Almost every afternoon, sometime before sunset, I have the privilege of taking our two English Cocker Spaniels to the park. They are littermates (brothers, I call them) named Higgins and Moseley, 6 years old. Taking them to the park is one of the favorite things in my entire life. Every now and then I pause to ask myself why it is so wonderful.

About 80% of the time, I draw the same conclusion:  it is the way I pay attention and am fully present that makes the walk so lovely. Most of the time I am not on the phone. About 10% of the time I let myself get really distracted, by reading or sending texts, e-mails, or voicemails—and, of course, the walk is less magical on those days.

It starts, of course, at home, with the call to action. The dogs always watch what we do, and their own attention is heightened every time my legs convey me to the front of the refrigerator. Higgins is always right there, eager for the next morsel. He was like this even before he got sick with ITP (an autoimmune disease, fortunately controlled with medication, which, thankfully, is almost completely covered by our dog insurance), and it’s more pronounced these days; the cyclosporine makes him hungry all the time.

So I walk to the fridge, calmly taking out the blue nylon treat bag that clips to my coat, check that there is enough cut-up cooked hamburger (or other treats) to get through the walk, add more if needed, and head over to the tall frosted-glass window next to the front door, where the dogs’ harnesses and leashes hang on a hook.

The liturgy of the park begins: they know something is up, and they’re right there by the door with me.

“Mozey? Higgie? Do you want to go for a ride in the car and go to the park?”

Usually, before I finish that last sentence, Mozey has looked me square in the eye and launched his snout with unbridled enthusiasm into my face, often bashing me in the nose or the eye or chin. I love his glee—the park is the highlight of his day, as far as I can tell. Two tails start to wag, often in exactly the same rhythm. The harnesses and leashes go on (click), and they each get a treat. I usually start singing a little song I wrote: “Goin’ to the park with Daddy, goin’ to the park with Daddy; goin’ to the park with Daddy, let’s go to the park, woo hoo!” (and so on).

Now there is the rhythm and soundtrack of getting out of the house. There is the motor of the garage door opening, the closing of the door off the kitchen into the garage (done with my foot, since both hands are taken up with leashes), the metallic jingling of the leashes as the dogs head through the garage. I open the back door of the car. “Mozey, up!” (up he jumps, needing a little boost). “Higgie, up, up!” (up he jumps, his leggy self launching into the car on his own). I get in front, clip the seat belt, close the front car door, and off we go.

I usually alternate which side of the park we explore on which day, although I always try to have us end up in the middle baseball field, where we have the blissful opportunity to have me drop the leashes and take off at a run, dogs flying behind me, with their long leashes and floppy Cocker ears flying behind them in turn.

When I am not distracted, I notice things: the quality of each dog’s fur (Moseley is coarser and redder, Higgins sleeker and more black); the comparative proportions of their bodies (Higg has very long back legs, Mozey is more balanced); whatever the sky happens to look like; the intensity of sniffing that the dogs invariably do. I take in the freshness of the air at the suburban park, the relative quiet of the location (except when the occasional other dog shows up, in which case for a short while it is an intense, amped-up barkfest), and the easiness of the pace of our walk. If it’s sunset, I watch the shifting colors of the sky as the sun disappears behind the horizon, and I gaze in wonder at the cloud patterns.

Mozey is a pretty anxious dog, and he seems to thrive on routine. Sandy talks about how church helped her own anxiety when she was a teenager, saying that church was “the one hour of my week that was always the same.” It wouldn’t surprise me if going to the park is like that for Mozey. Some days he can hardly stand being away from the car, which seems like home base for him; on those days, sometimes I then drive around to the other entrance to the park, which allows us another approach to the ball field in case the first one was too overwhelming.

As for me, I love the park because, no matter how my day has gone, I have the opportunity to simply go to the park and pay attention. It’s actually better on those days when I forget to bring my phone. In any case, it’s just me and the guys, the trees and grass and smells and air, doing our thing. It’s almost like evening prayer, some primal sundown ritual—always in the same place, usually with the same creatures, doing the same things, with the same sounds and steps and click and silly little songs and exclamations of “good boy!”

And, whenever I am able to notice it, I am grateful for the gift of paying attention.

* * * * * * *

I was reading a book last night by the late Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, informally known as Reb Zalman. Reb Zalman has a wonderful way of pointing out rather deep things inside simple phrases. In that spirit, isn’t it interesting that we speak of attention as something that we “pay”? The implication is that attention is an asset, a resource, a thing that is precious. We must intuit on some level, since it is embedded in our language, that attention is something over which we have both some control and a sense of stewardship and care—an obligation, if you will, to shepherd our flock of attention. I want to explore that idea a little more.

As we all know, a bad investment of money doesn’t feel very good. It seems that the same is true if we misuse or make a poor investment with our attention. I imagine we have all had that sinking feeling that comes after too much TV, too much idle gossip, too many minutes squandered on reading people’s rants on Facebook, or whatever else we do to fight boredom or anxiety. It doesn’t deplete the bank account, but it does deplete the spirit. When we talk about wasting time, I believe that it’s really our attention, or the quality of our attentiveness, that we waste when we are less than fully mindful. It’s analogous to what happens any time we “phone it in”—that sense of disappointment when we have brought less than our full self to any endeavor.

I looked in the dictionary: the English verb “pay” is descended from Middle English via Old French and ultimately from the Latin verb pacare, to pacify, which in turns comes from the noun pax, or peace. Now that brings it full circle for me. Have you ever noticed that when you are completely attentive to something,  there is a sense of stillness, of calm, that rides along with your full attention? That is peace, the pax that comes from attention well paid. I feel it when I’m praying or singing, and I have it at the park. How wonderful that when we pagar (to use the Spanish) our full attention, we are rewarded in a sense with pacare, with having our spirit pacified, made still and, in the definition of “peace,” brought to serenity, calm, quiet, or tranquility.

I’ll write in a future installment about the sorts of attention that I observe when we’re singing. I’m also curious about what you notice when you are singing, and how the focused attention in rehearsal or performance shapes your state of mind and awareness.

For now, thanks to the dogs, a trip to the park is a gift from the glorious domain of paying attention. When I can bring myself to the task, the reward is peace that lasts for the rest of the evening.

–Jonathan