You can tell I wrote it because it's maudlin and has a lot of cuss words
There's a kitten somewhere immediately west of my house, mewing loudly. It seems to be in the care of neighbors in the apartment complex. I know the sound of a kitten too young to be away from its mother. So does Simon, having grown up with unspayed female cats and their new progeny, and having played surrogate to a couple of abandoned/orphaned kittens in his time. He's nervous enough as a rule -- especially when it's walking around the ground floor of the house, from which the cries are most audible -- that I can't always tell what triggers him. But I felt so certain he was pacing around worried about the kitten next door tonight that I had to leave the room.
This is about Christen in tired, premenstrual, crazy-cat-lady, bleeding-heart form. And it's about history that no one who's not at least a little bit of a critter sentimentalist could be arsed about, I'm guessing. Simon was born at my house when I was in high school. I brought him to Portland with me after my mother died because he desperately needed veterinary attention, and my mother and I were the only people in the world who didn't terrify him (and therefore, I was the only one left who could get him into a carrier to get him taken care of). I brought Schuster too because they adore each other like I've seen no pair of adult cats adore each other, and it would have been a dick move to break them up.
But I also brought them for the plain and selfish reason that while I have maybe the most compassionate and patient friends in the world, people who have their own stories about loss and illness and parents and children, and who listen to mine, ad goddamn nauseum -- none of the people I interact with on a day-to-day, face-to-face basis knew and loved my mother. Nor were they loved by her. But Schuster and Simon did.
That doesn't have to mean anything to any of you. I'm not certain what it even means to me. The thing is really this: I think for 28 years I lived with nearly every door locked. Oh I nurtured and crushed and wrote maudlin poetry, but I was just so goddamn careful. And then one day I walked into a hospital and walked out and all the doors had not just unlocked but flown way the fuck open. And I cannot shut them, and I do not want to. I'm a lot of things I don't want to be: angry, for one, and tired a lot of the time, a fucking weepy nutjob who can't be around mewing kittens. But I'm also not afraid anymore.
This is about Christen in tired, premenstrual, crazy-cat-lady, bleeding-heart form. And it's about history that no one who's not at least a little bit of a critter sentimentalist could be arsed about, I'm guessing. Simon was born at my house when I was in high school. I brought him to Portland with me after my mother died because he desperately needed veterinary attention, and my mother and I were the only people in the world who didn't terrify him (and therefore, I was the only one left who could get him into a carrier to get him taken care of). I brought Schuster too because they adore each other like I've seen no pair of adult cats adore each other, and it would have been a dick move to break them up.
But I also brought them for the plain and selfish reason that while I have maybe the most compassionate and patient friends in the world, people who have their own stories about loss and illness and parents and children, and who listen to mine, ad goddamn nauseum -- none of the people I interact with on a day-to-day, face-to-face basis knew and loved my mother. Nor were they loved by her. But Schuster and Simon did.
That doesn't have to mean anything to any of you. I'm not certain what it even means to me. The thing is really this: I think for 28 years I lived with nearly every door locked. Oh I nurtured and crushed and wrote maudlin poetry, but I was just so goddamn careful. And then one day I walked into a hospital and walked out and all the doors had not just unlocked but flown way the fuck open. And I cannot shut them, and I do not want to. I'm a lot of things I don't want to be: angry, for one, and tired a lot of the time, a fucking weepy nutjob who can't be around mewing kittens. But I'm also not afraid anymore.