Learning the meaning of life from a couple dogs

I don’t know what it is about this time of year that gets me to thinking long thoughts. The naked, bleak trees under slate-gray skies, maybe, or the way the wind seems to slice straight through to the bone, leaving my mood exposed to every wayward thought, no matter how morose.
Once the leaves fall, then the snow, I for some reason start thinking about all the mistakes I’ve made in my life; the times I yelled at the kids, made rude gestures to passing motorists, forgot to call my mother on her birthday. Given but one overcast November afternoon, my mind ­- working without my express approval - can come up with an endless litany of petty crimes I’ve committed over the years.
They say an unexamined life isn’t worth living, but there’s another side to that story: A life examined a little TOO closely ain’t all that great, either. Rare is the man who has no regrets, and probably a sociopath as well.
Oh, sure, I know my sins, large and small, are pretty typical. Mundane, even. It’s hard to live 50 years without making some mistakes. But that doesn’t stop me from regretting them, at least in November.
Yet that’s only part of the story. I also get thinking about where I am in life, what I’ve accomplished. And more specifically, what I have not.
I do a lot of writing, for instance, aside from this cheesy column. Fiction, short stories, all the usual starving artist stuff; I even have a half-finished screenplay gathering dust on a hard drive somewhere, just like an L.A. wannabe screenwriter. I’ve sold a few things, not many. I could probably sell more, but I am - as The Lovely Mrs. Taylor would be happy to tell you - lazy and disorganized.
I’m also not especially ambitious. As long as I have a roof over my head and plenty to eat (with the emphasis on “plenty”) I’m happy.
Except in November. In November I start wondering why I haven’t done more with my life, haven’t “made something of myself.” (Whenever I think these thoughts, the voice in my head sounds very much like my old man. Go figure.) Anyway, if I let it get to me - which I sometimes do - the whole thing can get awfully depressing.
But this year something happened to change this gloomy annual event: a couple dogs chased me. A black lab and a yellow lab.
I live about 45 minutes south of town and my route in to work every day consists primarily of dirt roads populated almost exclusively by the Amish and myself. I could take a paved route, and every so often I do, but then I’d miss all the great scenery; the buggies, the chickens running loose in front yards, the fields of russet stubble left over from autumn’s harvest. And most importantly, if I took the paved roads, I’d miss the dogs.
The labs both live on a farm, near an intersection so close to the middle of nowhere it’s amazing anyone ever finds their way back out again. They’re both big, healthy-looking dogs, obviously well cared for.
The farm is about 50 yards east of the intersection and the dogs wait there every morning for my dusty pickup to come rumbling down the road, kicking up a cloud of cinnamon-scented dust in its wake if it’s been a dry week. When I get to the intersection, I always sit a moment; long enough to make sure the dogs have seen me.
They’ll both stand in the front yard, taking stock of my position, gauging the distance between my truck and themselves. And then - ka-wham! - they bolt out of that yard like twin streaks of furred lightning.
I hit the gas, just hard enough to keep a safe 20 feet or so between us, and drive north. The dogs gallop alongside the truck, tongues lolling, barking their fool heads off, having the time of their lives. Despite the barking, neither of them sounds anything remotely like hostile. We’re all taking part in the same game, and they’re just commenting on it.
If the dogs could speak, they’d be yelling, “Tag!” or “Ollie ollie oxen-free!” at the tops of their lungs. Then again, their barks convey that message just fine.
One day this past summer, just to see what would happen, I let the truck roll to a halt, opened the door and stepped out. The dogs, a little shy at first, eventually came up to me, sniffed my hands, then my feet, then … well, you know how dogs are; they’ll sniff anything if you let ‘em. They both allowed me to scratch behind their ears. They graciously accepted my compliments on their ability to outpace a Ford.
But they seemed a bit confused, and maybe a little disappointed, too. The game, after all, requires that I run, so they can chase me. If I stop, their goofy lab faces seemed to imply, they CATCH me, and where’s the fun in that? Getting scratched behind the ears and sniffing crotches is all well and good, but it’s the CHASE which gives meaning to life.
Of course, being dogs, they might not have been thinking those things at all, but from my human perspective, it certainly SEEMED that way.
So I hopped back in my truck and puttered off down the road, the big Labradors again in hot pursuit, barking fiercely. After a while, they gave it up and trotted back toward home, as they always do, content in a job well done.
It wasn’t until last week that I realized the dogs were no longer waiting for me every morning in their usual location. Two or three days had passed, in fact, since I’d seen either of them.
So instead of heading north from the intersection as I usually do, I turned east so as to drive past the farmhouse.
Sure enough, there were the dogs, tethered to a couple doghouses out back, looking forlorn but resigned to their fate. They both stood up when I drove by; the black lab managing a bark; I could tell his heart wasn’t in it. The yellow just watched me pass.
Why, I wondered, had their owner tied them up today, when they were usually allowed to roam free over the sparsely populated countryside? By the time I got to the office I’d figured it out: Deer hunting season. A big old lab can look a lot like a doe on a foggy morning, especially to an inexperienced, young hunter. No sense taking chances.
So I imagine I’ll soon be seeing my two “running buddies” again, just as soon as hunting season’s over.
Anyway, the point - which I’ll readily admit has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle here - is this: Those two dogs never seem to worry about where they’re headed. They don’t worry about how far they’ve come, if they’ve arrived, or whether they should be going farther or faster than they are. They don’t worry about mistakes locked in the past’s immutable amber.
They just … run.
Unhampered by my purely human need to poke around in the dark corners of the psychological attic, those two slobbering hounds have come closer to finding the meaning of life than I ever will. They know it’s not the destination that matters, but the journey.
And if that journey includes making a big noise and feeling the wind in your hair, so much the better.
I think I’ll survive till spring.