Today Teckla and I took Mira, our son’s Doberman, to the beach. For January it was amazingly warm and sunny. Sometimes we have taken a ball for Mira to chase, but today we just let her run. The tide was low so she had plenty of space to run from the dunes to the edge of the surf in long loops. She ran full out, her uncropped ears flopping crazily. She needed nothing to chase—the sweet pleasure of running was enough.
As I watched her, her joy became mine. And I thought how much energy we spend chasing after things—things our culture says we should chase, things advertisers throw at us, things we fantasize will make us happy. Consider the lilies of the fields, and dogs that run for the joy of it.
