When your mind is heavily troubled by exterior circumstances invading the peace of a beautiful world reflecting the inhumanity that humanity is capable of, and there is really nothing at all you can do other than voice regret and confusion that others around you remain unperturbed while yet others glory in verified and reprehensible reports of terrorism targeting the very people you share an ancestral identity with, almost anything you distract yourself with can be useful to your mental health and equilibrium.

Keeping busy, while being involved at a remove helps, and so you engage in doing things you would ordinarily do. So physically you undertake to perform but nothing stifles your mind where images keep appearing and reappearing so dreadful that their having been committed remains incomprehensible. There are social media sounding boards that introduce you to myriads of others whose trauma you share; some far more directly involved, mostly just as anguished as you feel from your remove.

Yet these are issues that one cannot be removed from; they adhere to your inner consciousness, they consume your thoughts, they extract a measure of pain you may have thought at some point in your long life might fade some day, but now it seems obvious it never will.

Outside late this afternoon on our way to the ravine with our puppies, we came across some of our neighbours. Two close neighbours walking together who live at the very end of the street. One of them with an unfamiliar looking puppy, not the usual one you see her with, a shy 12-year-old miniature long-haired Dachshund. Sad. Life carries on, the little dog died a few days earlier, and its replacement is a beautiful little terrier-type puppy.

Further up the street we're greeted enthusiastically by a tiny Yorkie mix who runs on the road to greet Jackie and Jillie, but mostly Irving. The little creature waits obediently for a few little cookies. Its person describes to us the benefits inherent in having received, after a year-and-a-half when they placed their order, a travel trailer. One so small, she calls it a 'comfort cocoon'. It's no larger than an ordinary SUV, just more bulbous.  She beams as she tells us it has a heater, sleeping accommodation, and a 'kitchen'. 

In the ravine, we take our puppies off leash, and Irving dispenses the first of several cookies they earn by misbehaving continually. They're off, to descend into the ravine, and we follow. Although it's late in the afternoon on this house-cleaning day that has kept us busy, we take our time, to savour the quiet serenity of the forest. Our eyes wander here and there for there's always something to take our attention.

It's a peaceful place and a peaceful walk in a world tearing itself apart. We speak in low tones to one another, each of us describing something we'd learned during the course of the day when we were impelled from time to time to break off what we were doing to check on the news. And the news is not good.