Live Dogs Walking

Walks with my dog Nicholai – my Dead Dog Walking – were a thing of beauty. The looming end of our time together due to his lymphoma pressed on each day, squeezing meaning from every moment. Beauty had always been there, mindfulness always a possibility, but often I tended to race through the days of my life toward some unknown destination, missing the simple goodness right in front of me.

The sensation of a finely tuned focus felt familiar from the months after I was diagnosed with cancer in 1995. Life's distractions fell from view and the acute blueness of an autumn sky or the exquisite gold of a leaf floating to the ground on a fall breeze gained my full attention. My office still needed to be tended, bills paid, meals fixed. But under the threat of impending demise, I allowed my appreciation to linger on the multitude of plain joys gracing every day, waiting only for me to notice. Time passed, it became clear that my demise was indeed not imminent, and the tendency to hurry through a day's activities in pursuit of an elusive new and improved future seduced me again. When my beloved dog was diagnosed with cancer and predicted to live only a few months, the precious nature of each day's simple pleasures came to the foreground another time.

Now Nicholai is dead and my touchstone to the temporal nature of our existence is gone. I find it terribly difficult to slow down and appreciate life's many gifts without the threat of death hanging over my head. Walking the pitbull duo – while enjoyable – falls often into the category of chore instead of sacred opportunity. Both they and I need exercise so we walk and, check, another item crossed off the to-do list. I'm on to the next item.

No day is ever guaranteed but the day in front of us; still it seems that innumerable walks, hikes, and adventures await me, Izzy, and Kelley. Thus, I allow my attention to wander, hurrying once again through miracles of drenching rain or crystal blue skies. Izzy barks maniacally for my attention and Kelley stares me down, quivering with the anticipation of a thrown ball and daring me to forget my to-do lists and just play.

My challenge over the coming months will be to come fully to the present. Though my dogs are young, their ability to live in the present is one of the greatest gifts they bring to me. So, even though Izzy and Kelley's moments don't seem stolen right out of the grim reaper's hand and thus somehow more precious, I hope to allow their passionate focus on "now" to seep into my very veins.

So, it's time for wool socks and hiking shoes, warm shirt and hat. The trail is calling.