Last weekend, we went to the forest where we used to walk with Niela when she was a puppy. Her first forest. The one where she pressed her little snout into everything, stumbled over roots and then turned around proudly as if it had all been intentional.
She would have turned 20 this weekend.
Twenty. That’s a big number. And at the same time, it’s already been almost six and a half years since she left. Both feel somehow unimaginable.
So there we were, standing in that forest, and I felt this stillness inside me. Not the sad kind of stillness, more that quiet, expansive kind where suddenly a lot becomes clear. How quickly those 20 years have passed. How alive she still is in my heart. And how much all of this reminds me of something I already know, something our animals show us every single day, if we choose to look.
That life is now.
Not tomorrow. Not when the kids have left home, not when the holiday is booked, not when there’s finally more time. But now, in this moment, when the sun is filtering through the trees and your dog is pressing her nose into the earth and you’re already about to move on because you still have so much to do.
Niela always knew this. She never just “got through” a walk. She was simply there, fully, with everything she had.
This year, it touched me in a completely new way, because my own 50th birthday is coming up. My husband had his last year, and we both felt how a round number like that makes you pause. Not with heaviness, but with an honest question: What am I still putting off? What am I waiting for? Which dreams, which wishes, which moments am I postponing until “later”?
And I think that’s exactly what our animals can teach us, if we’re willing to receive it. They don’t plan for the day after tomorrow. They don’t linger in yesterday’s walk. They’re simply here, with you, and they enjoy it. The sniffing. Lying in the sun. The quiet glance they give you, just because you’re there.
I sometimes wonder how many of those moments I miss because I “don’t have time” right now. Because I’m just finishing one more email, just taking care of one more thing, just completing one more thought. And all the while, the animal lies quietly beside me and waits. Not impatiently. Just there.
If this is touching something in you too, I’d like to invite you to sit with one small question today. Not as a task, but as an invitation.
What are you putting off right now? And what if “later” wasn’t necessary at all?
I’d love to hear what comes up for you.
With love, Tanja