color and time

I was walking with Henry last week and he said that he felt bad for Chaucer because he can only see in black and white. I shot back a quick reply that dogs rely far more on scent than on vision and that their sense of smell is far better than ours. Since then, I have been thinking about Henry's point. When I take Chaucer out in the mornings for his walk, he immediately runs around the same spots and smells them and marks them. I would dare to say... and I have paid attention... that Chaucer is 90% smell when he goes outside and explores. I don't think he pays much attention to his sense of sight at all.

What would it be like to have that sensitive a sense of smell... how would it change things for us. I thought a lot about it this morning and I think it would effect almost everything... even our sense of time. Every morning when I take Chauc out he gets all crazy in the car before we get to RSP. Whininglike crazy.  He goes out, not only to walk, but to greet a world of things that as far as I am concerned, aren't there anymore. It doesn't matter to him though. He is scenting and leaving scent in a blur of really what amounts to time travel. Think of it like this. What if, when we went outside, a remnant of everyone that was there for that past few days was still left... like a world of ghosts. Not only would that serve as a record of who has passed, but as a way of communication with what is going to come.  We live a very "in the moment" existence. Sight is a split second input, either I am there or I am not. Smell, for Chaucer is much slower. His world of reception opens up a world of communication that is all but invisible to us. I go out hoping to see a coyote, or a bear, or deer every morning. Chaucer "sees" them all every morning. Every time we walk, they are there. And they are saying things to him. The closest that I can get to relating what it must be like for him is to say that things are leaving notes for him. But this, I think, may be a far lesser comparison. If our sense of sight is sharp, Chaucer's sense of smell is vivid. He may see in black and white, but his sense of smell transcends time. He would see us as trapped in a moment whereas he can "see" for weeks.

Our eyes take in this bouncing light that travels so fast. If I turned on a very powerful flashlight (and could bend that beam of light to hug the earth) it would take that beam of light 0.1344 seconds to get back to me; much less than a blink of an eye. Powerful.. and amazing that our eyes can take in these blazing fast currents of energy. We live in the moment... the second... the nanosecond. It is no wonder we are so caught up in time's passing... it flashes and dies in the faint of a breath, constantly. Chaucer's world may not be like this at all. Not just the remnant of things remain for Chauc, but in a way, the

things themselves. If he isn't relying on this bouncing light to tell him that things are here or gone, then perhaps to his senses, they are still there. Sight must seem a fickle and impermanent thing to someone who "sees" far into the past everywhere they go. I see the bird flash yellow and its gone. Chaucer "sees" the bird, and where it came from and where it goes all in one moment... all together... the same existence. Time is blurred and the world is more full of things present.

He is sitting in our house now. His place... and he knows it is his because he is literally filling the place with himself. Territories must be so strong to him. If a bear has passed and marked an area once, his presence in that place is less... if he has done so more than once, many times maybe, he is more in the place. There is more of him there.

I think Henry, that Chaucer is not one to be felt sorry for. Maybe it is us, in our frantically changing world that is missing out on a existence filled to overflowing with life and meaning.