Enough Said

     The old man sat still--two things he was good at, sitting and being still. Gifts of old age? Perhaps.

    But, if you asked him how he did it, how he maintained his serenity and calm, he would laugh, or, depending on the day, just nod, and say, "Practice. Practice."

    If you pressed the point, he'd explain that anything of value comes both as a gift and an intent, with a splash (one of his favorite words, splash) . . . with a splash of patience."

    So she tried it. 12 years old and curious, she was always asking questions, questions that annoyed some with her string of where's and when's followed with how's and whys, but she had her eyes open, that one, and took to sitting with the old man whenever she saw him on his porch.

    Which is where she was, where they both were, when the dog appeared, moving slowly, sniffing at grass, at the roots of the last elm on the boulevard, moving slowly, not in a hurry, just smelling his way down the block.

    "Smart dog," the old man said.

    "But slow," the girl said.

    "Well, they go together," the old man said.

    "Go together?" The girl liked questions and didn't mind raising her voice to show her skepticism (a word she had just learned) to the old man.

    "Slow tells you where you are, what you've seen or done--or, if you're a dog who sees the world with his nose, smelled. Look at him--he's exploring, not in a hurry."

    Which was true. The dog sniffed the length of the roots of the elm, the spotty grass and patches of dirt around the trunk, sniffed slowly and deliberately, then, lifted his leg, peed at the base of the tree, and hurried back the way it had come--job done.

    "Made his mark and moved on," the old man said. "Smart dog--left his mark and moved on."

    "Like a lesson?" the girl said.

    The old man nodded. "Guess so," he said.

    The girl stood up, grazed his hand with her fingers, left her mark, and the old man happy for the rest of the day.