Katherine glanced down at Harper, who was sitting in her dog bed, looking out the office
window. Katherine didn’t put drapes on the long window that was inset into her door,
specifically to allow Harper the pleasure of watching the birds and squirrels go about their
business outside. There were bird feeders too, sadly sitting empty and swaying gently in the
wind.
“I guess I really should put some feed out” Katherine thought to herself, knowing that she
wasn’t going to do it yet. There had been no grain in the feeders for over a year now: the birds knew it wasn’t a source of nourishment and were not counting on it for over-wintering.
Katherine hadn’t had time to set up metal feed storage bins, and didn’t want to invite the local mice to forage through the bird seed.
“If birds came, I could woof them up into the air!”. Katherine smiled to herself: she was getting used to the gentle voice in her mind. The soft, childlike accent was always joyful, often curious, and sometimes oddly insightful.
“I think my mindfulness practice is starting to show unexpected benefits” Kat thought,
remembering this morning’s guided meditation and its focus on allowing the brain to relax and be in the moment instead of always thinking, planning, worrying, and anticipating the future. “I must be developing a stronger awareness of the present, and it is speaking to me in this new voice”. This way of framing her new experiences brought Kat some peace, and a reprieve from the nagging worry that Something Was Not Quite Right.
Pulling her thoughts back to the day ahead, Kat realized it was now almost 10am. She had a
parking lot parcel pickup scheduled with the local grocery store at 11:30, and had promised her friends that she would water their plants today. Mark and Nat had left the country when the pandemic appeared to be entering the endemic stage. No one had expected the wild surge of illness from the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus, and her friends were now waiting for a safe window in the travel advisories to return to Canada.
“Me come?” Kat looked down at Harper, sitting at her feet and looking up expectantly with
glistening black eyes. “Sure, you can come Sweetie, but you have to promise not to bark at the person who will bring out the groceries like you did the last time. You frightened the poor woman!”. “Me no bark. Me good girl, no bark. Me come!” Harper jumped up and raced to the front door, turning circles to look at Kat as she gathered up her supplies: Mask: check, keys to Mark and Nat’s house: check, leash, check; car keys: check; wallet: check. Kat froze: had she actually just had a conversation with Harper? This was getting a bit much to explain as a new mindfulness practice, or an over-active imagination. Shrugging, Kat reached for her coat: grocery pick-up times were not flexible.
While she waited her turn for grocery delivery, Kat started a Google search on why she could be hearing voices in her head. The first hit was from medical.net and suggested that factors that contribute to hearing voices could include stress, anxiety, depression, and traumatic
experiences. Well, living in a global pandemic for almost 2 years could certainly meet those
criteria. Kat shivered. In the year 2022, with almost 2 years of restrictions and Covid related
fears, why would a mind-speaking dog be a surprise?
This is such a cute story!