I can't sleep…
1. Nobody’s thinking about you…
2. Make young friends….
4. Get a Dog…
6. Everyone’s in pain…
9. On regrets…
— Roger Rosenblatt, excerpts from his Top 10 in “How to Be a Happy 85-Year Old (Like Me)” (NY Times, April 13, 2025)
[…] But Odie’s most favourite phrase in the whole world, the one that makes him delirious; that has him scrambling on my laptop (and deleting entire sections of writing); reaching ever higher to lick the kids; making his trademark bark-moan-beg sounds if we don’t quickly get our act together, is: “Walkie time!”
To offer to walk Odie is to taste pure happiness.
Every day, we walk Odie along the same paths. He eats the same food at the same time. We use the same words to the same effect. For a life so circumscribed, how is it that our bounties feel so limitless? In a life of ups and downs, perhaps it is the uncomplicated nature of the relationship that we have come to love. […]
He will begin a new year of receiving and giving joy in the same ways as the last four years.
It’s a simple life. And therein lies its beauty.
— Ranjana Srivastava, from “In a Life of Ups and Downs, we have come to cherish our dog’s uncomplicated love” (The Guardian, December 26, 2024). Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, award-winning author and Fulbright scholar. Her latest book is called A Better Death
Come outside, you laugh. You are
standing on the lawn holding
a bag of shit and the dog leash. You say
look, look at the moon. And I do.
— M. Soledad Caballero, from “When You Go Out to Walk the Dog” in “I Was a Bell“
Notes:
4:00 am. Friday morning. I’ve been watching the clock since 1:30 a.m, drifting in and out of light sleep.
“Racing thoughts. Reduced need for sleep. Exaggerated sense of self. Irritability…Obsessive rumination.” — Cory Richards
Wally, has been restless all night too, probably for biological reasons I’m sure. He refused to go outside before bed – it was drizzling. Our Wally, loves water, hates rain. Go Figure. He loves splashing in baby pools, clomping along shorelines and muck, and best of all, puddles. I watch him veer right and left on the park path, splashing through puddles from the overnight rains. Think toddler with big rubber boots.
And here we are, 1,557 consecutive (almost) days in a row on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.
Susan and Eric left on a road trip for Grandma’s birthday. Wally watched me leave for the park that same morning looking terrified: Not going to be left Home Alone again. No sir.
Continue reading “Walking. With Free Bird.”
My friend Paul had to put down Bear, his beloved 11-year-old black Lab. Bear’s lungs gave out, and Paul did the humane thing, although not without, in his words, crying hard and often. Every dog lover understands, for we know all too well how our dogs love us.
My mini bernedoodle, Sugaree, meets me at the door when she hears me on the front porch steps. She jumps in anticipation—all four legs catching air—until I enter the hallway. It’s a love that doesn’t diminish.
This is my welcome every weeknight when I come home from work. I haven’t split the atom, ended world hunger or even brought her a new chew toy, yet I am honored like Pompey the Great in his third Roman triumph.
This nightly greeting has two effects on me. First, it makes me want to be better, to be worthy of such love. This reflection, in turn, helps me to love God, whose perfect love never ceases to draw me out from my own imperfections, from the man I am to the man I should be.
Second, it reminds me how silly it is to think I can love too many people or anyone too much. If loving is willing the good of the other, then there is no upper limit to it. This insight helps me strive to love my neighbor and to be an instrument of peace. Sugaree is my role model, as Bear was Paul’s.
— Mike Kerrigan, from “Our Dog, Who Art in Heaven” (wsj.com, January 3, 2023)