When I finally grow up, I wanna be a dog.Used to be that being called a "dog" meant that you were a "good dancer". Ahem. You know what I mean....your awesome dance moves made up for whatever was lacking in the physical attractiveness department. Part of a Seinfield episode defended Tommy Tune, who might not've met match.com's "hunk" requirements but DAMN, he could dance. Once, my 6th grade crush, Rick Norton, called someone a dog during a ridiculous Metric Olympics on our junior high ballfield. He wasn't talking to me (of course not!) - I think he meant our To-Remain-Unnamed gym teacher - but after that I spent eons worrying that during Mrs. Creamer's science class, RN would woof every time I bent over a microscope.
Now that I'm a happy long-time member of the "Science is Sexy" sphere, I don't worry about what Rick Norton thought.
But back to dogs. I've always been a dog person, which I guess is something like saying "I've always slept on the right side of the bed", or, "I've always rolled the toilet paper from the underside" (fodder for t.p. WAR!). Anyway, being a dog person definitely comes from my Mom. Dogs follow her everywhere. As a girl, a little furball stray followed her home one day and, my Mom being the most adorable creature ever, convinced my Ukrainian grandmother that nothing would be better than to take in a ravenous puppy, name him Nicky, and feed him for the next 12 years. Later, neighbors' dogs used to follow us during our walks around my old neighborhood. Just because my Mom is so damn cute. And probably also because our dog Chips had peed on my shoes. But whatever....we were absolute dog magnets, and still are.
Now, I have two, adopted from the same shelter. The oldest is Dog #1 (Snoopy), and he's ten. His housemate is Reesie. She's six but she's NOT, Dog #2. Despite my habit of calling her that. Lately I've been watching them more closely, partly because I'm not 'working' 70 hour school weeks again til September, and partly because, Snoopy just got bad news from the vet, which has been upsetting to my family and me. Snoopy doesn't have a clue that he's sick so....sssshhhhhh. I don't plan on telling him.
Because as I'm typing this he's gathered the disgusting gnarled rawhide leftovers he's stolen from Reesie or, has dug up from the yard where he buried them hmmmrmphhh months ago, and is laying on them, like they're going to hatch and multiply. So it's happened. Snoopy's finally eaten enough bird road kill for his DNA to have mutated and..........
It doesn't matter.
He's having a ball, thinking he's clever for hiding these disgusting bone things from Reesie. He's having a ball peeing on whatever he wants to (OUTside) because his pee-er works again. He's having a blast because it's wakeup time and that's when you squeak every toy in the toy pile because......we're awake!. He's having a blast because food is GOOD and he's good at eating it. His naps rock, and back-scratching on tree branches rocks, and so does looking for backyard frogs, and so does licking the beer bottles in the neighbors' recycling bins.
So that's like, a 48-minute snapshot of his day today. The best 48 minutes of his life, until his new 48 minute clock starts. Then who knows what'll happen then, but it'll be the BEST.
Not to oversimplify things or to generalize, but, this is why I think being a dog is so appealing. It's been written elsewhere and probably more eloquently, but dogs seem to epitomize what the Jesuits call the "eternal now". They're usually occupied only by where they are, what they're doing, and who they're with at this moment. They seem to glean everything they need to know about how they're doing, from right now. And right now they know they're (hopefully) safe, fed, and loved. If they are momentarily confused or anxious or ignored, those moments pass (not always free of angst), and then they aren't. If they were mistreated before, they don't hold it against who they're with now. Really, who knows if they worry about the future but, if they do, they don't let it curb their utter absorption with now's enjoyment, now's learning, now's circumstances.
Their brains may be littler and have less capacity than ours, but I think that's pretty damn smart.
So maybe that's how it should be. We adopt our dogs, but maybe then we should adopt their "eternal now" minds and trust that right now is good, and full of simple things to relish, and circumstances to teach us or provide us the things we need to move along and experience the next 48 minutes, and the 48 after that. And unlike dogs, if our circumstances aren't what we hoped they be, then we should fill ourselves with what we've got now as we prepare to change them. Because we can. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1836 (YEARS before I was in 6th grade), "every moment instructs, and every object: for wisdom is infused in every form".
Oh. And, the toilet paper goes UNDER.
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