Categorically So

During winter’s rare sunny days, the baby and I head for a nearby park, hoping for a glimpse of other living creatures, always a treat this first winter of her life. Now that she is big enough to face outward in the cloth carrier I strap to my chest, the baby’s gaze increasingly lingers on other children. The baby couldn’t care less that her dad or I can walk. But when someone just inches taller than her stomps through wood chips, when they toddle and run, scream and jump, swing and slide, leap and toss, she is transfixed.  

This morning the swings and slide and balance beam are empty, the sand perhaps deemed too soggy by reluctant parents. I squish through mud and sullen patches of grass, tracing a meandering path through the park to bring us close to every possible point of interest I can find. The community garden heaped with overwintered greens. The chain-link fence that hugs a baseball diamond used as a kickball field by millennials during Portland’s long summer days. The baby wriggles in the carrier, her arched back a sure sign of frustration and boredom, and I pick up the pace.  

As we approach the playground, I spot a tawny Shiba Inu sniffing through matted grass. I swing around to give the baby a clear view. A second Shiba Inu, small and black, leaps from behind a bench. Two sets of chest and belly and jowls gleam white as they trot toward each other. When they are nose to nose, they both pull to a sudden halt. They straighten, and fur ripples as they unfurl then refurl their tails, just once, before moving in to sniff each other.  

Legs flash in and out of my peripheral vision, the baby’s navy fleece booties slicing through air. She hoots. Her head, tucked beneath my chin, begins to wobble, the ultimate sign of happiness.  

The dogs circle each other, nose to belly. Their owners look up from their cell phones, laugh and exchange pleasantries, but it is the dogs that captivate the baby. The way one leaps onto the other, forelegs on rump, tongue flapping. The shimmer of fur catching sunlight. Those wet quivering noses. Their sure-footed prance through mud. Their panting excitement echoed in the kick of her booties.  

Having grown up in a petless household—my mother allergic to cats, my father to dogs—I have never cared much for four-legged creatures. Even when they came with the roommates I found through Craigslist or word of mouth, I found cats to be too mercurial, dogs too extroverted. 

But now, everywhere we go, the baby sees dogs. Her eyes may glide over a darting squirrel or drowsing cat, but they brighten at the frantic footfalls of an approaching Chihuahua. The geriatric black and white border collie that plods across the street corner, led by its equally geriatric owner. The pair of huskies, matched in height and weight and maybe even litter, sure-footed as they barrel down the street, steps synchronized.  

Just like that, her brain has undergone a developmental shift, and she is able to recognize that certain sensations, objects, and even animals belong together in categories. A bloodhound may be large and jowled, a Pekingese small and moplike, but she understands that they are all dogs. Her landscape, forever altered. 

How much more richly populated will her landscape become over the course of her life?  

And as we continue our winter forays, I begin adopting the baby’s enthusiasm for dogs, for the kicks they inspire. That flash of fleeced booties, certain and rapid, like the insistent hammering of a heart falling in love. 

Jessica Yen is a Chinese American author who explores the intersection of memory, family, culture, language, identity, and history. Her work has been supported by the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Caldera Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, and an Oregon Literary Fellowship. Twice-nominated for the Pushcart Prize, she is an essayist whose work has appeared in Fourth Genre, the Masters Review, Oregon Humanities, and the Best American Travel Writing series, among others. She is currently working on a memoir. You can find her online at jessicayen.com. 

This essay is a Short Reads original.