The Housesit that Never Happened
Memories of mutts and magic while in self-isolation.
By Jane Thomas
I'm supposed to be writing this from an artist's home in Berkeley, CA, an aging Labrador named Tilly nudging me towards another stroll around the garden. I’m supposed to be spending evenings with friends I haven’t seen for years, clinking glasses and laughing over long-forgotten jokes.
I’m definitely not supposed to be passing my days cajoling courgettes and sweet-talking spinach in my vegetable patch at home in France. The most positive aspect of this whole lockdown has been the reassurance that, should I make it to a ripe old age, I have lived a life worth looking back on. I know, because with forward momentum stalled I, along with most of the world, have been peering into the past.
For many, this has heralded the messaging of old flames (rarely a wise idea, and certainly never after wine), the determination to give more back, and the realization that entire decades have drifted by with very little fanfare.
It is often thought that the people we meet have the most significance in our lives, but what about the dogs? The dogs I have looked after have shown me the true meaning of unconditional love and redefined what is meant by friendship. Over the past isolated months of confinement (the rather wonderful French term that suggests I have retreated to the depths of the countryside to produce an illicit baby) I have idled many hours remembering years of housesitting.
