Walking the Dog
Every day I take my small dog for a walk. This is a joyous adventure for her as squirrels beg to be chased, birds make the mistake of… being birds. And she bounces/pounces her way into the tick-infested woods with utter abandon. Checking for ticks, blood sucking insects that have absolutely no value in the evolutionary process, is my task when we arrive home.
We live in a somewhat rural area so we seldom meet other walkers. We do have to be on alert for cars but that is clearly my job as she is oblivious to the dangers of these machines that appear and disappear. She will stop and gaze intently at a passing truck only if she thinks it might be her plumber friend who always has a biscuit for her. The other vehicles are invisible to her otherwise. We walk through woods, along the sandy shores of a bay, and up dirt roads as she and I reflect on nature. Well, she is immersed in it and probably not thinking. But I have time to let my mind wander. Accompanied by the rustling of leaves or the gentle laps of waves on the sand. I would love to report that I explore complex ideas, solve challenging questions, or come to some deep awareness of myself. But the truth is my mind floats on the breezes, scampering here and there, much like my dog. Today, as I am dealing with a Covid infection, I might have contemplated the fragility of life a bit more acutely. While I am not feeling all that bad and clearly out walking, each breath becomes a question. What happens next? The randomness of the virus intensifies the aura of waiting. But waiting for what?
But that is a meditation for but a second or two. My mind moves on to see a fairy bower, or perhaps a home for the woodland sprites. Actually, it is a thicket of branches woven together that are lit up by the sun in a way that suggests they might mean more than at first glance. Hence the fanciful metaphors above. But I have learned that behind every myth is a profound truth about nature and one that should not be lightly dismissed, much less mocked. Ever since learning of “thin places” I am on the lookout for places where the divide between here and eternity is shimmeringly narrow. Delphi in Greece is one place and explains its centuries as a divine site. But you can find them in much more mundane locations, if you look for them.
I pass a grove of fading lilacs but right next to them are white lilacs and stand tall and give off that recognizable scent of spring, beauty, time. My dog tears off after a squirrel and almost climbs the tree after it. How delighted she would be if she could do that! She bounces on the ground, begging it to come down. Wisely, the squirrel declines.
Every now and then we both stop to let a car go by. She is off lead but I keep a keen eye on where she is and she responds quite well to the command to stop or wait for me to catch up. We have our car routine down pat. When the road gets too busy she is back on the lead. No amount of explanation can make it seem anything other than a reprimand, which it is not.
I hope my back and hip will not ruin our walk. Not too long ago we could go for hours but no longer. But I try to do my best for her. The wooded, squirreled, and rabbited world is heaven for her. I swear she imagines small animals just to experience the ecstasy of jumping into the tall grass to pounce on them. She lives intensely in the moment.
I, on the other hand, wander back in time to recalling a walk over to visit my grandmother during the long summers of my childhood. At times I close my eyes briefly and hope that I might be magically transported back in time to one of those vanished moments — just to witness and attend to who I was, where I was going, and most importantly, to tell my grandmother how much I loved — love — her. I would walk over to her house across main street, turn on Windmill Lane, trudge up on a hill, past a horse field, and arrive in her small house in the woods. We would play Canasta and drink tea. She was not an easy woman, but then I was not an easy child. Years later I find myself echoing her in so many ways: my love of dogs, church music, and solitariness and yes, grumpiness. But then I was, to be honest, pretty much of a brat and never fully responded to her attention and care. Of course, I open my eyes and I am firmly here, in the moving present. We temporal creatures are time travelers only in our memories, imaginations, and future expectations. Augustine pointed this out back in the fifth century when he wondered what time was. We all know until we are asked to define it, right?
But much like the Zen master she is, my dog is fully absorbed in the present moment, sniffing, marking, scanning for any movement that might signal the need to throw herself into the bushes. And the present moment — isn’t that really what eternity is? Humans long for it and yet are completely captives of time, unable to free ourselves from the curse and blessing of consciousness.
As we approach the end of our walk together, we share a moment when we both recognize home, anticipate biscuits, and are together in the present. It was a good walk.
