Something I really like about hiking in the middle of the day is the quiet. There’s rarely anyone else on the path with me. Which does mean I don’t see or get to pet as many dogs as I like. But it also means that I’m not competing with runners on a path who lap me and make me feel bad about all my previous brief attempts to take up running as a hobby. I’m not worried about what I look like on the trail either. Which means I can grab random dead branches off the ground and drag them behind me like a petulant toddler who’s been told to, “put the stick down now!” This, incidentally, is not something I’ve had to do with my nephew. Ever.

I’m reminded when I do this of my sister’s childhood best friend. Whenever we hiked together she would always grab at leaves and branches around the trail. She’d break them off along the way and toss them behind her. She said this was a survival thing. That if we got lost somebody would be able to track us and follow the path she left. I took her at her word when I was a kid. But I’ve wondered about this as I’ve grown older. And I sometimes think that she made the wilderness survival part up and really just had a weird Hansel and Gretel fixation.

Either way, it’s a habit I’ve adopted too, and continue now in my adulthood. I try to grab at only dead branches though. Like the big stick I mentioned above. It’s partly habit but also partly a grounding exercise. It’s easier to ground myself in the here and now when I’m holding on to a part of the woods I’m walking in. It’s easier to remind myself that I’m safe and I’m in my safe place when I’m holding actual physical evidence of it in my hands.

Maybe that’s why my nephew picks up the sticks. Although he is more inclined to break the branch apart and try to make swords out of it, so maybe not. Maybe it’s more like when my dearly departed boxer mix would grab at sticks and drag them behind her, even comically large ones. I never thought to ask her if she just liked the feeling of the bark in her mouth (see what I did there?). If she found it soothing. But I suppose if I had she’d probably have just looked at me like I’m crazy like she normally did when I talked to her.

I have, however, heard that some dogs just really like the feeling of barking, so if they get started barking they might just keep barking because it feels good, even if they aren’t barking for good reason. Which makes me wonder a lot about when dogs bark back and forth at each other across neighborhoods. I mean, Perdita herself insisted that the Twilight Bark was just a gossip line. A gossip line that saved her puppies, and a bunch of other puppies – oh dang, is the Twilight Bark just dog Twitter? Like, it’s usually just bad takes and shit posting with the occasional communal help like people who warn others about forest fires before the authorities can?

I like to imagine that dog Twitter would still be better than human Twitter, if only because there would probably be a lot more, “have you SEEN this frisbee, dude?” and a lot less “do you even lift, bro?” But I digress. If dogs have a Twitter it’s proof humans aren’t the only ones who are prone to distraction and inefficient communication/community structures.

Anyway, much as I am a distraction-hungry chaos goblin, if I’m honest with myself, the stick in my hand is usually better for my mental health than the social media. Maybe my dog was onto something. Maybe holding onto a stick and dragging it behind me because I can and hey, why not is good reason enough. Or if not, at least my fictional father who abandoned me in the woods should be able to follow my path of broken sticks and find me, right?