Be. The. Dog.
Last Thursday was “National Dog Day”. I wanted to finish this piece and post it to celebrate our dear doggo Abbey, but I couldn’t seem to get it done in a timely manner. I was distracted (as usual) by politics, the pandemic, and other problems floating around out there. It’s hard not to be distracted these days. I knew this piece required some heavy thinking.
I began with the above photo that’s stored in my iPhone. Of course, I have prints of photos kept in large storage bins in the garage. The hall closet houses a few shoeboxes filled with black and gold Kodak envelopes from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. There are doubles and triples of each photo, negatives in the little side pockets, too. A drawer in the study holds a stack of photos that once were framed. Content scattered around our home for scrapbooks that we all know will never be assembled. But my iPhone has the photos that are easily accessible, ready at a moment’s notice. I can pull them up while standing in line at the grocery store, waiting at the doctor’s office, or sitting at my desk.
A few years ago, my daughters showed me how to create photo albums on my iPhone. At the time, I had only two albums: Recents and Favorites. Since then, I have created several new albums. For instance, I have a folder titled Quarantine Quotes. It’s devoted to the hilarious, political, satirical screenshots I’ve accumulated over the past year. Another album is called Backyard — filled with photos of the succulents I planted in the spring, the lemon tree next to the garage in various stages of bloom, and a half a dozen pictures of our towering Sycamore trees with their oversized green leaves in midsummer.
“My Happy Place” is the album where I’ve put photos of moments in my life that have brought me joy, of images reminding me of something special, or of something that was simply beautiful or profound. I always feel a certain sense of anticipation when I open this folder. These are the best of the best, the chosen few. Some have been shared publicly but most are private and personal. There’s the photo I captured of my girls in the midst of a pillow fight one Christmas morning. The one of Chuck and I emerging from the church on our wedding day gets me every time — we were so young, everything was so new! The sherbet-colored tulips filling my vase on the kitchen table found their way into My Happy Place too. It is not lost on me that our rescue dog Abbey is the cover of this album.
This picture was taken when Abbey was a little over a year old, still in her puppy phase. By then we had weathered the dog trainers, dog sitters, hidden cameras monitoring her crazy antics while were away from home, puppy gates in front of the front door — you name it we did it. I had been anxious about having a puppy in the first place, worried that she would dominate my lifestyle, the empty nest I was preparing for in a few short years when our daughters would head off to college. And indeed, she put me to the test — running and jumping and barking like a maniac. But in the quiet moments, she’d cuddle and snuggle and get cozy. She firmly found a place in my heart by that Christmas of 2017.
Chuck was with Sophie working on the one-thousand-piece Star Wars puzzle at the dining room table. Charlotte was upstairs trying on her new clothes. The southern California winter sun streamed through the French doors and onto our couch. I watched Abbey dance around the pillows, fluffing and circling until she had finally created the perfect place to nap. She nestled into this spot, her chest heaving up and down rhythmically. I put my phone camera in “portrait” mode, so careful not to wake her, and zoomed in to capture the moment. Long black whiskers around her nose twitched randomly. On occasion she’d let out a tiny sigh or a baby bark.
What could she possibly be dreaming about? The tug-of-war game from yesterday or the squirrels taunting her on the fence? Perhaps. Is she thinking about what we are having for dinner tonight? Not likely. Is she worried about politics, pandemics, or her purpose in life? Nope. She is just sleeping, curled up on our couch corner. If and when someone comes to the front door, she will jump up and bark. If she needs a sip of water, she will rise and take a drink. She may find the need to stretch out, in which case she will push open the back door and flop down onto the warm patio. That’s about it. She lives in the moment. She is simply being a dog.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, this way of being. In the past year, when things have gotten dicey or stressful, I pull up this image of Abbey. I repeat the mantra I’ve recently adopted: Be. The. Dog.
We are taking our youngest to start her college experience in less than two weeks, which also means Chuck and I are entering the empty nest stage. Odds are we will be taking lots and lots of pictures to document this milestone. I wonder which, if any, will make it into “My Happy Place” folder joining the tulips with their long stems reaching to the ceiling, a Christmas morning pillow fight between sisters, a wedding day from many years ago, and a puppy curled up on a corner of the couch.
Am I pondering politics, pandemics, my purpose in life? Yep. Worried about my family — my parents and my kids? Of course! And by the way, what are we having for dinner?
Time to repeat the mantra: Be. The. Dog.
