Small Cat Favors.
I have not updated in a while. This is due to a number of circumstances beyond my control... and I suppose more than anything circumstances that were well within. Instead of an in-depth update on what exactly is going on... I am compelled to leave you with only this.
Tonight I watched my cat, Hazel, one of twins, roam the backyard. This is a backyard full of dried weeds and thistles, and not an amazing place to romp around in. Hazel often comes back in with weeds and sharp, brittle plants stuck deep in his fur, but you would never think this bothered him. For Hazel, the irritatingly pokey yard is his new playground. After much fuss, I allowed him to go outside about two weeks ago - the miracle is that, in spite of how seemingly clueless he is to anything else, he is either self-aware enough or aware enough of my anxiety to only go so far, and I can't see how he can have turned the bend in the street, his visits outside are so short. Yet when I painstakingly brush the nettles out of his tail, his chest juts out in an unmistakable tableau of pride and satisfaction.
So tonight, as I smoked in our backyard, aware suddenly that this would not be our backyard for much longer, I watched Hazel pick his way carefully through the brush. He moved slowly, with the distinct grace one can only find in a feline, and his pupils were huge, although there was dim light provided by the bulb by the door. He seemed to hunt his shadow. He sniffed and sneezed at nothing I could see and explored the weeds as if he had never been there before. At one point he stretched himself out to his longest, and I was almost breathless with him: his coat is long and shiny, his face small and expressive, his legs held daintily in his thoughtless care. It was actually a challenge to think of him as a kitten, tiny but fluffed, dirty, feisty and restless... not to mention a girl as far as I knew. This creature stalking nothing for his own amusement was totally different than the terrified kitten stuck in my bathroom some months ago. His transformation was shocking.
This very evening I was talking to Richard about my bleeding heart, about my insanity, about my current state of loathing considering the kittens we have newly caught and now have to release into an unforgiving landscape. He said to me "Not everything is your fault," and of course he is right, but suddenly I was able to justify a little of what I felt, and so I said "I don't feel like I do enough."
"You're only one person."
"But so many people have done epic things, only being one person." Which, I think anyone has to grant me, is true. Whether or not it would make a real difference, attempting to become someone who brings about change can't be a bad thing to aspire to. Richard really seemed worried, wanted me to give myself credit on my recovery... and I was surprised to find that I feel so good about it that, while I felt proud, I also felt a flippancy. It was time, I thought, to perhaps move toward something else.
My cats have grown into beautiful creatures. I have grown too - I cannot even understand the kind of person I was two years ago, when death by my own hand seemed like it was as close as skin. I recall several conversations, musings and desert ball-tripping that forced me to consider how "big" I could be, will be, and am. There are pictures of me not myself, careless and free like I never knew I could be, and it is so clear in these pictures that this young woman exists outside of myself that I wonder how her pretty face can look so much like my own.
I am close now to the bottom of the hill. The one I have been coasting down for some time now. The sheer length of the fall has made me anxious and impatient... but it hasn't been in vain, and I haven't suddenly stopped, or swerved and died, as so often I imagined I would. The bottom is there. I am convinced I see it. And from there we enter the rest of my life.
Hazel and Fiver are on either side of me, dozing and accepting my attention. They are so unquestioningly happy that I want to cry... but I'll just end this entry. I promise for a real update soon.
Tonight I watched my cat, Hazel, one of twins, roam the backyard. This is a backyard full of dried weeds and thistles, and not an amazing place to romp around in. Hazel often comes back in with weeds and sharp, brittle plants stuck deep in his fur, but you would never think this bothered him. For Hazel, the irritatingly pokey yard is his new playground. After much fuss, I allowed him to go outside about two weeks ago - the miracle is that, in spite of how seemingly clueless he is to anything else, he is either self-aware enough or aware enough of my anxiety to only go so far, and I can't see how he can have turned the bend in the street, his visits outside are so short. Yet when I painstakingly brush the nettles out of his tail, his chest juts out in an unmistakable tableau of pride and satisfaction.
So tonight, as I smoked in our backyard, aware suddenly that this would not be our backyard for much longer, I watched Hazel pick his way carefully through the brush. He moved slowly, with the distinct grace one can only find in a feline, and his pupils were huge, although there was dim light provided by the bulb by the door. He seemed to hunt his shadow. He sniffed and sneezed at nothing I could see and explored the weeds as if he had never been there before. At one point he stretched himself out to his longest, and I was almost breathless with him: his coat is long and shiny, his face small and expressive, his legs held daintily in his thoughtless care. It was actually a challenge to think of him as a kitten, tiny but fluffed, dirty, feisty and restless... not to mention a girl as far as I knew. This creature stalking nothing for his own amusement was totally different than the terrified kitten stuck in my bathroom some months ago. His transformation was shocking.
This very evening I was talking to Richard about my bleeding heart, about my insanity, about my current state of loathing considering the kittens we have newly caught and now have to release into an unforgiving landscape. He said to me "Not everything is your fault," and of course he is right, but suddenly I was able to justify a little of what I felt, and so I said "I don't feel like I do enough."
"You're only one person."
"But so many people have done epic things, only being one person." Which, I think anyone has to grant me, is true. Whether or not it would make a real difference, attempting to become someone who brings about change can't be a bad thing to aspire to. Richard really seemed worried, wanted me to give myself credit on my recovery... and I was surprised to find that I feel so good about it that, while I felt proud, I also felt a flippancy. It was time, I thought, to perhaps move toward something else.
My cats have grown into beautiful creatures. I have grown too - I cannot even understand the kind of person I was two years ago, when death by my own hand seemed like it was as close as skin. I recall several conversations, musings and desert ball-tripping that forced me to consider how "big" I could be, will be, and am. There are pictures of me not myself, careless and free like I never knew I could be, and it is so clear in these pictures that this young woman exists outside of myself that I wonder how her pretty face can look so much like my own.
I am close now to the bottom of the hill. The one I have been coasting down for some time now. The sheer length of the fall has made me anxious and impatient... but it hasn't been in vain, and I haven't suddenly stopped, or swerved and died, as so often I imagined I would. The bottom is there. I am convinced I see it. And from there we enter the rest of my life.
Hazel and Fiver are on either side of me, dozing and accepting my attention. They are so unquestioningly happy that I want to cry... but I'll just end this entry. I promise for a real update soon.