the way a dog knows

i have been really skeptical and actually frightened by those people who claim to know things about you - just by sensing it.
the people who read your palm, smell your fear, see your grief, and hear your regret even before you realize you are thinking of it. they get famous on t.v. by freaking us out. how do they know these things about you? is it magic? did they take a survey of the audience and they are simply elaborating & generalizing small bits of information? it is weird and a little freaky. and i am usually all weepy in fear when i witness it. it scares me in the way that ghost stories scare me. "they" - those who have the gift - are in touch with something in me, that i am not in touch with...what is that? "they" say that we all have this gift and could be aware of our own environment in the same way and they have somehow been gifted with access to that awareness.

i have come to believe in such knowing b/c it seems even my dog knows things that i cannot put into words, myself. why does my dog rouse out of sleep when i am merely thinking of going for a walk and stand up? she does not get excited when i stand up to go to the bathroom or make a cup of tea. how does my dog know when i am sad or sick and simply lies down next to me, being a quiet presence of love and enduring patience. is this the sixth sense? is it the ultimate sense? is it common sense that we disregard? do we observe and sense more than we allow ourselves to interpret?

i know that i often wear my heart on my sleeve. but, with my dog and with people who are willing to access that ultimate sense, all of our emotions are obvious to the naked eye. there is no faking anything. the rest of us must sense more than we give ourselves credit for. and we aren't willing to make our hunches truth until there is a story to prove our hunch. i can see when someone who looks exhausted, lonely, and intimidated and i really do not need their why & how & what happened to recognize their need. do i respond to all the people i pass in a day who look so tired and depressed, uncomfortable and confused? no. so what does this super awareness provide? why be so aware of the world if we dont act on it? i dont have much conclusion. i suspect that if we fessed up to all that we can sense about each other, we might fess up to how lonely we are too. we might fess about how much we love each other. if we understood what bad liars we are when we try to cover up how we actually feel, and how little purpose our lying serves --- well, that sounds like crazy talk. actually telling others you love them. being honest about our hurt. huh. imagine that. that would be crazy.

chasing squirrels

like most dogs of a hyper nature, rita stalks, chases, herds, and hunts squirrels.
she does not discriminate against squirrels. she'll chase gray squirrels, black squirrels, brown squirrels, squirrels sans fluffy tail, and i can only assume she would chase the white squirrel that i just recently learned exist in southeastern illinois. yes, a white squirrel. it looks as icky as it sounds. i think i would have to run away if i saw one. yuck-o

what is remarkable to me is that despite being an otherwise trainable beast (any time i have food, she stays in a perfect sit in hopes of the magic position manifesting food in her mouth) she doesn't figure out that she will never catch the squirrel. rita has never won the race. that pesky squirrel always outruns her, scampers up a tree, or the leash tethering rita to me keep her from it. last week she bravely chased the squirrel right into a thick, well-groomed bush that must have felt like being attacked by a Christmas tree. yet, she perseveres.

i have thought to myself --- when will she ever learn? she is just exhausting herself running and getting all worked up over this little squirrel that she will never get to. and if on some find day in the future she actually did get the squirrel, i don't think she would even know what to do with it. it would most likely scratch the heck out of her and poison her noise with squirrel nastiness.

oh, you dumb dog, we say. watching rita, i realize i spend a great deal of time chasing squirels. i lie awake at night, i sit at my desk, i drive down the road, i talk to a friend - all the while chasing pesky squirrels in my mind. i repeat conversations (imaginary, rehearsed, or historical) again and again - stalking myself like Rain-man. I tree a squirrel of a relationship and wait there, scampering around to get a better perspective of the little stinker, who will never just come down from the tree...if for no other reason than i'm at the bottom of it all worked up like old yellar.

ah, yes. i know a few things about diving head long into an emotional bramble bush with unfailing expectation of catching that squirrel.

or maybe we do know.

maybe we know that we will never catch that squirrel but it's just our misplaced fighter spirit.

maybe like dogs, we are normally trainable beasts. but when it comes to fruitless distractions of our head and heart - we have a uniquely indefatigable spirit.

so we keep chasing squirrels. it's what we do.