Doesn't Fit In The Slot

Barley, a dog, wags her tail while investigating near a library book return box.

Every once in a while, it occurs to me that there are whole categories of experience that Barley has never had. For example, I feel quite confident that she has never once walked the stacks of a library. Now, to be clear, the public benefit of a library would certainly be lost on her, so I don’t see this as an experience gap that needs to be filled, but the broader idea that her world will, by the end of her life, be so much smaller than mine, nevertheless seems worth reflecting on.