A Big Little Life
A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
Chapter One
a spooky moment around
which the entire story revolves
THE SPOOKY MOMENT central to this story comes on an
evening more than ten years ago.
Trixie, a three-year-old golden retriever of singular
beauty and splendid form, adopted the previous September,
is in her fourth month with my wife, Gerda, and me.
She is joyful, affectionate, comical, intelligent, remarkably
well behaved. She is also more self-possessed and dignified
than I had ever realized a dog could be.
Already and unexpectedly, she has changed me as a person
and as a writer. I am only beginning to understand the
nature of those changes and where they will lead me.
January 1999:
Our first house in Newport Beach, in the neighborhood
known as Harbor Ridge, had an exceptionally long upstairs
hallway, actually a gallery open to the foyer below.
Because this hall was carpeted and thus provided good
traction for paws and because nothing breakable stood
along its walls, I often played there with Trixie on days
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