The dog has her needs, just like the rest of us; but unlike the rest of us, every one of them is met with promptness and adoration. Many mornings, for instance, she wants to stroll through Rock Meadow conservation land, past the bee hives, past the grazing sheep (when they’re in the office), toward the bridge where Belmont’s town line ends, then over it. She doesn’t like to dally.
When she reaches the other side, that far wilderness that is Waltham, she waits for trailing humans to catch up, though not patiently. I have often pointed out that she should do the math: One of us has four legs, one of us has two, and the one with half as many legs should be allowed twice as much time. But math makes even less sense to her than it does to me.
Sometimes, there’s a makeshift Lost and Found hanging along the bridge railings. It’s an anonymous form of generosity: A stranger finds an item and strings it up where walkers will pass. We have seen a child’s woolen hat, a muffler, a single sandal, sunglasses and, once, a pair of bathing trunks. There was also a set of keys.
I love the dog slavishly, but she is a poster child for self-interest and never bothers to stop. I feel differently. Some person is attached to each of these lost items, waiting to be found.
Here, for instance, is the hat; knit before a gas fireplace, and presented by a grandmother to a child who probably wishes it were something less useful. Here, the single sandal, whose owner is apparently a flamingo. Sunglasses are like umbrellas; their life span is too short. It goes without saying that the swim trunks are harder to contemplate.
Then there are the lost keys. Maybe the driver has retraced his entire route (which in Rock Meadow can be considerable), combing the gravel and brush with growing panic. He probably did this more than once and is now calculating how long it will take to walk home because the day has been shoved so wildly off schedule. He curses himself for pulling the cell phone out of his pocket which caused the keys to slide out. He won’t do this anymore, he swears, then pulls the cell phone out, because checking it is our uncontrollable tic of the time.
Defeated, he arrives back at the bridge where he started, and there, between two towns and hanging from a post, are his keys. Man is reunited with keys! Man will make the 9:15 a.m. meeting! Man performs a dance of gratitude, with appreciation if not skill, for a stranger he will never meet!
When the Lost and Found is in operation, I like to cross the Rock Meadow bridge between Belmont and Waltham and pause halfway. The dog thunders ahead, irritated by any delay. I explain that this is one luxury of being older: the time to contemplate other lives. Each of these seekers has been missing something.
She doesn’t care. She wants for nothing.
Elissa Ely writes about seniors/baby boomers for The Belmont Voice. She is a community psychiatrist.