Here comes that cold sunrise

I miss my Hugo. I don’t think I will ever be able to foster an animal again; I get way too attached. Admittedly, I’m pretty selfish. I like things to be mine and stay mine. I don’t like that his new family changed his name to Vinnie. I miss his little pink paw pads and his teeny tiny teeth and the funny noises he made while he slept, and how he slept on my chest and in my lap and how he liked to suck on my fingers. I miss how he’d curl up against my neck when he was scared and I miss having someone to cuddle with at night, even if that someone occasionally bit me a little too hard.

Good lord. You’d think I’d broken up with a person. Someone please remind me that he was just a kitten. I’ll get another one someday and be just as enamored I’m sure, and I won’t have to give it away.

Speaking of pets, my 14-year-old mutt Yosie (short for Yosemite), who lives with my parents in Florida, got sick again this week.

We got her in October of 1993, right after we moved to New Jersey. (Moving from our 2 bedroom flat in San Francisco to our three story house with a huge yard in South Jersey had two promised perks for me and my sister, ages 8 and 5: a swingset and a dog.) She is down to 47 pounds from her usual 55-60, she’s blind and deaf, and she has a legion on her brain. She has trouble getting around.
Being away from Florida for long periods of times means that when I go back, I notice the changes there much more clearly. It jars me to see her hip bones sticking out and to have to physically touch her to wake her up from a nap, not to mention the way my dad’s hair is disappearing and his moustache graying.

Sometimes the passing of time overwhelms me and strips me of any illusions of control I sometimes have. Other times it fills me with optimism. I’ve been giving my future some thought (but not too much). Right now I’m not that attached to my often-stated goal of being a choral conductor. In truth, I feel like I could do anything, which is as frightening as it is inspiring. How will I know what I’m supposed to do? How do I know whether to wait and let life fall into my lap like it has so far or get out there, jump out of my comfort zone, and do something?

And why the hell am I thinking about this shit on a Saturday afternoon? No clue. I’m pretty sure this post has no point. My apologies.

I’m singing on a choir concert this evening. I’m excited. I’ll have lovely friends there, the same friends who vastly improved my mood last night by coercing me into going to the Vivienne Westwood exhibit at the DeYoung museum in the city. This morning I overslept but remembered that singing good choral music is, for me, as effective as caffeine. There are moments that suggest that maybe that really is what I want to do. You know, do.

~ by musiclikemercy on June 2, 2007.