The Beach, Dog & the Walk

Early morning walks on the weekend are a ritual my boyfriend and I faithfully carry out. It's been a few years now and counting. We choose to walk along the beach and have overtime planned or spontaneously driven to a lot of places. I'd guess round about a 100 km radius of East London, if not more. We ignore most weather conditions save for when it rains quite heavily. So, we often have a whole beach to ourselves. There have been times the hair on the back of my neck stood up to chills, goose bumps and all, but we marched on, nonetheless. 

There is a certain beach we walk on a default basis when it’s just easier not to think. The stretch is as long as you want it to be, smooth, eventful, and just exquisite. Humanity and our pawed, four-legged friends— dogs walk, roam, and run amok along the beach.

I don’t know what it is about the sea and its shores that inspires authenticity and pure joy. We simply bask in it, and it keeps us going back for more.

Not so long ago, on a morning jog alone, two massive dogs sank their canine teeth into my flesh. And very nearly tore off chunks of it, had it not for a timely stranger's intervention. The experience imprinted so much trauma that not only did tension flood my body whenever I saw huge black dogs, but I had to fight an urge to not hold both my screams and urine.

A few weeks after, my beloved suggested that we should try heading the opposite direction of the norm along that beach. I momentarily froze but told him I simply don’t and wouldn’t feel safe going that route. I didn’t ever want to go that way. He let it slide, and so our routine continued until he seized the opportunity to appeal. Working at it with good timing, mood, and those rare occasions when conversation flows with crystal clear logic and rationality, I, even after agreeing, still did not feel safe at all exploring that way. In a strongly intuitive kind of way.

We had to cross a small river mouth to get to the other, opposite side. I didn’t want to get my only running shoes wet, was my excuse. He gave the whole 70 kg of me a piggyback, and it was both exhilarating and embarrassing. A small party of fishermen with a dog were not far from us. Suddenly, a beautiful, medium-sized dog came rushing towards us to greet us.

He brushed his head on my knee, licked my hand, and wagged his tail. I was so tense and fearful till I felt relaxed enough to stroke his head in reciprocation. Beautiful blue eyes tinged with some grey that gave me ease and a sense of connection as our eyes locked. He wore a tan, black, and almost golden-brown coat, with a texture just comfortable enough… not too long. Just perfect on him. He jumped, ran, and led the way in that gleeful movement only dogs (and children) can pull off.

So, we eventually realised that he couldn’t have belonged to any of the fishermen. We obviously thought he did right at the beginning of our encounter. He willingly gave of himself, guarding and protective—he was feral. Must have been. 

As we met people along the way—he growled, barked and created a barrier around us and I, with mounting horror, realised that passers-by thought that he was our dog and that we had a responsibility to calm and keep him in check. We didn’t even know what to call him - how could any of us behave assertively?

I, poignantly aware of how inadequate communication can be, felt frustrated by the accusing looks we fought with the nonchalance we tried to conjure up and embody. Luckily, as we covered a greater distance, we encountered fewer people and were able to finally see the beautiful rock formations with stunning shapes. We could hear and see the sea splash, rock, moan, and the ebb and flow of tides.

I noticed after a while that all feelings of fear and dread of the very path I’d been so afraid to tread, somehow got lost to the beautiful, lightly misty air that propelled a sense of mystery and a newness I unconsciously embraced.

The sand was so soft beneath our feet, the breeze a relief from the oppressive humidity and we had a happy dog running back and forth between us and the rest of seeming eternity. I couldn’t have wanted anything more then. I wouldn’t have been anywhere else in the world but right there.

After some time, visibility dropped to such low levels and a sense of eerie and foreboding gripped me once again, despite the company of our feral friend. I had to voice out my uneasiness to the man I was walking next to, and he grudgingly agreed for us to turn back. Our canine friend once again tagged behind, ahead of us, sniffing, barking and just being his beautiful self. When we were well within sight of the fishermen we’d seen earlier, he stayed behind to wrestle from under the rocks what looked like a dead fish for his breakfast.

A sadness washed over me because I had wanted to say goodbye but had to remind myself that he had no concept of the learned ‘etiquette’ we humans have devised to co-exist with one another. I did turn back though, silently thanked him and expressed gratitude to the higher power that must have orchestrated the small miracle that morning.

For the rest of the way after that, I took in everything with a heightened degree of all my senses. With great wonder, yet also the sort of detachment that gives pure joy and that indescribable feeling ever so fleeting. It’s gone before you can grasp it enough to contain and give it a label.

I was floating and even waded through the water, back at the river mouth with my shoes— I couldn’t care less. A feral dog had reminded me of lightness and triumph of life that is always a choice most of us bury under a lifetime’s collection of baggage and burden we humans are so good at bringing to life and then clinging unto until reminders and small miracles wake us up. If we’re lucky enough.

That our lives aren’t paved everyday with those (reminders and small miracles) may not be as melancholy as wishful thinking had me feeling.

Maybe it’s just like every accomplishment in nature and life—it’s hard work, it takes long but may come up in our upward, ever-evolving existence yet.

With the help of every other life, we’ve always held and believed ourselves to be above and lords over them.

Only another dog could've helped me start to truly heal from a trauma so powerfully embedded beneath my skin and in my psyche.