New Routine

Snowy sunrise

 

 

The sun is coming up, and though I’m am early riser, it is not my habit to leave the house at this hour – especially when it’s 27 degrees.  Still, here I am lacing up my shoes to go for another brisk, 30-minute pre-breakfast walk with my new dog.  That brown-eyed, ten-pound creature looks at me from inside his wire crate, his tail thumping in anticipation.  Oh boy oh boy oh boy.  We’re walking up to the lake and back again today.  Fifteen minutes out, fifteen minutes back.  Then breakfast for both of us.  Here we go.

Turning left out of the driveway, the steady climb up our rural road immediately puts my middle-aged body to work.  I feel the incline of the road in my legs and my lungs, though the pup trots along my right side at the end of a slackened lead with no effort, bright and alert to the sounds of the Canada geese overhead, the bark of a distant dog, the squirrels rustling in the leaves just a few yards off the road.  I wave to the few cars that pass  – neighbors on their way to work – and take in details of the yards and houses we pass in a way I never do while driving a car.

We’re beginning only our third day together, but I’m already aware of the ways that inviting this dog into my life is already improving my life – things I couldn’t have easily expressed before.  The fact that he needs a schedule means I now need to adhere to one, too.  As a freelancer in a home office it’s easy to lose focus – and to lose track of time while multi-tasking.  But this little critter now depends on me for his morning walk and his breakfast – two new daily and non-negotiable activities – which means I need to up my own game.

As the road levels out and my breathing settles in to an even rhythm, I recall the schedule cousin Danielle maintains for her young children.  Flexible but constant, it accounts for bath time, meals, play time, homework and the like – and also allows Danielle to arrange her day around her children’s schedules.  This, I decide on today’s walk, is what I’ve been missing: a schedule — a framework for my day that will enforce some needed discipline, improving my productivity and happiness.

After our morning walk and our breakfast, I take my laptop into the sunroom and settle in for a couple of hours’ work.  When I imagined a dog in the abstract, I pictured a little canine who would be contented at my side — a snoozing companion I whose fur I could stroke and ruffle while reading or writing in my favorite sunny chair.

And now that dog – my dog – is sitting here snuggled up beside me while I write, better than I had imagined.  His small, contented sigh mirrors my own, each of us providing body warmth — and something more — for the other.