In the fields the dogs are chasing one another, the puppy only in second gear because anything more is far too quick for Daisy.
A hard as Daisy runs the pup slips away with a body swerve or a sudden burst of acceleration.
The effort is pleasing Daisy, but she’ll never catch the pup and have something to show for her endeavour.
My daughter is having trouble with her research project she tells me, red-eyed from tears of frustration.
“There are so many papers I can find and so many questions I could ask I just feel overwhelmed and end up staring at the page getting nothing done.”
My daughter has an unrelenting standard when it comes to productivity.
“If I don’t get up at 6 and work until 6 I feel like I haven’t achieved anything,” she once told me.
In an effort to help I spend time I don’t really have discussing ideas she can try to stop her being so hard on herself and set more reasonable targets.
“Just plan to find three papers. If it’s not so overwhelming you’ll probably achieve it and then you can find another three.”
She doesn’t dismiss my advice which I take as progress.
Later, trying to cram too much in, I go into town to run some errands.
As ridiculous as it sounds I have been amongst crowds so rarely in the past year or so that I find myself a little overwhelmed by the noise, people, and myriad distractions.
Instead of working through my list, I buy sesame seeds I don’t need in the health shop whilst being asked by the stern woman who works in there,
“Are you looking for something?”
I don’t hear her because I have my earphones in. This makes her more stern than normal and amplifies my anxiety.
I tell myself that I can’t concentrate on my list because I am hungry so I spend twenty minutes looking through the sandwiches in M&S trying to find cheese and celery which clearly isn’t there while I spin myself a story about how they probably only have that combination in the summer because it’s a good one for picnics.
Settling for cheese and chutney I cycle through each one to find the sandwich with what appears to be the least chutney saturated bread and the last one I check turns out to be a solitary cheese and celery.
Triumphant, I abandon my long list and go home deciding to focus solely on preparing for a presentation next week.
I get it done and feel good.
My daughter is in the kitchen making her lunch.
“How’s your day going?” I ask
“OK. I’ve found four really good papers and now I’m having a break.”
“Well done.”
“Yeah. At least I’ve made some progress.”
Walking the dogs I watch them spinning around the field in wide circles until the puppy accelerates away into the distance.
As she does so, Daisy changes tack and runs in smaller circles so that, without covering anywhere near as much ground, she ends up arriving in the same place as the puppy. They leap at one another, mouthing and rolling into a satisfied heap in the autumn leaves.
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