Paying Dog(ged) Attention
I keep my eyes at dog level when I’m walking on the dike. There is just nothing to say about dogs, except that they delight me, all of them, even though some are connected to people who are talking on their phones instead of picking up after their pets, or giggling when their designer canine jumps up on my chest, like it’s a darling trick.
There is something in a dog’s eyes that is as solid as the ground itself. When I find people confusing, confounding even, I focus on the tangle of black, gray, brown, white dogs in all sizes, some with outlandish getups. The flat-out sprints, the ritualized greetings, the leaping and joyful barking and sheer joy in snow and fresh air and lungs that fire...it’s a good practice, just paying attention to dogs.
Most Jackson locals have favorite places, and I often choose a lunchtime walk from Emily’s Pond because I can get there from a busy workday with my favorite companions, whose first language is the wagging of tails. Apollo, black lab mix, smiles with teeth worn flat because he loves to plunge his entire head into the Snake River and bring back rocks. “Look!” his eyes and tail telegraph each time. “Just look at this miracle! Can you believe I got such a great one?” And back he goes. And Roxy, with me through thick and thin for nearly a decade now, is delightfully loyal and fluffy white in contrast. I stopped apologizing for her less-than-outdoorsy demeanor within 24 hours of bringing her home because that is how quickly I realized that her heart was so much bigger than mine. “I can teach you these things,” her eyes said. And she has.
Lately when I’m walking, I realize I’m bristling because the levee looks like a runway for après ski apparel that is made for the après, not the skiing. I recognize something like resentment at the perfectly tailored ski coats that cost more than two season passes, recalling a conversation with someone who’d recently moved here, asking why locals favored a particular clothing brand. “I mean, the design isn’t even that great,” they scoffed. “You’d look so much better in something else.”
I have to keep my eyes down because it’s part of my life’s journey to tame the innate street fighter. I really don’t want to be an asshole, not because I think they don’t deserve it, but because I know it isn’t going to help and I don’t want to swallow my own poison. The truth is, I like the local brand. I like that I know who started the company and that I rode the chairlift with a young person who is their marketing director. When I take my jacket in for repair, she’s delighted to see me. I don’t really know how I look in the jacket, but I know how I feel: Connected to people who love the authenticity of people and place. I am thinking of them when I’m zipping up my jacket to go for my walk. I am rooting for them.
What prompted my new practice of putting my attention on dogs is that I don’t like who I could become when I think of human shortcomings, including my own. When my thoughts wander away from the view or the fresh air, and I begin the litany of things that could go wrong for my kids or my community, I feel my body and mindset seize up. I am rigid and locked down, with few mental options. I am scanning, judging, criticizing. I have sharp elbows and a desire to use them.
An eagle flies overhead, snapping me out of my rumination. I breathe. The fresh air is so nourishing. Apollo returns with another perfect rock. Roxy gets on her haunches and begins to paw the air, signaling to me that she’d prefer the backpack to walking now, thank you very much.
I take it in, a few deep breaths, the space of the sky, the solidity of the mountains, the constant overflow of goodness from dogs. The world is still the same, and by that I mean, miraculous.
