How Walking Your Dog Can Teach You to Live in the Moment

Day 46

It’s almost nine weeks into my daily writing marathon, and I am still acing the art of sitting down at ten minutes to midnight to start brainstorming my next brilliant post. I actually sat down a good 40 minutes ago to start writing, but inspiration (i.e., clicking through Medium, Facebook, and a few other sites) takes time.

There’s the casting about for something to write phase, in which a dozen ideas bubble forth and jostle for my attention like reporters at a Sean Spicer press conference. This phase has begun to take more and more time.

Before I started posting more publicly on Medium, I’d write the first idea that had a pulse. Now, I feel more pressure to write something substantive. I feel like I have an audience, even if it’s just Boris, a yak farmer in outer Kamchatka.

After rejecting several ideas, I decided to write on something that may have also crossed your mind before: why do we habitually look forward to whatever is next, instead of focusing on what we’re doing now?

For instance, walking my dog Mia usually occurs to me as a chore I’d rather not do. It has more to do with the environment in which I’m walking than the actual walking of her, since she’s freakin’ amazing. I’d rather walk through the canyon at my in-laws’ place in Southern Colorado than around the mid-century, car-friendly neighborhood I call home, and so would Mia.

When something seems like a chore, we want it to be over quickly. We can’t wait to do something we like. We look forward to the next thing that’s good. If your day is full of chores and sucky things, your mind races ahead to the end, when you can finally sit down with a bowl of Cheetos and watch the entire season of Full Metal Jousting.

I’m guilty of looking forward to things, of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, of biding my time.

But — ultimately — when I’m doing that, I’m not living. I’m half checked out, part of my mind drumming its brainy fingers on its brainy desk, looking at the wall clock, muttering C’mon already, I’ve got zoning out to do!

As Mia zags to and fro chasing invisible scents through the urban landscape, I’ll catch myself feeling that anxious tug at the back of my mind, the one that says, When I get home, I’ll put the kettle on, take a quick shower, have some dessert, drink my tea, write my post, and read a little before getting some shut eye. I should have a good hour of free time to do all that and still get in my eight — no, seven hours. It’s already almost ten o’clock, so I should make this quick and take her the short way…

Damn that stupid voice.

I catch myself succumbing to its anxious droning, and then I have a flash of perspective. It’s ten years in the future. I’m looking back on myself in that moment, anxious to be rid of my dog so I can check a few quotidian boxes, and a sob catches in my throat.

She’s alive. She’s healthy. She’s young and nimble-pawed and with you, and you’re too preoccupied to notice, you dumb, stupid bastard.

And then it happens. For a single, blessed moment, the brain condom comes off, and I can feel life again. I stare at Mia, her fluffy black tail swishing contentedly as she sniffs an invisible urine stain on a lamppost. I marvel at her single-minded focus. I take in her sleek coat, her haunches, her athletic appearance, her golden eyes, her long nose, the sweetness of her disposition, the fact that she is alive right now.

Her black nose twitches a few times, and then she looks up — right at me — as though sensing I’ve checked in for a second, before she continues on her olfactory adventure.

Mia.

I move to her and give her a fierce hug, wondering for the umpteenth time what she makes of this singularly human way of showing affection. I’m with her now — present — blessedly free of the incessant tug towards… somewhere else.

The air is cool, the shadows in the ridges of the maple boles thrown into sharp relief. A nearby street lamp buzzes over the distant drone of cars. The squat, humble brick houses along my street sit quietly, watching patiently and without judgment.

This is life. It lives everywhere, even in the meanest of chores. Fight the persistent tug towards elsewhere and live now, where your loved ones are.

Originally written for my daily writing practice on April 30, 2017