Went for a walk this morning in the Oakland hills. First time the sun had been out in days. Seems as though my fear of exercise was trumped by my adoration for the sun.
Picked a relatively flat, wide, easy trail. My fear of getting lost in the wilderness with no cell phone reception dictated the selection. It’s a path that hikers, not that I call myself a hiker, can take their dogs off-leash. Dogs +happy people + sun. Sounded good to me.
Guess that I left out a few parts of the equation. Where there are dogs, there is dog poop. Where there are dogs, there are owners throwing balls and sticks. And where there are dogs, there are actually dogs. Big dogs. Big dogs running. Big dogs running with stuff in their mouths. Big dogs running with stuff in their mouths who don’t look where they are going.
So the inevitable happened. A big dog running with a tennis ball barreled into me. Didn’t really hurt. But it didn’t do much to assuage my fear of big dogs. When I was a kid, I saw my baby sister get her faced pushed through a wooden floor by a big English Sheep dog. A lot of screaming and 17 stitches later, my fear of big dogs was pretty well cemented.
I tried to smile at the dog’s owner as she rounded the corner of the trail. She had not seen what had happened. I guess my smile didn’t come across as a smile to her.
She took her ear buds out and said, “Oh are you okay? Did he do anything to you? Did he frighten you?”
She saw fear on my face. Honestly though, it wasn’t fear of the dog, or the hike, or exercise, or of being alone, or death. It was all of it. So I told her. “No I’m not afraid of the dog; its just life, thanks.”
She looked a bit started and said, “Oh.” Put her ear buds back in and continued on. And I kept on my poop-lined path back to my car; keeping good company with the sunshine and my fears.
