Simple things—a cooling breeze, sunlight on flowers, interesting shapes of everyday objects—can lift a person’s mood. Aki keeps it simple in her life. She examines every faint smell. The little dog follows the straightforward social rules of her kind, showing submission at the first meeting with a larger dog and then joy when submission is not required. Often my tendency toward complexity leads me to ignore the plain things.

This morning I am standing at a trail junction waiting for Aki to catch up. Mosquitoes are storming around. I want to move before the one buzzing my right ear sinks its drill-bit like proboscis into the tender flesh at my temple. When the little dog breaks into a run in my direction I make my escape. We continue on to Gastineau Meadows in a cloud of bugs. A ten-knot breeze reaches the meadow the same time as us, carrying away the mosquitoes. In the unexpected quiet that follows, I slowly focus on how the wind ripples through the meadow grass. I notice, too, the early morning sunlight elevating the beauty of simple objects like dead trees limbs and live pinecones.

When she was a puppy, Aki would carry a book around in her mouth. I’d find her tooth marks on volumes left by the bed. She gave up books when she figured out she couldn’t eat words. But she still likes to visit our local college.

I also like to walk across the tiny campus with its Tlingit totem poles and sheet metal raven sculpture. The campus abuts against Auk Lake, which we circumnavigated after our college visit. It’s a trail better suited for someone hearing impaired who wouldn’t have to listen to the constant noise from nearby Glacier Highway.

After I tune out the road roar, I notice a face formed by the reflection of sedge by small wind-driven swells. It looks grumpy, even menacing in a James Thurber sort of way. Nearby a small floatplane appears to be sinking in shoreline vegetation.   But I know it is tied safely to a hidden dock, ready to fly its owner over the glacier and onto a quiet mountain lake.