Chapter 14: Thinking Like a Dog

“I never get bored; I just think like a dog,” I said one late-June morning to my table partner Jayne as we sat sipping coffee. It was the early 1980s, and we were counselors at a sleepaway camp, presiding for eight weeks over a long family-style wooden dining table. The campers rotated every week, but the counselors anchored tables for the duration. “How do you know dogs don’t get bored?” the more worldly Jayne replied, probably questioning the wisdom of the camp director thinking we’d be a good match for the whole summer.

Jayne had grown up in a rural state and had actually studied animal science in college. I, on the other hand, had grown up in a milieu in which my father rejected essential suburban norms, proclaiming, “Pets? Barbecues? Didn’t we dispense with sleeping with animals and cooking outside ages ago?” In sum, I had no basis for my assertion. And yet, although I have never had and will never have a dog, thinking like a dog has served me well in life.

The (human) trick is to observe calmly and accept that, in that moment or in those hours, you are powerless; you cannot change what is going on around you. Of course, you do retain agency over your thoughts, but there is really no point in trying to control those either.

And I categorically reject the notion that age debilitates the mind’s flexibility in this particular exercise. Now, well north of 50, there’s just so much more to draw on; points of reference tumble about, a telescoping kaleidoscope of memories. On a recent long flight, a knob cover in the cabin brought me back to the plastic ring that was always popping out of the umbrella hole in the patio table we had when I was a child. This, in turn, brought back some poignant memories of summer nights with my family not barbecuing.

The COVID-19 lockdown has provided far too many opportunities to test my dog-thinking skills. When I go out onto the balcony of our Madrid apartment, where we moved in March, my eyes involuntarily follow the same zig-zag pattern of checking from building to building and terrace to terrace. I don’t have to look outside our window to describe the view: confection-like edifices in pastel colors with decorative wrought-iron balcony rails. And if put to the test, I could match the figures and faces of a dozen or more neighbors to the windows or balconies at which they regularly appear. This is true even though Kate and I haven’t actually met any of our neighbors, instead marking the progress of our “belonging” by waves and smiles. When we missed two evenings on the balcony, for instance, a woman one floor down and to the right gestured to us inquiring whether we were all right.

Feeling but not knowing — perhaps like a dog — is an apt description I once read about the experience of being in a country without understanding its language. A few weeks ago, genial enterprising neighbors strung colorful string pennants all across the street. There was a bustle of organizing activity, ropes being tossed over, lines being threaded and lowered. It was our excitement for the day. We knew that the government would be permitting children to go out onto the street that afternoon for the first time since the lockdown began. We felt as if the grownups had decorated our street to welcome the children on their first steps outdoors in months, but we didn’t know for sure. When we saw the look of wonder and delight on children’s faces later that day, it didn’t matter. We were all cheered.

Now, little triangles in primary colors still flutter about in all directions, up, down, and diagonally. For this adult, it is a very pleasant challenge to my eyes’ preferred pattern of looking across and up and down the street. And now, surrounded by the colored pennants, the tall, curly-haired, bandy-legged man across the street, who often gesticulates toward and cheerfully chats with neighbors on our side of the block, suddenly reminds me of a floppy balloon sky dancer at a car wash.

In the building next door to the happy sky dancer man, is a young woman who frequently works on her laptop on a tiny table on her balcony. On our first morning in our apartment, she was already working by the time I made a bumbling attempt to tie a proper sailor’s knot and latch the rope of our very heavy and very squeaky window blinds. Each time that the knot fell through and the blinds crashed down, I felt sure I’d meet her disapproving gaze. But she never looked up, at least not that I could see.

That seems so long ago. Now I see her and her partner or roommate exercising in their living room with the windows wide open and sunning themselves on the balcony, just like us. And I am touched daily by the care that went into their homemade balcony banner that reads: “¡Todo saldrá bien!” It has a rainbow emanating from the lower left corner up towards the words, which mean, “Everything will be all right!”

For three days now, there’s been no sign of sky dancer man on his balcony. Kate asks what I am thinking. I say, “I’m just looking around. You know, doing my thinking like a dog thing.”

But the truth is, I’m worried and trying to stay calm. Where is the man? I just want everything to be all right.

©2020 Kay Diaz