With October came Scottish autumn, a little behind fall in Pennsylvania, but a definite drop in temperature and a rise in the colours on the horizon. That, and the discussion of my rising cholesterol stats, encouraged me to get out more. Setting out for a couple of 30 minute walks a day, I managed to vary routes in the city, its parks and a nearby hill or two, and the change in the trees was striking. I came to notice and appreciate the warming smells and hues of autumn despite the cooling in the air. This was in rather sharp contrast to the things I was noticing about the ‘fair city’ of Perth, or more accurately the people.
Like many cities across Scotland, Perth has its fair share of social issues to deal with. In my previous flat, the one I was about to move out of, I’d become acutely aware at all times of the day and night of the unemployed men and women, people with ‘obvious’ mental health challenges, the intoxicated too, the addicts, the antisocial behaviour and on the odd occasion the violence. I was glad to be moving onto the edge of the city centre, where I could be more outward-looking in all senses of the word. Always interested in people, I still felt distant, different from those for whom the dice had rolled badly, sometimes loaded through bad luck, sometimes out of choice. Yet I was sharing their streets, and would be for some time to come.
There was a time, before the mobile phone, that I’d look at people talking to themselves and think them weird, with the soundless, occasionally loud and energetic, conversations I would witness. Increasingly, as I observed my city centre neighbours on the move, I was finding it difficult to distinguish between the disconnected, the troubled and the connected and technology-enabled.
I’d see people in deep philosophical or animated conversation, muttering under their breath, staring at others on the street, launching into tirades with no clear focus or just incessantly talking. Weird, huh. That’s just weird. What are they so inflamed about, why all the muttering? Where’s the focus of this unsettling monologue? I’d question this under my breath, as I glanced sidelong at them, and maybe if I was on a call to Becky with my airpods I’d get all animated. Then I’d spot there were people watching me sidelong too, and muttering. ‘Weird, huh?’, they’d be saying. All of us trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of weird normality. People in glass houses, all of us.
And then there were the dog owners of all shapes and sizes – dogs and owners alike. Like a re-run of the famous 101 Dalmations scene where Pongo was watching people and dogs pass by his window, Perth streets often produced the same variety, proof if ever proof was needed, of the correlation between dogs and their owners. The bulldog with his stout, low-slung master or the Staffy strutting with equally self-assured owner; the elegant retired greyhound racer and the smart, equally retired companion on the other end of a relaxed lead; the purse-puppy with shined, dyed and artificially enhanced owner; the timid terrier or shy shih-tzu whose person seemed constantly on edge; and, of course the poised and sculpted young labrador, or chilled, content older one, always in search of approval and human connection every bit as much as the owner.
As a ‘dog person’ I could relate to almost all, as long as the dog was walking, not carried and coddled, and as long as there was a real connection between human and canine – conversing, cajoling, caring, whatever the person’s background. From homeless companions to highly-trained service and gundogs, it’s the caring connection that resonates, and that’s always what I look for. A vicarious connection for me, in Jackson’s absence, and I can seldom resist the urge to say hello or show appreciation.
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