The Normyn Suite

When we come to live with dogs we don't think, at first, about the proto-dogs some tens of thousands of years ago who first wandered into a group of humans and was taken in. We don't think, at first, about the subsequent years of shaping and molding and breeding and refining and tailoring that has resulted in the specimen of dog who appears before us today. And we definitely don't think, at first, about how profound it will be for each of us that this creature has wandered into human life - into our life. By the time we start thinking about these things, we are well on our way to the inevitable: the end of the lives of this animal - this character - who has slipped into our lives, our minds, our hearts. To live with dogs is eminently familiar - even ordinary, at first glance. But glance more, look closely at that warm form in your room looking back at you, and you see how unordinary it is. This keen-nosed, preternaturally agile and responsive animal, whose ancestors lived in earthen dens, who coursed together to take down large prey, is in your home - and you have forged a bond with them. The bond exists beyond words, forged in touches and gestures and gaze. They've become the breath we expect in the room, the greeting we anticipate at the door, the responsiveness that we look for from the world. Then they are gone, one day. They exit your room with the same abruptness with which they entered. In their absence the room is chilly, the world is flat. The Normyn Suites is an elegy; to listen is to spend time in that space of loss, reckoning, questioning, and mourning. At the same time, though, with each note, each phrase, we are propelled back into life. To listen is to hear that heart beat again in your head; it is to fill that room with warmth and meaning. It is to remember their presence, the softness of their ears, the affection in a lick. You can feel their pools of eyes gazing at you. You know they are running across that field, just out of your view. They are just behind that door, in the other room, down the hall. You nearly hear the thump of their wagging tail on the floor. I used to think of the end of a dog's life only as absence. But it is also a presence, for they, irrevocably, change us. I am half me, half the dogs I've known. And I'd have it no other way. Normyn, a long-eared, short-legged spirit, is woven into Leonhart's music, and I now am pleased to say I know her, too." -Alexandra Horowitz (author of "Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell and Know")