"Walking the Dog"

This summer – which now seems like a simpler time, 

        already belonging to a distant past –

                I didn’t do much.

I made several trips to New Jersey to see my parents.

My father's health declined;

        we arranged hospice care. 

In between visits I was unable to concentrate 

        on my usual summer projects;

                even reading was difficult.

Protracted anticipatory grief put everything on hold.

Vacations were considered,      

        then postponed.

Time passed.

 

Eventually I realized that it is not possible 

        to be productive and sad

                at the same time,

                        as the past few weeks have demonstrated 

                                to us all.

So I let my distracted, faraway state of mind 

        claim its season of my life.

                one ritual gave me solace,

                        a thing to do at regular intervals,

                                a task that took increasingly greater amounts of time:

                                        walking Aki, 

                                                our young dog.

We walked for miles every day,

        to the park and the college campus.

We did all our errands on foot.

I timed our excursions to maintain Aki’s burgeoning dog social life,

        so that he would not miss the encounters 

                with Cleo, Brownie, Minnie, Coco, and Max,

                        that are the highlight of his day.

 

As we made our rounds I saw many of you,

        on foot or driving by in your cars.

I'm the one who waved at you from the sidewalk.

In my neighborhood I became a familiar local character.

Driven by one clear purpose –

        to socialize my dog –

                I approached strangers, 

                        talked to them,

                                learned who lived on my street.

After years of coming and going from my home

        by way of a garage on an alley,

                 I was seeing where I lived for the first time.

 

This simple activity, 

        walking the dog,

                became a comfort and a refuge.

As the summer went by,

        I began to notice how many ways

                it helped me and kept me whole.

Now that September has come and gone

        and brought its distracted sadness upon us all,

                those hours outside with Aki 

                        are more essential than ever.

I tell you about them

        because each of us needs something –

                a simple ritual,

                        a way to calm ourselves,

                                and a community around us,

                                        to survive all the hard times in life.

 

These days we live under a cloud of uncertainty.

Yearning to return to normalcy,

        but finding it impossible to do so,

                feeling the waves of impact hit us so close to home –

                        as jobs turn shaky,

                                investments shrivel,

                                        and security evaporates –

                                                our simple rituals are all we can count on

                                                        for comfort and refuge.

Our rituals are not frivolous.

They are life itself.

And they help us remember 

        what it means to be at peace.

 

Mark Taylor, a professor of religion at Williams College in Massachusetts,

        offered a perspective in Friday's Los Angeles Times

                on how the terrorist attack

                        has changed the American psyche.

"Individually and collectively,"

        he wrote,

                "we sense the danger of things slipping out of control

                        and are not sure how or where to respond."

He argued that we should not seek 

        to find closure too soon.

Rather, we should let the anxiety we carry

        and the wounds we have sustained 

                teach us their spiritual lessons –

                        we must "humbly accept our vulnerability

                                by opening ourselves to help from others …

                                        without whom we cannot survive."

 

We have been through a life-altering ordeal,

        our losses mount,

                we are not the same.

"I wish the World Trade Center

        did not fall down,"

                said one child here, 

                        in church, 

                                two weeks ago.

So do we all.

We are still struggling with that basic fact.

 

And yet, the rituals of daily life reassert themselves

        even in the midst of overwhelming reality 

                and the powerful emotions they impose.

How good it has been for me to walk my dog,

        who has no idea what is going on in the world

                except that the people are jumpy and distracted

                        and spend far too much time watching TV

                                instead of playing with him.

Everything else may have changed,

        but not my walks

                or Aki's insatiable appetite for new friends.

 

You can't think about it all the time.

Even if you are learning something from your anxiety –

        do we have a choice? –

                you need to find safety, respite and comfort somewhere.

My need intensifies with each passing day 

        of my father's slow decline

                and the quickening crisis in our world.

I savor those moments when I'm not thinking about it.

It is far too big for me to handle.

 

At 6:30 in the morning 

it is just growing light outside,

                and I haven't had my coffee yet.

But dog walkers speak without introductions or coffee.

One I’ve never met before approaches Aki and me.

"Was your dog the star of 'Best in Show'?" he asks.

 

I smile over this question for days.

Only in Los Angeles, 

where I have never been mistaken for a movie star,

                does someone think my dog is.

But I am grateful for friendliness,

        for strangers who want to meet my dog,

                for moments in time 

                        when inane conversation  is a respite 

                                from the hard, heavy news 

                                        we must hear all day long.

 

The walks are more than an escape, however.

They connect me to other people.

When I am grieving or feeling vulnerable,

        it is easy to feel alone and disconnected.

Though I am reserved, my dog is not –

        and he has brought me into contact with people

                I never would have met any other way.

I've talked to security guards at Santa Monica College,

        homeless people recycling in the alley,

                nannies strolling children in the park,

                        kids on skateboards after school.

In the months I have been walking my dog,

        I have met so many new people   

                every house on my street

                        between our home and the park

                                shelters some person or pet 

                                        I now know.     

I live in a different place because of our walks.

And it's a better place because I know it.

 

One of the lessons I've received

        from the simple act of walking my dog

                is how knowing a place

                        makes it better.

Until I walked up and down our street

        at all hours of day and night,

                I felt no attachment to my neighborhood.

My allegiance was only as great

        as the cluster of five townhouses 

                that makes up our homeowners's association.      

We're a friendly little group,

        but I have a real neighborhood now.

There is safety and comfort

        in knowing your neighborhood.

 

Mark Taylor wrote in his essay in the Los Angeles Times,

        we cannot survive unless we open ourselves to others:

                "both within and beyond the borders

                        that we now know are insecure," he adds.

This is a global as well as local truth.

We need to know our neighbors –

        and not just the ones next door,

                or in the next state.

 

All the world's peoples are our neighbors now.

If we know each other,

        we make the world a better and a safer place.

That is what peace looks like to me these days.

 

Walking the dog has also given me a sense of inner peace.

When I'm not talking to the neighbors,

        I turn contemplative.

Our pace is slow, 

        like a walking meditation,

                as Aki sniffs every inch of turf

                        in his ever-expanding universe.

There is nothing else to do but turn inward.

 

I have never returned from a walk

        without feeling different in some way,

                even when nothing at all has happened.

Slowing down 

        and attending to the rhythms of a dog

                are one way to deal with anxiety.

It's as if the things that worry me 

        go away for a while.

When they come back,

        they have become less worrisome

                or found a solution.

Sometimes they do not come back at all.

 

I live near Santa Monica airport.

The sound of the planes,

        once a minor nuisance,

                now gets my attention in a different way

                        and makes me uneasy.

Out walking, the noise is loud sometimes.

There may be no running away 

        from what makes me anxious,

                but I can keep walking.

That thought calms me.

I think there is such a thing as inner peace.

It tells me to keep walking.

 

In the time ahead, 

        we will need to live with our anxiety and our wounds,

                and to learn the lessons they have to teach.

We have no choice but to meet challenges

        that may alter our way of life.

We will look deeply into the values 

        and assumptions of the American dream 

                and struggle with it means now.

We have sober and difficult tasks ahead.

 

But none of us will be able to do our part

        unless we keep the rituals

                that calm us inside and connect us to our world.

Whatever your rituals may be:

        making dinner at home with your family,

                entering and sitting in this space before the service,

                        writing in your journal or emailing your friends,

                                whatever you do that is simple, 

                                        calming

                                                and affirming of life,

                                                        keep doing it.

Let your acts of custom and connection

        give you the strength for the time ahead.

Center yourself in the rituals of your days.

Remember that peace can be

        as ordinary and common

                as the simple things people do,

                        wherever we live,

                                in a world where neighbors meet.

The article from the Los Angeles Times is titled "Terror, Anxiety andAwe are on the Loose at Ground Zero," by Mark C. Taylor, and appearedFriday, September 28, 2001.