I remember standing on the beach last year with my Leica CL 35mm in hand, waiting for the moment décisif of a man playing with his dog. Daniela and I both stood enjoying the sight, herself in total understanding, myself in a bit of a confusion. Why was this grown man laughing so hard while playing with his dog? Surely, he'd seen his dog grab a stick and run before. Surely this wasn't the first time they'd played tag.
Being left to take care of Maggie's needs (save meal prep, shoutout to Ms. Thanh) these past couple weeks has changed something in me about the way I relate to joy and frustration. It would be unfair to call her simple, though I think it's fair to say that simplicity is an important part of the bigger picture here. If she doesn't eat enough for breakfast, she vomits right next to my workstation as I'm taking calls. If she doesn't run enough in the middle of the day, she'll chew on my shoes and jump up and down or lay low in pretend ambush with her butt in the air, tail wagging, until I react. Sometimes this means she really needs to poop. Sometimes not. I feel terrible when I can't take her outside for hours due to back-to-back meetings.
But when we go outside, everything changes. If the weather's wet or dark, she tiptoes out of the house behind me, waiting for my signal to know it's safe to descend the wooden staircase into the darkness. If it's bright and clear, she storms out the back door and into the yard with the great oak and makes a racing lap through the newly fallen leaves and branches, full speed, her ears back and her eyes mad.
I can feel the bodily stiffness shaking out of her. She's never mad at me or bitter for taking so long. I look for a Maggie-sized stick and she races toward me, throwing her body in the air like a dolphin to try to grab it. I throw it and she chases it down, usually missing on the grab in her explosive enthusiasm, sometimes doubling back for it like an overzealous student running suicides in gym class, sometimes grabbing a different stick and acting like it's all the same anyway, sometimes just giving up entirely and racing another lap around the yard with a champagne pop of exuberance.
She likes to shred sticks and I encourage her. She's good at it. Sometimes I try to sneak up on her and steal it. If I can grab it in time, we'll play tug of war, and if the stick is the right size, she'll hang on so tight I can lift her whole body into the air. If she lets go, I'll throw the stick for her to chase and we'll start all over again. Sometimes the stick is rough in the hand or she gives it a good tug and pulls it out from my grip. In the end, I always let her win. And boy does she like to show off. Stick held high, she'll flaunt and prance like a flamboyance of flamingos around the yard. And I'll laugh and laugh and laugh. She'll do this even without beating me if she finds a whole branch of branches. Lifting an awkward stick is a celebration in its own right. We celebrate together.
As the days have gotten colder, I've adjusted to my winter clothes. Not the fashionable kind that you wear when going from home to the office. But the ski kind. The kind that lets you stay outside for hours in the snow without ever feeling like you need to go take a hot bath, at least when it's not windy.
I even overheat. When we play keep-away, there's actually no way for me to win without cheating. She's too fast. So I'll just flail my arms around babbling and pretend like I'm gonna steal her stick, but she knows I can't catch her. The only way for me to get that stick is to wait for her to lay down in the grass and start shredding, or to call her name and tell her to drop it, which is against the rules. You've got to have rules in games, rules that make sense to all the players.
Here's what I mean by simple. Maggie has a few core physical and emotional needs. She needs to be loved, she needs to be fed, she needs to run and be free, she needs to poop and to pee, she needs me to know that she's protecting me. I think the thing that surprises me most in having a dog friendship is how much she's the same as me.