• Chase That Ball

But L.B. still had a farewell present to me, she said „this is our baby“, but on the next day, /you know, the way it goes/ „your obligation for the next fifteen years“. It was a seven week young black feist dog puppy. Such a cute longhair girl! I get always weak if I see dog babies with their fluffy baby pelt. /Oh! They are so sweet!/ But I finally have found my own life, and just got independent from all. I just started to make me feel at home in my own flat, which I always had to share with somebody. (First with U.B. although she had her own apartment in the same house ((but I had a TV)), then with my grandmother.) There were still invisible lines in the air and several parts and edges of the 45 m2 apartment, I never entered yet, beside by cleaning. And although I always had a dog in Hungary, I never had one in the city. I was indecisive to keep her or not, it was about my life, it seemed I won’t ever come out from to take care of somebody. But seemingly I needed that being needed. The dog spent only the first night in my bed. I didn’t intend to allow that, as I didn’t allow her that later, (my dog is a cancer, like me, she needs much space around, actually we were never in the same room) but she whimpered on such a heartbreaking way her first night away from her mother, that I didn’t know anymore, how to claim her. She felt asleep on the spot on my pillow. Next day, early in the morning as she made her first business in the middle of the living room, I was in riot, I felt like stranded with a baby child without pampers. No lash, no dog food, I had nothing at home for a dog. I was very close to give her back, as she went around me, set down in front of me, looked at me with a view I can’t describe. I did know this eyes, I did know this view. It was reproachfully it was appealingly asking it was like my grandmother would have looked at me. /Did she came back?/ The dog got me that way, and I had to keep her. I called her Gianna /I just realized years later in Italy, that it was actually the name of my grandmother (Johanna) in Italian language/. She was playful but didn’t ruine anything, not even a shoe. She never barked at home, it was hardly to notice, there is a dog at all. During the first few months till she got domesticated I just slept in installments. Later we went to the dog school that I could go with her without a lash on the street. I hate lashes, because I felt caught myself on the other end of it. But she was cool and it was cool to have her by my side. She followed me at every turn. She loved water but couldn’t swim, so I tried to teach her in Italy in a small lake. No success, I had to rescue her on my back. We had vacations together so she saw with me half of Europe. I took her with me everywhere I could, even to my exhibitions. If I couldn’t take her with me, I stayed rather at home. She was the best excuse ever, not to go out, if I didn’t want to. She became a big part of my life, in bad and good times, so we shared with each other /you won’t believe it, just as L.B. said!/ the next already almost fifteen years.

MURRAY WEINSTOCK W/ PHOEBE SNOW • CHASE THAT BALL