“a capella”, 25×35,3cm, pencil&aquarelle

One of the first news I’ve read today were these news. And I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been doing that since I decided to ‘reinvent’ myself. Somehow, only good memories from my past life started to nurture my heart&mind. Long term memory is a valuable thing, especially when used for ‘good things’. And what could be better than pushing the play button in your head and watching a new some great movie that actually happened to you. No cinema can beat that.

For couple of months or so I’ve been watching my movie about my stray dog Žućo (meaning ‘yellow/ish’). He was my 1st dog when I was about 4-5. My granny&mum didn’t allow me to bring Žućo home so he would wait in front of the building every morning or afternoon. I would bring bread and cheese to feed him and green comb to brush his coat to make him even prettier. I’ve also taken mum’s red scarf and tied it around his neck: I saw that dogs have some ‘things’ around their necks so my Žućo also needed something like that. He was mine.

Mum and granny didn’t like the idea that girly is playing with some ‘filthy dog from the street’. Whenever they would see us 2gether, they would start yelling as if I’m doing something bad. So the two of us would hide and enjoy our time: I would be brushing his coat, cuddle him and ‘we would talk’ for hours…at least the notion of time appeared so in a life of a 4-5 year old.

Then suddenly, Žućo went missing. I don’t know how long it was. I was constantly very sad that he’s not there where he used to be. I wasn’t worried cause small kids don’t worry > at young age one has no sense of what a worry is. Time passed and after a while I finally saw him from my window. I screamed “Žućo!”, garbed piece of bread and run out as fast as I could to hug him. While I was approaching the road in haste, Žućo was standing on the other side watching me and waiting kinda nervously >> stray dogs know very well ”you just don’t run onto a road filled with cars!!”. And then, in a split of a second, I heard scary truck breaks and some awful bump sound…All I remember is a man (driver) screaming at me and Žućo lying below my feet, both of us in front of the white truck. He was still breathing, heavily and very slowly. He looked as if nothing hurts him. But looking at him lying on the road, a 4-5 year old learned in a split of a second what ‘life worry’ is. I keeled down, gently touching him trying to convince him to eat some bread…I thought that with some magic a bread will make everything better. Lots of people gathered around us but I remember just one old man who bend down, gently took my hand and said; “you can’t do anything more for him now. he’ll be ok, don’t worry. and you, where are you parents, where do you live?”. He brought me home and guess told my granny and mum what happened.  Žućo saved my life.

This movie is not a sad one for me anymore. Quite opposite >> I feel in awe that super special dog, who had no one but me, saved my life. And maybe more than once 😉

Later on in ‘ex life’ we had Kiko (hunting dog), than Moro (rotweiller). But more than 4 years ago I finally got my own dog, funny havanese bichon. I call it ‘my economical & goofy dog’ 🙂 I named him Moro cause he’s cool as my rotweiler was. When he was just one year old, he also tried to save my life: though he saw the sea for the first time, he jumped into it off the cliff! People on the beach, who took care of him while I was taking a swim, started to scream like crazy. I got their attention and saw a tiny white thing swimming towards me. My Moro looks tiny but has an enormous heart and isn’t afraid of anything…except inflatable balloons.

Just recently I discovered that Moro (which was name of my grandpa’s first dog) is the coolest character in cartoon “Princess Mononoke”. Funny how things turn out in a ‘new life’.

Why people love dogs? …cause they freely give tons of joy, warm feelings, solace, peace, companionship, true friendship, loyalty, respect, understanding, happiness…all ‘for nothing’, without conditions. I would say that dogs are far better living creatures than most people. They can surely teach us a lot about love and how to love in life.

Long live our dogs!