One of the surprising benefits of living with an old dog is learning the art of creative loitering.
Prince Finski is at the stage of life where his major decisions are whether to go outside for a sniff or whether to go back to bed. The latter option wins out most of the time, particularly if the local magpie gang is hanging around for a squabble over his food bowl.
I know how he feels. I face difficult choices too, and sometimes bed seems a safe option. But the human condition means life has to be lived, not just dreamt about, and so I plod on with my daily choices — do I have another coffee now or later? Should I get up on the ladder and clean out the gutter, or am I turning into an over-confident doddery old bloke? Or am I just plain scared and lazy?
Is this the day we finally decide to make a will? Is this garden getting too big to manage? Do we really need to bite the bullet and get a new car, laptop, robo-cleaner, or electric heat pump instead of gas? Is it time to buy airline tickets to fly overseas and visit my family?
Inevitably, I decide to go for a walk with Finski and think about it.
A walk with Finski in the bush has changed a lot this year.
Once upon a time, he led the charge while I struggled to keep up. These days, I am the lone soldier leading the advance while Finski lingers for another sniff. Dawdling has never been my style, but now I find myself waiting until he catches up. There’s no point in calling him because, at 105 years old, he’s stone-deaf and oblivious to the world.
So, I have a few moments while life is suspended, and there are no choices to be made and nothing to do but look and listen.
I look up through the towering gums at the scudding clouds and then across the dark, receding waters where a family of ducks are drifting together in the breeze like upturned cups. I wonder why people take pleasure in diligently studying their habits and the subtle beauty in the variations of their feathers and then shoot them. I realise the world is jammed with people utterly different from me and that I must make room for them in my mansion.
Finski plods into sight, and off we trot once more.
Five minutes later, I look behind me, and he’s gone off sniffing again. So, I linger under the trees and spot a great egret high in a tree, waiting for me to leave before he descends for another swoop across the water. It must be the same egret who comes to sit on our pool fence and look for frogs. We share the same patch, the same frogs and crickets and snakes, the same breeze, and the same corner of the world, and that makes me happy.
Finksi trots around the bend, and off we go again.
This cycle continues until I find myself waiting at our back gate while his majesty has a final sniff somewhere out of sight. I look across the billabong, through the trees and out across the waving grass and realise there is a whole cycle of living and dying and choices out there that I know nothing about. All I know is my one precious home and its memories and everyday choices.
My thoughts drift like an egret over water until they land on “Bollard Man,” who fended off the Bondi Junction knife-wielding man at the top of an escalator. What would I do in that situation? I hope I would be brave like a Frenchman, but I think I might freeze because my thoughts are too teeming. Bravery requires a quiet, blank slate.
Eventually, Prince Finski plods around the corner and in through the back gate to spend an afternoon on the verandah dozing under the memory scents of his walk.
I walk into the kitchen to make another coffee and sit down with my old laptop to search for how to make a will.
We’ve covered a lot of ground today.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.