Day before yesterday I met a new person at the dog park. She had a long legged pink lidded very timid white pit bull hybrid. 

On leash. She was standing at the exact spot where Max knows he will be cut loose. That’s local for “untethered”. I could tell the girl, youngish, 20 something, watchful, wary yet un-jaded was sizing me up. I told her that Max would be chill with her dog most probably. She asked how old Max is while she leaned over her dog, talking soft. I wondered if her reassurances calmed the dog or served to transfer her nervous energy. Later I could see the sweetness in her personality. She told me where she’d come from (north at the border where the Red River draws the line), something about her cousins and maybe a brother around here, and later, that she planned to spend the summer months up in Colorado. I recommended Boulder since her plans seemed to be fluid. She told me that her Dad is seventy. I’ll tell you that I imagined he must be financing her Lululemon adorableness, but the full arm of ink, the top half of her back and notional tats scattered around all over her made me wonder if her last boyfriend might have been a tattoo artist. I thought they were overly dark for her pale blonde complexion but I don’t think she felt any sting in my assessment. We walked, talking a little and after a while we noticed that my dog had wandered off to perform his perimeter scenting duties and her dog was growing in dog swagger. 

I said, “We all sure could learn a lot if we let the dogs inform us”.

She said, let’s call her S, she’d told me her by then, “I agree. Instead we make up stories about each other.”

LOL! I laughed. Precisely. “We make up stories about each other and that’s okay, it’s how we survive. I shrugged,  What a fun observation!”

We had stopped at the second turn but as we began to walk again I said, “ I could tell when you decided you “could take me if you needed to.”

S laughed and replied, I thought I could get over the fence and away …” she gestured, like a dancer maybe, maybe just a kid. I don’t know what makes a person feel threatened or potentially threatened or suddenly safe.  Other people joined us on the walking path and the conversation took a turn. She probably walked half a mile with us before needing to go off to tend to her dog. Who knows if I’ll see her again. 

 I do wonder about these wandering kids. 

She and I are reading the same book. Atomic Habits (James Clear). I’d love to hear her thoughts on it.