Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Ghost of a dog, barking in the backyard.

One of the highlights of last weekend involved watching a dog take a shit.

Saturday morning found me cleaning and organizing—two things that had been put off for far too long, and needed desperately to be done. So it was a productive few hours, full of lots of sweat, a few tears, and maybe even a little blood. (I cut myself on an ice cube. Yes, I do know how amazing I am.)

Come early afternoon, as is often the case with me, I began to feel a bit trapped and maybe even a little stir crazy. So I decided I needed to get out and wander a bitspend some time out in this city that, in my constant busy-ness, I’ve been so disconnected from lately. I was feeling agitated, and figured a nice leisurely stroll through lower Manhattan, down by the water, quite possibly over the Brooklyn Bridge, and terminating, again quite possibly, with a cup of Jacques Torres’ wicked hot chocolate in DUMBO, would be just what the doctor ordered. Some much needed time to reconnect with myself and my surroundings.

And so I set out with that in mind. But unfortunately, what I didn’t anticipate was the presence of multiple factors that would only raise my level of agitation... Crowded subways that were entirely fucked up in what has become the weekend MO of the MTA... Packed sidewalks... Cold and biting breezes... Traffic... Lots of traffic... Lots of loud, bumper to bumper, squealing, screeching, whining, and whirring traffic, leading up to and spanning the Brooklyn Bridge.

Those that know me know that traffic doesn’t do wonders for my peace of mind.

So I emerged on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge, feeling even more frazzled than when I set foot on it, and proceeded to navigate what is one of the more annoying convergences of city streets, on-ramps, and off-ramps in the borough. I began to be consumed by all of the loud machinery around me, all of the pollution, all of the metal and rubber, and things that, while important and inescapable, I guess I was trying to flee at that moment.

And then it happened. I turned a corner, and crouched in front of me on the cement sidewalk at the side of a cement building, between two cement barriers, was a big, brown, furry dog on its haunches, taking a big, steaming dump.

My first instinct was to avert my eyes. But then, I realized that that particular pile of shit was in fact some small shred of exactly what I had been searching for on that long and annoying walk, surrounded by the noise and filth of transit and industry. That pile of shit, and the dog that created it, was the first organic, soft, and warm thing I had come upon in the midst of so much that is cold, and hard, and inanimate. That pile of shit, in all of its realness and shittiness, reminded me that sometimes we only need look...um...within in order to, um, find that for which we have been searching frantically without. And that sometimes, that which is within, can um, come spilling out when we need it most.

So yeah. Thanks dog. You stopped me in my tracks and reminded me, in a moment when I desperately needed to be reminded, that the next time I’m feeling trapped or stir crazy or overwhelmed by my surroundings, I need only head to the nearest dog run. Or bathroom.

2 Comments:

Blogger Limecrete said...

(I cut myself on an ice cube. Yes, I do know how amazing I am.)

Whaaaaa????

9:44 AM  
Blogger P/O said...

it's true lime, i swear.

11:18 AM  

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