Beachside Foxes

Yesterday during my walk, I had several encounters with one of the neighborhood foxes.  As I write that sentence, I wonder if people still use the term "fox" to mean an attractive female.

I saw the fox from a distance of a block, as we both walked east.  As always, I wondered if I was seeing a fox, a coyote, or a dog.  But the head made me think I wasn't seeing a dog.  And it was a slender creature, which made me think it was either a baby coyote or a fox.  Plus, I've seen a fox in the neighborhood before, but never a coyote.

I continued east to the Intracoastal and then around by the marina, heading up to the route around North Lake.  A few blocks away from the path around the top of the lake, I saw the fox again.  This time, the fox crossed the street, stopped under a tree, and stared at me.

I stared back.  I didn't want to make the fox feel threatened.  Plus, I wanted a good look.  My spouse and I have a long running disagreement.  He often thinks he's seen a coyote, and I think he's probably seeing the neighborhood foxes.

Eventually, I kept walking, and the fox trotted off into a back yard.  I walked home, thinking of all the forest creatures that are here, in a beachside town full of concrete and high towers, very far away from any forest.  If I wrote children's books, I'd write about foxes and raccoons who live in the abandoned houses and go to the beach after everyone goes home.

At home, I looked at various pictures to be sure I was seeing a fox instead of a coyote, and I'm pretty sure it was a fox.  It would have been small for a coyote, but more than that, its face was more like a fox than a coyote.  And back to that slang--how did that become a term for a beautiful woman?  Foxes are cute enough, but other animals are much more beautiful.

I spent the rest of the day working on writing for seminary classes and meeting former colleague friends for lunch at a Mexican restaurant.  In later years, when I look back and wonder why I wasn't writing during this time when I was underemployed and a part-time student, let me remember that I'm writing thousands of words a week.  For my New Testament class, each weekly assignment clocks in at over 1,000 words, and that's just one class.  I'm writing a similar amount for Hebrew Bible and I'm writing 300-500 words each week for my Religion and the Arts class.  And some of it might be useful in other contexts--but the larger importance is that it keeps my writing muscles in use.

It's the kind of delightful life that I have to keep fighting back this fear that I might be punished later.  But what kind of punishment do I fear? Will I regret this time of not optimizing my earning potential?  I doubt it.

Let me remember the many delights of this time.