You’re sitting there on a chilly morning or a winter evening and catching up on some reading. Blogs, news…whatever it is that the week’s left you feeling behind with.
Four or five pieces in, you’re launched out of your literary reverie by… The dog licking your toes. BAH!
The sandpapery, wet shock jolts you and maybe you shout out a, “Stop that!” But I hope you don’t.
We all need the dog to lick our toes (and I’d venture to guess we need it more often than not). Dogs don’t really ask permission to do what it is they do that makes us smile. They just surprise us and do it. It’s moments like those that we can’t replace or force. We can’t choreograph them and they don’t come on-demand. When we’re jolted out of our focused pursuit, it’s really interesting what can happen: we see things we wouldn’t otherwise and perhaps crack a smile where a straight face had just been.
When the dog licks your toes, they do it because they like you and your feet are the closest thing they can lick. There’s no shame. No consideration that you haven’t showered yet that day. They just want you to know for a second that, “Hey – I’m here. And thanks. I’ll be over here now.”
And if you can’t smile when a dog licks your toes, what can you do on this big blue sphere? So the next time you’re pulled out of the task at hand, take a look around. What’s waiting to be seen and felt that wasn’t accessible to you a moment ago?
While we can’t ask our pups to lick our toes more often, the least we can do is smile, laugh and take a moment to pet them when they do. After all, they took time out of their day to drop us a hello. The least we can do is return the favor – and in the process, check out what our heads-down practices have had us missing.
