Something funny happened at the brook this morning, just after I took this picture of the reflection of the green tree that made me very happy. Charlie was wading in the brook and suddenly barked–his startled, territorial bark, like, who goes there? And he jumped back and barked again. I looked for an animal, a beaver or something that might have been swimming and snapped at him, but there was no sign of anything animal nearby or even a splash or ripple of one. He kept up that upset bark, and I realized what was bothering him. An angel on a tree branch. A concrete statue of an angel resting on a fallen log in the brook where Frank set it up some weeks ago. Charlie kept barking. And I was glad, really. I hate the statue. It has been bothering me for weeks, and I’ve been living with it. It belonged to Frank’s mother. When she died it came into his possession. He didn’t know where to put it. This is the spot he finally chose. Well, the first time I walked to my favorite place of serenity, the brook, where I stop to meditate briefly and breathe and look into the brook as if into the state of my heart, well, I was quite disturbed. My first impulse was to kick the angel out of my brook. I just didn’t want my mother-in-law's concrete angel in a place I go to pray. But, since the brook is a place I go to look into my heart, I had to rethink this impulse. Maybe the right thing to do was to let my husband have the angel where he wanted her. (Except he’s not the one who comes here every morning.) So, I kept walking that morning, and wondering what I’d do, and then I thought, well, I’m just going to decide, how important is it? How big a deal do I want to make about the angel? Maybe, all these years into a happy marriage I can learn to live with this eyesore. Well, I decided I would just wait and see. And I did nothing. Except my daughter saw it too, and she said she didn’t want it there either. Still, I said nothing, did nothing. I did my best to ignore her every day and focus on what sits beneath the surface of the brook. So, Charlie’s upset today was kind of hilarious. Even Charlie doesn’t want the Angel in the brook! I want to say to my husband. Oh, thank you, dear Charlie, for speaking my dis-ease! But still, there she sits, and I still haven’t said anything to Frank. And now, perhaps, I don’t have to. Because this concrete angel is now becoming a source of great amusement to me. And maybe that’s why she’s there after all. To remind me to laugh at life’s irritations and annoyances and cheap, sentimental statuettes. This is an old story. My mother-in-law giving us decorative things that I didn’t want to display. Really, I have to laugh. In fact, I’m in stitches.