The Interdognum

It has occurred to me that in the future this period in my life, however long it lasts, might be titled the Interdognum. A period between dogs, rather than merely the end of something, ie, life with Garth.

We went on another day trip (I did not take pictures) to New Haven, birthplace of pizza in America and home to a very lovely British art museum.

Left early, came home late, did all those things you cannot do with a dog waiting at home. It has been six months since he died and I miss him every day, as much as I ever feared I would, and yet the grief has subsided to a manageable level, most of the time. Somehow life wants to go on. And it does.

Perhaps the true price of moving to New York has become evident only now: we cannot get another dog, even if we were ready to, in our current circumstances. The way we lived in 1998 when Garth arrived -- a house and a fenced yard, someone home nearly all the time -- cannot be replicated in Brooklyn Heights, not on a middle-class salary. I know, people have dogs here; sometime I try to persuade myself I can be one of them. But in my heart I am not convinced.