Dragon Love
Been an age, on my time frame of slow anyway.
Today I was, wait for it, happy. I recognised the feeling because of its unfamiliarity. The best part was there was absolutely no reason for it, it was just there when I woke up. There like religion, there like Love. It's big, really big like when you really look at the sky.
I can't tell you how damn much I love these guys I live with. To anthropomorphosise them yes. It's some how nice knowing that by turning on the light in the middle of the night I am pissing off at least 10 beings, whose eyes open with annoyance at sleep interruption. As if saying, "hey, we're sleeping here, turn the goddamn light off." Or during the day, a pointed look from Siph (she sticks her nose in the water dish and then looks up at me) saying "hey, bitch, I need a drink too you know!" or Griff munching loudly on dried cabbage as it is beneath him to actually highlight the fact that I hadn't fed him immediately upon my awakening (although he lowers himself to sit directly under the heat lamp staring alternatingly between it and me when I haven't turned it on yet). All of which paints me as a terrible keeper. But I have learned to stop feeding them every 5 minutes and changing their water every time they walk into it (it seemed at the beginning they did it just to enjoy me cleaning and changing the water dish). Ok, so I feed the babies every couple of hours, but that's in the rules! And I love watching their little mouths chomp through stuff that looks tiny to me, but is huge to them, or play tug-of-war with cabbage pieces that are smaller than my fingertip, or hunt crickets like kittens chasing balls of thread (tail waggling and inched pouncing included).
You think you have reached the end of what you can feel or give or be and then you discover more spaces. That's how I feel today. I am space and possibility- there are new places, fresh and ready.
Every time I glance at Griff I am seized with this adoration. I didn't think I had it in me to adore these days. He's nothing to anyone else, and I'm silly to everyone for saying it, but I don't care. He heals me constantly. I could let go, but I'm responsible for his life. And when I ache, I'm not alone and it's enough to have something that lives and feels with me, without being a human that speaks and makes you self aware.
The babies are everything at the moment. Different from the Trio in that these guys are alive because of me. I gave them a chance to live. And I am teaching them to do things, hand-rearing them. They are learning to eat from my hand, they are learning what water is and does for their bodies (noone ever taught Griff that so he still doesn't know and can only drink from running water). I am introducing new things to them and they are curious and scared. But the curiousity always wins in the end and watching them find new things and explore new places is refreshing.
They snuggle at night; pile up, all eyes pointed in the same direction. And when they doze during the day, the spread their limbs out so carelessly, flop down next to or half on top of a sibling until something edible comes and then it's a pack hunt. Blackjack snouts his way underneath the rest, he likes being at the bottom of the pile, in the corner of the tank. They skitter when they run, move like leaves in Autumn. LittleBit is the adventurer, the first to try out new things, like dried mealworms. They love crunching their way through them. They are just miniature beauties, mesmerising to watch and I wish I could keep most of them together. I don't want them to grow up, but I do, I want to see what I helped bring into existence, what it can become. I want to see if LittleBit will always have a scar down his side from whoever bit him, I want to see if Blackjack will always be so dark and nervous. I want to see how big Clea grows as she's the tiniest one at the moment, if Jigsaw will keep her amazing coloured pattern. I want to know what sex they will all be, if Nate will still love water when he's grown. If Jareth's adult face will still look like he's grinning permanently.
I'm going to miss not having them scratching in the middle of the night, jumping on boxes during the day, skittering around after crickets. But I will still have my three. Siph the explorer, Griff the watcher and Tig who likes to snooze with me. This afternoon she heaved herself half off my shoulder onto my pillow and we fell asleep for a few hours. Griff has the biggest mooneyes ever. Big and lighter than the girls', less reptilic somehow. Just watching and curious. The girls were more demonic when they arrived, or maybe I have just gotten used to the darker, more orange/red colour of their eyes. It's hard to think of them as being demonic when you watch them sleep in water bowls and fall off rocks and trip over devilhorned hairbands, or run into plastic boxes and not understand how they can't walk through them, or close their eyes and lift their faces to the water in the shower.
Every day there is a moment I have a little burst of love for whatever one of them are doing. Even right now, Griff's asleep and his limbs are all hanging off his branch- I love it. I've never been so aware of loving something so positively. Every time I even walk towards my room I feel it just because I know they are there. I go to sleep knowing that when I wake, Griff will be watching me, Siph will be looking outside and Tig will be pretending to snooze. And there will be 10 babies doing god-knows-what. :-D
)0(
Today I was, wait for it, happy. I recognised the feeling because of its unfamiliarity. The best part was there was absolutely no reason for it, it was just there when I woke up. There like religion, there like Love. It's big, really big like when you really look at the sky.
I can't tell you how damn much I love these guys I live with. To anthropomorphosise them yes. It's some how nice knowing that by turning on the light in the middle of the night I am pissing off at least 10 beings, whose eyes open with annoyance at sleep interruption. As if saying, "hey, we're sleeping here, turn the goddamn light off." Or during the day, a pointed look from Siph (she sticks her nose in the water dish and then looks up at me) saying "hey, bitch, I need a drink too you know!" or Griff munching loudly on dried cabbage as it is beneath him to actually highlight the fact that I hadn't fed him immediately upon my awakening (although he lowers himself to sit directly under the heat lamp staring alternatingly between it and me when I haven't turned it on yet). All of which paints me as a terrible keeper. But I have learned to stop feeding them every 5 minutes and changing their water every time they walk into it (it seemed at the beginning they did it just to enjoy me cleaning and changing the water dish). Ok, so I feed the babies every couple of hours, but that's in the rules! And I love watching their little mouths chomp through stuff that looks tiny to me, but is huge to them, or play tug-of-war with cabbage pieces that are smaller than my fingertip, or hunt crickets like kittens chasing balls of thread (tail waggling and inched pouncing included).
You think you have reached the end of what you can feel or give or be and then you discover more spaces. That's how I feel today. I am space and possibility- there are new places, fresh and ready.
Every time I glance at Griff I am seized with this adoration. I didn't think I had it in me to adore these days. He's nothing to anyone else, and I'm silly to everyone for saying it, but I don't care. He heals me constantly. I could let go, but I'm responsible for his life. And when I ache, I'm not alone and it's enough to have something that lives and feels with me, without being a human that speaks and makes you self aware.
The babies are everything at the moment. Different from the Trio in that these guys are alive because of me. I gave them a chance to live. And I am teaching them to do things, hand-rearing them. They are learning to eat from my hand, they are learning what water is and does for their bodies (noone ever taught Griff that so he still doesn't know and can only drink from running water). I am introducing new things to them and they are curious and scared. But the curiousity always wins in the end and watching them find new things and explore new places is refreshing.
They snuggle at night; pile up, all eyes pointed in the same direction. And when they doze during the day, the spread their limbs out so carelessly, flop down next to or half on top of a sibling until something edible comes and then it's a pack hunt. Blackjack snouts his way underneath the rest, he likes being at the bottom of the pile, in the corner of the tank. They skitter when they run, move like leaves in Autumn. LittleBit is the adventurer, the first to try out new things, like dried mealworms. They love crunching their way through them. They are just miniature beauties, mesmerising to watch and I wish I could keep most of them together. I don't want them to grow up, but I do, I want to see what I helped bring into existence, what it can become. I want to see if LittleBit will always have a scar down his side from whoever bit him, I want to see if Blackjack will always be so dark and nervous. I want to see how big Clea grows as she's the tiniest one at the moment, if Jigsaw will keep her amazing coloured pattern. I want to know what sex they will all be, if Nate will still love water when he's grown. If Jareth's adult face will still look like he's grinning permanently.
I'm going to miss not having them scratching in the middle of the night, jumping on boxes during the day, skittering around after crickets. But I will still have my three. Siph the explorer, Griff the watcher and Tig who likes to snooze with me. This afternoon she heaved herself half off my shoulder onto my pillow and we fell asleep for a few hours. Griff has the biggest mooneyes ever. Big and lighter than the girls', less reptilic somehow. Just watching and curious. The girls were more demonic when they arrived, or maybe I have just gotten used to the darker, more orange/red colour of their eyes. It's hard to think of them as being demonic when you watch them sleep in water bowls and fall off rocks and trip over devilhorned hairbands, or run into plastic boxes and not understand how they can't walk through them, or close their eyes and lift their faces to the water in the shower.
Every day there is a moment I have a little burst of love for whatever one of them are doing. Even right now, Griff's asleep and his limbs are all hanging off his branch- I love it. I've never been so aware of loving something so positively. Every time I even walk towards my room I feel it just because I know they are there. I go to sleep knowing that when I wake, Griff will be watching me, Siph will be looking outside and Tig will be pretending to snooze. And there will be 10 babies doing god-knows-what. :-D
)0(