peeks. Granite countertops. And crown molding. Walking all the way down there, we walk by the lion. Some dogs, they're not afraid. Some dogs, you notice, not exactly in the photo.


Some dogs, can line up to sit in front of the landscape wall. To imagine that they're at the sea. We have to brave the tract houses on Stockton Ave to get there. A soldier on leave from Iraq shot himself there, on a bench at Stockton Ave, a couple weeks ago. Just sitting on the bench, looking out at the sea, nicely called the police first to warn them, then blew out his brains with a handgun. Some dogs, you notice, not exactly in the photo.


The good dogs sit still, even though they're watching something, out far across the field. That something is running, and running, and running. Not going to waste another second of the light, slowly going dim, by sitting around and staring when there's running that still could be done. Doesn't really matter where to him, I guess. Forest is good. Beach is good. But a soccer field, by the skateboard park, doesn't turn his nose up if it isn't the preferred kind of nature. He'll run around til it's dark, until it's time to walk back home.