Today Anya is 4 and my dad would be 89. Both born into chilly new years in the heart of New York City. Proud of my manifestation powers on this one. 1/4
When we got down the hill she said, “Time to go rob a bank, mom!” No idea where she got that or what it means in relationship to skiing but I’m choosing to interpret it as enthusiasm. 💗 ⛷️ 🏦
I had to say goodbye to my Tina this week. I’ve lost a lot of the fundamental people in my life and I know that the loss of a human is more consequential and far-reaching than the loss of an animal. But the pain this week feels similarly acute, the void just as gutting, the absence as loud. I got Tina from the BARC shelter in Williamsburg in the summer of 2014. I remember taking two buses from my apartment in Crown Heights to the shelter, desperately in need of something to care for. The people at the shelter told me Tina was their best, and they handed her to me with her big bat ears and that was that. She came into my life in the wake of one of those age-defining breakups, and she got me up off my knees and into Prospect Park and beyond. She sat quietly next to me while my mother’s disease confounded me. She loved Andy and appointed herself head nanny to Vera and Anya. She crawled inside my shirts to be as close as possible, and put her paws around my neck and buried her head under my chin when I came home. She slept in the curve of my belly and the arches of my feet. We shared a wordless language and her presence grounded me in the animal sensuality and simplicity of life. I was so lucky to love her so much. She was my first everything. My little Teenie weenie.
