Dog Walking as an Escape

There exists, each morning, a peculiar pilgrimage I undertake—a soft exile from the fevered world of ambitions, emails, and aspirations, in the company of our two beastlings, Balto and Scout.

Balto, our husky, is my steadfast companion, a creature of near-electric energy, a hound with a life current so vivid I sometimes suspect he sees not trees or lampposts or Halal carts but boundless possibilities. His movements, though spastic, are swift and brimming with purpose, his gaze darting forward, each step holding the possibility of unlocking some marvelous discovery just out of reach.

Scout—our cur, our mélange of pitbull, chihuahua, dachshund, and no fewer than a dozen other breeds—traverses the earth with a kind of quiet reverence. He ambles beside me with a pace as gentle as his spirit, his steps measured and deliberate and…so goddamn slow. Though his ears no longer catch the murmuring of our route and his eyes see only shadows, he navigates our familiar course with a quiet tenacity, pausing often to sniff, nose low, in search of scraps and scents and stale sandwiches that spark his curiosity. Unencumbered by intellect, within his limited world, there’s a whole landscape to explore.

Together we tread the same path, an unremarkable track winding through the edges of south Tribeca; yet, each step grants me a cleansing clearness of mind, my thoughts droplets of ink diluting in water, dispersing until clarity emerges from the chaos. As I follow my canine companions through their simple fiefdom, I find myself yielding to a particular serenity, the kind born not of grand ideas but of mundanities that become, somehow, transcendent: the crackle of a leaf underfoot, a gust rippling in the damp grass, a stray ray of sunlight netted by morning mist (or is that just gross subway station steam?).

There is in this ritual a charm so complete, it borders on the arcane. The world around me—my mind, in all its feverish insistence—peels back to reveal some untouched reserve of calm, a forgotten glade in the thicket of everyday demands. In Balto’s Siberian mane and Scout’s decommissioned ears, I have unwittingly acquired two tutors in tranquility, guides to an untouched mental woodland where one learns to walk without thought, to observe without critique, to exist without envy. This daily habit, this silent sojourn—how rich a solace, how sweet an asylum it has become.

To strength of body, clarity of mind. 

S