I never remember how much I hate the smell of wet dog when we leave the house. It’s the kind of rain that looks more like a sprinkle from my office window but turns out to be a deceitful almost-downpour. Since I still prefer the clean rain to the frigid dirty snow any day, there is no complaining. The quickly wet dog is not so sure he wants to walk after all, and needs coaxing with a few treats to get started. Then we’re off around the neighborhood, changing directions from yesterday for variety. This is good for us. The doctors say this is good for us. It is calming, this drenched world and the white tail I follow, that sometimes is following me. There is so much every-day-ness about it. So much ordinary around me. We walk past ordinary houses. Some of them bark back at us, sensing my canine companion; most are silent behind their gushing gutters. We turn and walk and turn and walk. Hurry, hurry past the berries the curious puppy wants to eat, already forgetting that the last time he swallowed a few he threw up in my dining room. Fortunately for him and unfortunately for me, I have not forgotten.
Drips hang and fall off the hood of my coat. It still doesn’t seem like that much rain; it’s so silent. When has rain ever been silent? It’s supposed to pound and announce itself. Or at least pitter patter a greeting. I’m glad I wore the coat, and wish I knew where I’d set my umbrella. I’m always setting things places I think I’ll remember. I don’t lose things, I misplace them. The puppy finally shakes the rain from his own coat, but he is a thick coated fellow the rain does not touch his skin. Other than his snout. There is a tiny scar on his snout, just a half inch above his nose. He came to me with that little scar, and he doesn’t know it’s there. The water accents it as the fur on his face becomes more translucent. A little white scar to match is all white face and all white body.
Around a corner and we should connect with the street to head home. Except it’s really just a continuation of the same street and then a loop in a circle and … lost. It’s been nearly an hour, my phone says, since we left the house for a quick rain walk. I have no concept of time. It’s like a foreign language to me. Probably because I just don’t think it’s as important as we all make it out to be. If we didn’t track every minute of every day, the world wouldn’t stop. We probably wouldn’t judge ourselves so much based on whether we were productive, did we make USE of our time and was it worthwhile? How much time did we spend doing something that wasn’t productive (too much) or did it take longer for me to do something than it took someone I know to do it (probably)? I just don’t care that much. So I couldn’t tell you how long a minute was without counting each second; I couldn’t estimate the length of a task without marking it by some clock. Now I’m getting cold. My nose is probably red, it feels frigid like winter. My right hand has a soft glove, now dampened thoroughly from holding the leash in the rain and starting to lose feeling. My left hand has no glove. I misplaced it … but it’s warmer for resting in a trusty pocket with a baggy of dog treats. Running shoes aren’t waterproof. I found out. But I don’t often run so I figure they ought to be good for walking at least.
I GPS our way home. Modern technology lends a hand again. It feels like cheating. The magic of the walk is to wander. To walk about and gain some comfort with my surroundings. Some sort of bearing. I have no bearing in this new place. Nine months here and I still feel accomplishment when I learn to drive somewhere familiar without the lovely lady in my maps application telling me where to turn.
I read that happiness can only be predicted up to 10% by your external surroundings. The rest of it is internal perspective and choice. I don’t feel very happy very much lately. I feel really lost. Not just the lost that my GPS resolves, although that happens a lot, but a sense of loss. Lost my place. Lost my purpose. Lost my sense of direction. I made active choices to get to this place, this current now and reality. I still feel like they were the right choices, but this now is so uncomfortable, so thorny. How can I change my perspective? Where are my turn-by-turn directions to guide me back to my sense of self and my sense of place and purpose? I can’t cheat with a maps application for my career, my family, my mental health and well-being.
We go over a little river. There is a big river here, and I drive over it nearly every day on the way to my son’s school. It’s beautiful, lots of people say so. But the best part about it is that it creates fog. Deep and dense fog with a pure white quality about it that will freeze you straight through your bones and to the marrow of your body. This little river is probably really a canal, meant to manage all this rain-instead-of-snow foreign weather. Saying “river” sounds prettier than “canal”, and suburbia is all about “pretty”. The fog from the big river makes me feel at home. The whole world is a white canvas, and I could be anywhere. Imagination is unleashed on that blank slate and the end of the drive through it always comes too soon. Why can’t I approach the new challenges in my life with the same feeling with which I encounter the fog? Wouldn’t I be happier if I felt a sense of wonder and adventure when faced with making new friends, learning new roles in my career, and developing a new sense of place? Instead I feel paralyzed, with feet frozen to the ground like the deep roots of an ancient tree. There is no flying for ancient trees. There is no movement, no progression. Just a slow reach for the sky and hope for the gossip of birds. I don’t want to wait for the gossip of birds.
Our six feet pad forward, splashing through a puddle I didn’t notice. I don’t often look down, no matter how often I stumble. We break into a run. My version of a run, which is like the slow canter of an out-of-shape geriatric pony. Still, I think it’s really the feeling of breaking from the limits of walking that makes the difference – that’s what I tell myself. The dog is so much faster than me, but he stays close, looking up at me frequently to check my speed and my direction. I’m not sure where he learned to do that. It’s nice. It feels like a connection. I make it a block before I’m out of breath and slow back down, recognizing the road again, seeing the way back home. Hot coffee is so happening. Maybe something else will happen to. Maybe not all at once, and maybe not even noticeably to anyone but me. But maybe I can make a decision about my perspective, and change my happiness by the 90% I control from within. I’ll have to look for the control levers, I feel like I misplaced them. Looking out through the raining tears that peel in either melancholy lament or joyous resolution off the tip of my hood and past my eyes, the world is still wet and grey and soggy, like my puppy. I suppose whether it’s melancholy or joyous is all dependent on how I choose to interpret it.
observationsfromthepeanutgallery 