In a series of short essays, writers consider what happiness means to them now, after the reckoning of the past few years
hen I finished up in a busy job in the middle of 2021, not many people asked why. Instead, they asked what I would do next, suggested jobs they thought I could apply for, or jobs I might have already secured – vast and exciting-sounding things, for sure. Well, no, I said. My plan was to sit in the garden and pat the dog for a while.The dog is a reddish-brown and white dog with many influences. Cattle-dog stocking-spots on his legs.
To sit with him, to feel the softness of his fur; this is one of the most happy things I know to do. It’s always felt like an exchange of present and content calm during these existentially stressful years – climate change, Covid, war, burnout, politics and its ongoing scandals, outrageous irresponsibilities, bad manners and inequities. Change of life. Life. Children growing bigger, becoming themselves.
Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The dog had scored a lot of patting thanks to all these things, his presence an invitation to a warm and furry pause from worrying about any of it. But I was sure I’d seen a reference to a study – something, somewhere – that revealed that patting a dog transferred stress directly from the hand of the human patter into the fur of the canine pattee.
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