While walking my Wheaten Terrier Frieda, I beheld a strange sight. A neighbor walking up the road towards me also paused. Was it a sheep? A dog? No, it was a small cow! Long-haired and light brown, it looked like a larger version of Frieda. As we stood silent and puzzled, the cow crossed the street in front of us and made her way across the lawn where she stood calmly sniffing a tree in my back yard. Simultaneously my neighbor and I realized the cow had likely escaped from a farm down the road that raised a number of similar long-haired cows. He posted on our community listserv while I walked around the corner to see if I could find someone at their home.

Unable to find anyone, I returned to where the cow had moved into the yard next to ours. A young woman holding a rope spoke in an agitated tone to an older man who had just pulled up in his car. “I’ll have to go get the trailer,” she called out as she ran towards the farm. The man identified himself to me as the owner of the cow. “We just brought her to the farm last night,” he explained “Her name is Ethel. She’s just a baby.” Ethel chose that moment to take off. He pursued her as she crossed a busy road, thankfully without incident, and made her way up the hill.

By now I had some emotional investment in the outcome. I ran after them, offering my help. The man did not respond but continued his breathless pursuit. Finally, Ethel stopped running. The other owner drove up with the trailer. Ethel seemed to consider cooperating. But all of a sudden, she took off again, knocking over a number of stones in the wall to cross the road to a large fenced in property. For all her show, she seemed not to be committed to running away. As she had at my house, once she got a certain distance, she stopped, looking back to survey the scene.

The woman with the trailer drove to another section of road as the man again went after Ethel. Both were clearly getting increasingly frustrated. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if you won’t get in the trailer,” the woman shouted in exasperation. “She’s going to give me another heart attack,” the man gasped as he bent over, exhausted from the effort of the chase.

Now I was all in. I certainly did not want this man to have a heart attack on Ethel’s account. At that moment she bolted. As she ran right past me, I said in a loud yet gentle voice, “It’s OK Ethel, no one is going to hurt you.” Much to my surprise, she stopped running. She looked right at me. I continued to speak with her with the tone and prosody parents naturally speak with their babies. I had time to notice her big eyes and long eyelashes deep in her furry face. She slowed her pace to a walk as she continued in the direction of the woman with the trailer.

With the man at one side of the field, a row of trees, and the woman in the road, Ethel seemed cornered. But it was not to be. She bolted through the woods, heading back in the direction of my home where this had all started. I ran after her as the two owners jumped in the trailer. They parked in front of my house. Ethel stopped before she reached them. I caught up and stood between Ethel and the busy road. “It’s OK, ” I again told her. “They love you and they are just trying help you.” She seemed to be considering this idea as the woman approached her from the other side. But then she took off at full speed right at me. I jumped out of the way; suddenly startled and afraid she might run me down. But she ran right past me and around the corner. All at once it occurred to me that she was going to the farm. I ran after her, keeping her in my sight as she made her way along the road and through neighbors’ yards to land in the large pasture beyond, where the other long-haired cows live. I waited for her owner to arrive, til he called out to me, “It’s OK, she’s home.” And “Thank-you.”

A few days after this incident I had the privilege of listening to a presentation by my mentor and colleague Peter Fonagy about the construct of mentalization. His words led me to reflect on the fact that the two owners, likely out of a combination of fear, helplessness, and anger were— in his words— “not mentalizing.” In contrast, being a step removed from the situation gave me the ability to remain calm and to consider Ethel’s perspective.

The whole experience left me feeling exhilarated. Perhaps it offers a kind of metaphor. Many people in our world today act from a place of anger, often rooted in fear. But if we lean into kindness, we may find our way home.

At the mentalization conference a participant shared with me a phrase she learned from the world of recovery that feels relevant to the times we are living in, confirmed by my experience with Ethel. “Just do the next right thing.”