Owning your space
I have loved the dogs of Sri Lanka. They are mostly well cared for, and while skinny, they are not starved.
This dog took her place in the middle of one of the busiest intersections in downtown Kandy. The crazy buses whizzing by, tuk-tuks, cars, scooters.
Unmoved. Unconcerned. Watching it all. Chill.
It is not courage. It is knowing that this is her territory. That people will do all they can to avoid hitting her. She sits there, surveying the morning, owning her space.
Later she moves to the sidelines to nap, a little more peaceful as the pedestrians go by.
There is comfort in the space we know. The boundaries are clear—dogs in Sri Lanka learn as puppies how to cross a road and respond to the language of the horn. I only encountered dog poop in the whole three weeks of being in Sri Lanka, maybe three times.
The dogs of Sri Lanka know their territory. They know where the boundaries are, including the very edge of the boundaries of the road. They, too, push those edges. And the cars oblige, just a little. But not too much. They never beg, or attack. They are ever-present sentinels of a way of life.
This is why travel is so important if we have the means. We move out of the familiar space and become foreigners.
To know that we are the strange ones, that people do look at us as we walk the streets, and that our customs are odd, from asking for a fork to eat our food to the clothing we wear and the food we eat.
When we return to our home space, we once again settle within the comfort of the familiar. But we are not the same. Hopefully, our perspective has expanded and morphed.
And, hopefully, as we step more fully into being and expansion, we can stand in who we are without pretence or effort, no mask or arrogance, no matter where in the world we find ourselves. Just being. Within the boundaries.
Like the dogs of Sri Lanka.
Photo Taken September 1st 2024
