Early & Alone #56: Where Everyone Knows Your Name
The dog park in my neighborhood is sprawling and almost always crowded. People bring their unwanted chairs there and leave them scattered around, lending a kind of lived-in quality to the park. It overlooks the highway and has enough space where dogs can rough house and chase one another or just play catch with their person away from the fray. There’s even a hidden path where I take Gizmo sometimes so he can hike along and smell things at his own pace.
I took him to the park yesterday when I was done with work. We were greeted at the fence by Pinky-Dink, an adorable and wiggly pitbull puppy who lived next door to us in the apartment we just moved away from (the dog park is in the middle of my old and new apartments). I went to say hi to Pinky’s owner, a friendly woman I only knew in the context of our dogs. She was standing in a circle of dog owners, their dogs tumbling and running nearby. “Here’s Huck!” they all said in unison as a silky Golden Retriever bounded through the gate, his owner trying to steer him away from the large, muddy puddle near the entrance. Pinky immediately began chewing his ears and the two somersaulted over each other in ecstasy.
“Easy, is it my turn with the ball?” a woman asked an adorable mutt with two different-colored eyes and a very dirty tennis ball in her mouth. Easy dropped the ball at her feet and backed away to confirm that yes, it was her turn. Next, Easy approached me with the ball. “You’re lucky!” the woman said. “She is picky about who she lets kick her ball.” I kicked it for her a few times, wondering if it was weird to feel proud of this small honor.
People at the dog park are friendly. They know one another’s dog’s names, if not the people’s names. It seems most of them visit regularly. “HANK!” they chorus as a chunk of a French bulldog muscles his way into the circle of dogs three times his size. “We’ve got a good squad today,” they nod, dogs whipping around them in joyous, messy circles.
I’ve been taking Gizmo every couple of weeks since I moved to Providence a year ago, but he mostly enjoys ambling along the periphery of the park, earnestly sniffing at the leaves and trees and branches before peeing on them and moving on. He rarely approaches the other dogs to play and when he does, he often quickly turns around and trots right back to me, like he’s saying “Oh no, I’ve made a huge mistake.” I’ve tried to get him to chase balls or sticks, to no avail. I worry that I like the dog park more than he does, though I mostly just walk around the park with him, sticking close to him so he doesn’t get scared. If we get separated, I see him looking frantically around for me until he spots me and gallops back under my legs.
Tonight, I chatted for a few minutes with a woman named Sarah. She had two dogs, a tiny Chihuahua named Rabbit who wouldn’t stop barking at all the other dogs, and a sweet and shy puppy named Lucy who was about Gizmo’s size. They sniffed each other tentatively as Sarah and I exchanged our dog’s names, ages, and quirks. She said she’d just moved to Providence a few months before, from Brooklyn, where she still keeps her sculpture studio. Her partner just got tenure at RISD. She was friendly and warm, carrying a small ceramic coffee mug, her dog’s leashes looped around her neck. I thought, “Maybe, if I come here enough, I can make friends with Sarah or at the very least, get to know the dog’s names, greeting them as they come through the gate. Like a doggy version of Cheers.” It’s not the worst idea. Except it would work a little better if Gizmo actually seemed to enjoy playing with other dogs.
Sometimes I worry we are too alike, my dog and me. He is having a really hard time adjusting to the new apartment. He hasn’t been eating normally or playing as much as he usually does. The new place is on the first floor of a house on the corner of two streets—the sidewalks are just outside the windows, which I’ve been keeping open because it’s still summer here and I don’t have an A/C unit yet, and there’s a fair amount of street noise—people walking their dogs or moving their trash cans or unloading deliveries or singing or any number of other noises that happen on a city street. He barks at nearly every sound, his ears pricking forward, his posture tense. He is not barking to make trouble—he is barking because he is scared. I know this because I have felt it too, that kind of all-consuming anxiety, that feeling of being so tightly wound that the faintest noise can undo you.
I am having a hard time adjusting, too. I wanted to move so badly that I took the first decent place I could find, and now I am worried I am paying too much for a place where my dog may never be able to relax. It’s not a shoebox, but somehow it’s got the smallest bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom that I’ve ever had in my life. I’m still getting unpacked, boxes of books and shoes stacked all over, all of my art leaning against the walls, so of course it feels transitional. I’ve only been here for 10 days. It takes time for a place to feel comfortable, and even longer to feel like home.
My first apartment here never quite felt like home. The ceilings were too high, the walls too white. There was too much noise, too many voices all around for me to ever feel comfortable or at peace. You need to feel those things in a home. I want this place to feel like home, because I do like the neighborhood, despite the narrow streets and lack of grass, and it would be nice to make my own home. Also, I would love to not need to move for a while. But right now, I’m just worried I made the wrong choice. What good are the cute bars and restaurants if I have no one to go with? Will I ever be able to relax if Gizmo can’t relax? How much longer do I really want to continue to overpay for a place where I don’t have quite enough space and there’s no yard? Is this really where I belong? These questions whip around my head in messy circles, like dogs, only not the joyous ones.
I’d like to meet new people but I’m too much like Gizmo, hovering on the edges of the group where everyone else is having a good time, backing away before I can do something stupid. I’m starting to think about maybe even trying to date again, for the first time since the pandemic began, but of course I also kind of hate that idea. I’m not sure why, in particular, this move has caused me to feel more isolated and lonely than I have in a long time, but it has, and I’m not quite sure what to do with that.
Earlier this week, I took the train to Boston to see a friend who was visiting for the night who I hadn’t seen in years. After wine and snacks on a patio, we revisited our grad school haunts—getting giant, greasy slices from the same dude who’d sold them to us back when they were cash-only and bringing the paper plates to the Tam, the dive where we’d played trivia every Tuesday night. There’s no trivia now, but the same bartender was behind the bar, her face lighting up when she saw us, despite the fact that it’s been more than ten years since we’ve been going regularly. “This is on me,” she said as she poured us our beers and I wanted to cry, I was so happy and touched. We only stayed for long enough to eat our pizza and gulp our beers, standing near the open door, but it was just what I needed, to be reminded that though my life here is quiet and mostly solitary, I’ve built lives elsewhere, have friends all over. There are places where people know my name.
Bright Spots
Watching dogs at the dog park
This recipe
Watching old Norm Macdonald sketches
Visiting friends
Familiar faces