A lot of people knew me for my morning walks. They also noticed that my pace was brisk and efficient. I am no athlete but I have always walked like an athlete and have always enjoyed walks, even when I was not counting steps. I can walk. Can’t run for nuts though.
In Hnahthial, I got lazy and demotivated and have stopped all morning walks. It’s crazy how insane a place can make you. I never thought I would ever stop morning walks. But here, I had spent an entire year not taking morning walks until one fine day, I got a beagle pup.
After Mavena came home, I started walking again. Because the doctor said so. Apparently, beagles are very prone to obesity.
I walk, yes, but my walks are no longer brisk. Efficiency has also left the chat. In fact, my walks have become the very definition of irregular. These days, I walk the pace of my puppy. He likes to sniff, then run, then pee, then trot right by my legs grinning goofily up at me, then pee, then run, then eat grass, then trot jauntily, then freeze into position tails up like an antenna, then flirt at people, then poops, then sniff, then eat a discarded biscuit, then talk to other dogs, then pees. It’s like walking with a 11kg squirrel.
The concept of a pace does not exist with my dog.
It's very Bible of me, very Jesus to Peter. Peter-esque. Peter-adjacent. Very, you know, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. That’s from The Gospel according to John 21:19. Walks with a beagle truly is not for someone counting steps or calorie-burns. It’s just a way to get fresh air and in the process, get up off the couch.
The one with the leash is him, though. Although, again, technically I suppose both of us are on the leash together. Most importantly, Mavena is always most definitely never off-leash. I tried once. He ran off to chase a dog and ended up lost in a neighbour’s garden. His silly floppy ears whipped in the wind when he saw me, and manic with joy at having been found, ran to me. Goofy stupid idiot.
Walking with Mavena is like being on an adventure. It's sometimes nerve-wrecking. It also poses the challenge of scooping up poop. Very smelly business.
But it's also a bit like the phrase ‘stopping to smell the roses’. Mavena doesn't have a particular affinity to flowers except that he seems to really enjoy the taste of Ṭawkpui leaves and some grass. But he definitely stops to smell Life. He smells the traces of other dogs and potential friends (I think), follows the aroma of food (always with the food with the beagle!), and searches for possible fun (he is so ready to have fun!).
You know how white people say "walk" and their dogs understand the word? Mine understands "bye bye" as me leaving for a walk. Mavena can go from a sleeping and snoring beagle at 0% energy to hearing me tease him with a "bye bye" and instantly rev up to 100% pure chaotic energy, crying, pleading, negotiating, the works. He never seems to understand that I walk because I walk him. That whatever walks I take, I wouldn’t take without him.
But every morning we do this song and dance routine of me testing him with a bye bye as I change into my walk outfit. It amuses me, so sue me. I have very few joys in life. By the time I put on my sneakers, Mavena is near the end of his tethers, arguing against the injustice of why I am trying to leave him (he is very dramatic). When I put his jacket on him and clip the leash on, his tail is nearly invisible from wagging so hard. Undiltuted joy. He always snatches the end of the leash from me and would walk himself at least 10 steps out of the door. Until I take over the leash. It's a lowkey fun tradition.
I'd never have thought this irregular walk could ever be remotely fun because there really is no rhyme or method to our walks. Pure manic chaos. We go where his beagle nose leads us. I just time us and we go back in an hour. Or we run home if it rains. That is the very loose structure on which my walks have now become based.
Walks are so chaotic today. And I realise that as my life has become so mundane, structured, unvarying and my world so limited, I like how there's a little bit of pure beagle chaos in this one section of my life.
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