One early morning last week, just before sunrise, I heard a strange sound as if someone was yelling in intervals. At first, I thought it was a cry for help, and then I thought, after all, it wasn’t the sound of a person.

I walked to the dining room window, and then I looked out to the street. Nothing to the right. Nothing straight ahead toward my neighbor’s house, and then I saw a sudden movement to the left beyond some bushes. The wind? A loose piece of rust-colored paper rolling onto the street? It was a fox, a red fox with his famous tail. It looked to its left and right and then, like an athlete, it ran along the road in a sudden dash, past the bushes, past my neighbor’s house, and then it ran past my window. I expected it to stop for a moment and wave hello.

I always feel sorry for foxes. They do eat berries, but they depend mostly on meat: mice, squirrels, birds and worms. It must be easy being a rabbit. It doesn’t have to work hard to find grass or clover, even twigs, bark, flowers and shrubs. But a fox has to hunt and hope there will be a meal just beyond the next rock or next patch of woods.

The quick visit of the fox running in the neighborhood has stayed with me these last few days: the movement of its tail, the way its legs moved in a gallop, the earth color of its fur. We preserve the image of things in our private memoirs, quick moments like the visit from the fox, and we also preserve forever moments: our wedding days, vacations, the memory of our children’s first day of school, the memory of the homes where we grew up.

One of the great things about our culture is that we have established our collective public memories in our museums: works of art, dinosaur skeletons, pottery, Lincoln’s hat, the Wright Brothers’ plane.

The Dallas Museum of Art has a painting by Gustave Courbet, one of the most influential French artists from the 19th century. Courbet led the realism movement, abandoning the romantic painters and their idolized notion of the world. Courbet painted what we see and expected us to come away with our own sense of meaning from the snapshot of reality.

When you visit the Dallas Museum of Art, look for Courbet’s Fox in the Snow. As you look at the painting you might feel the cold air in your imagination. You will get to see the hungry animal devouring a mouse. There is nothing romantic about that image. It is an unsentimental moment of reality, and yet in that reality, there is beauty. There is always hidden beauty in what we see in our ordinary days.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, “the entire red fox population of Central Texas probably descended from 40 foxes released between 1890 and 1895 near Waco.”

It seems as if one is hanging in the museum in Dallas.

In Paris on Dec. 25, 1861, Courbet wrote a Realist Manifesto, and in it, he wrote, “The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it.” And, like Courbet’s fox, it also belongs to our collective encounters thanks to the DMA.

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DALLAS — Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sat out Friday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks due to a sprained right wrist.

Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA’s scoring leader and an MVP front-runner, was a late addition to the injury report.

The Thunder opted to sit Gilgeous-Alexander after he had an abbreviated warmup routine.

Gilgeous-Alexander wore a wrap on the wrist after Thursday’s home win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. He said he felt some pain after falling during his 40-point performance.

“Was fine this morning and then came to the arena and was a little bit sore,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said before Gilgeous-Alexander tested the wrist during his warmup.

Gilgeous-Alexander played in all 40 games during Oklahoma City’s 34-6 start, averaging 31.6 points, 6.0 assists, 5.4 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.1 blocks.

The chair of the City Plan Commission is over his term limit, and Dallas has been put on notice.

Mike Northrup, an Old East Dallas resident and a lawyer, wrote to commissioners Thursday, citing rules in the city’s charter that set term limits for board members and commissioners.

“Your service to the City beyond your years of eligibility to do so is admirable,” Northup said in the email. “However, it is past time for you to step away from “the Horseshoe” and allow an eligible appointee to serve as a plan commissioner.”

“No one individual should be so important that his or her continued involvement puts the public’s business in jeopardy,” he said.

Northrup’s letter could have deeper implications after Dallas voters in November approved Proposition S, which waives governmental immunity and exposes the city to litigation if it violates state or local law.

Last month, Northup and a group of over 100 Dallas residents sent a letter to the City Council urging them to reappoint board and commission members who have overstayed their term, citing provisions in the city’s charter that set term limits.

“Every day that these individuals serve without authority to do so undermines the public confidence in the work product of the boards and commissions in question, and it puts that same work product at risk for invalidation,” the letter said.

It is not clear how many individuals have overstayed their terms. A city spokesperson said in December officials were in “receipt of the letter and will respond at the appropriate time.” City officials did not immediately respond to a follow-up call in May in January.

Typically, council members appoint volunteers to influential boards such as the City Plan Commission and the Park Board. The city’s charter states members who have served four consecutive two-year terms are not eligible to serve again on the same board until at least one term has elapsed.

Members serve until they are termed out or “until their successors are appointed and qualified,” the charter reads.

The December letter mentioned Shidid, who was first appointed in 2013 and has been the chair of the commission since 2019.

Shidid was appointed by council member Jaime Resendez, but the chair is picked by the mayor. Shidid did not respond to requests for comment after either the letter or the email were released.

Resendez, who appointed Shidid, told The Dallas Morning News “I will defer to the city attorneys for any legal conclusions or guidance moving forward regarding the letter.”

This year, the City Plan Commission grappled with several hot-button issues, such as Forward Dallas, the city’s updated land-use guide and the rezoning fight that has engulfed Pepper Square in North Dallas.

“What does it mean if the city’s business is led by someone that isn’t eligible to be there?” Northup said.

Northrup said he began drafting the letter following the passage of propositions S and U, which waive the city’s municipal immunity and mandate the city allocate 50% of any new revenue growth year-over-year to the police and fire pension system and other public safety initiatives.

The two propositions, Northrup said, represented “the mood of the public” and the letter supporters wanted to tell the city, “Here’s maybe a small thing to solve.”