Field Note: Meeting Him Where He Is

I wanted the evening off.

Dinner. A little television. The day behind me. My dog Scout had other plans.

He wandered from the sofa...to the floor...out onto the deck...into the grass...

Unable to settle anywhere.

Over the past six months, his hearing has changed. Some sounds barely register anymore. Others seem louder to him than they are to me. Sometimes he appears to hear things I can't hear at all.

He has always taken his work seriously. Watching over the property. Keeping strangers where they belong. Moving foxes and bears along. Making sure everything is as it should be.

When Scout first came into my life, I realized pretty quickly that he needed the world to make sense in certain ways. Predictable routines. Familiar patterns. Small rituals that helped his mind and body settle.

Watching him was strangely familiar.

His need for certainty reminded me of myself as a teenager, when life often felt unpredictable, and my own mind searched just as hard for something to hold onto. Back then, very few people understood what I was experiencing.

That's when I realized Scout had become a second chance.

Not for him.

For me.

He had given me the opportunity to offer another living being the kind of understanding I would have needed at that age.

So I made him a promise.

I would meet him where he was.

Eleven years later, that promise hasn't changed.

Only the place where he needs me has.

Tonight, meeting him where he is didn't look like asking him to settle because I was ready for the day to be over. It looked like following him outside one more time. Standing beside him while he listened to a world I couldn't hear. Waiting until his nervous system found enough ease to rest.

And then it suddenly hit me...

Maybe this is what growing older together asks of us.

Not to keep responding to someone the way we always have.

But to keep discovering what they need now.

And to quietly meet them there.  

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