Dogs

On Sunday, today, I only saw two dogs. The more behaved one first chased a squirrel over the grass but then sat still while it got its leash put on or maybe back on. The next dog, a white wolf hound, had just rounded the courner. The owner obeyed the leash law in force in the park, and re-connected her dog. Not that the second dog didn't behave, but the first one amazed me by sitting still, ears up, while it got re-leashed. Some dog.

Dogs do get special attention at the park. They put up a sign above the doggie bag dispenser that pretends to talk in dog language to dogs. The sign encourages you to pick up after your dog. And most people do. You see them with their dogs and doggie bags of poop. When they don't and the dogs crap in the middle of the track I usually will stop and kick it over with gravel and dust and then kick it into the street. Eventually dog crap disappears. Maybe another dog comes along and eats it. I don't know.

Parts of the trail show dogs prints more clearly than other parts. Where the water puddles on the track you find dog prints that can last for days, or before the next rain. Today the guy with the white dog decided to cut across the park. When he and his dog emerged from the grass they crossed the concrete bridge that covers the drainage ditch. Their prints showed wet on the concrete, paw and shoe, where they came out of the grass. They headed east and I passed them heading west. I know the impulse to cut across the middle of the park. Sometimes, when the sprinklers are quitet, I do it too. I like to feel the street and track recede, the uneven tufts of grass, mud, sticks under my feet. Out in the middle you're isolated and it gets quieter. You've got space all around you. I love that feeling.

Whenever I'm by myself away from home, like at a hotel or visiting someone, I do my jump. If I'm taking a bath or changing clothes, just at the point when I'm naked, I'll do a little jump. Just enough to get my feet off the floor or the carpet. Sometimes I try taking the tiniest jump I can. But even though it's the tiniest jump, I know that I've separated myself from everything. Totally "just me". Then I land again and can put on my pajamas or whatever. I started doing this as a little kid and I still do it. If I'm in a new place it's a way of reconnecting with myself.

Walking across the park you get the same feeling: being yourself by not being in the middle of everything. When you come out you have grass clippings on your shoes and socks and, in the wet grass, you leave prints on the concrete for a while. Then they fade as you walk along the sidewalk, back home.