Slipped the Bonds
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There are no summer camps open during the last week of August, so my family has taken to spending that week at the beach. The same beach. The same house. My parents come. My cousin, with her two kids. Each year some additional family members join us, too.
The house we rent is three houses away from the sand dunes. It is close enough that when we forget something or one of the babies needs to use the bathroom, we can run back and make it in time. And it is perfectly situated to watch the comings and goings of beach life from the front porch.
On the beach, dogs are only allowed before eight in the morning and after five at night. So it was that one morning I spotted the woman and her Irish setter who had gotten up early to take advantage of this window of time. I saw them at the end of their outing. Actually, I spotted her dog long before the woman came into view. He was wet, with his long fringe covered in sand, and he streaked down the path, stretching out like a race horse hungry for the track. As soon as he came off the path, he set a course through nearby back yards, then weaved through the adjacent condominium parking lot, down driveways, and round and round again.
The dog’s owner, meanwhile, took her time coming down the path. She occasionally yelled his name, but almost absentmindedly so, as she walked the last stretch toward the road. When she reached the end she dusted the sand off her calves and feet, then stood there, checking her nails. She adjusted her bra strap. Meanwhile, her dog continued streaking back and forth, the feathers of his hindquarters flapping like a strange set of wings, tongue lolling, utterly alive and loving this part of his day.
This ritual went on for three or four minutes, as I imagine it did a few times a week, maybe even every day. Eventually, the dog strolled up to the woman, and she reached down to pat his head. Not once did she chastise him or show any frustration. Instead, there seemed to be a kind of resigned acceptance in both of them as she snapped his leash back into place, as if she knew and shared her dog’s need for joy and pleasure, for freedom.
A few days later we packed up the house to head home. Days of sand and fun would be giving way, as they do, to fall, with its schedules and obligations. I thought of the woman and her dog. Like him, I tried to squeeze out every moment of fun and abandon from our window of time there. Like her, I had responsibilities to return to. But as we put the suitcases in the trunk I felt kin to them both in their early morning ritual: We all resist a little the moment the leash snaps back into place.
From Vanessa Rush Southern’s meditation manual Miles of Dream, published by Skinner House in 2015 and available through the UUA bookstore.
Vanessa has served on the 50th Anniversary Committee of the UUA, as Chair of the UU Minister Association’s CENTER committee and of the UUA’s Capital Campaign Committee. Vanessa is currently working on her third book and volunteering with SNEHA (Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action), a non-profit organization that focuses on public health issues that effect womenand children in the urban slums of Mumbai, India, the city to which she and her family recently relocated.
- Slipped the Bonds - April 1, 2016
