I dreamed a dream
Today's poem, from exceptindreams*
Brilliance, by Mark Doty
Maggie's taking care of a man
who's dying; he's attended to everything,
said goodbye to his parents,
paid off his credit card.
She says Why don't you just
run it up to the limit?
but he wants everything
squared away, no balance owed,
though he misses the pets
he's already found a home for
-- he can't be around dogs or cats,
too much risk. He says,
I can't have anything.
She says, A bowl of goldfish?
He says he doesn't want to start
with anything and then describes
the kind he'd maybe like,
how their tails would fan
to a gold flaring. They talk
about hot jewel tones,
gold lacquer, say maybe
they'll go pick some out
though he can't go much of anywhere and then
abruptly he says I can't love
anything I can't finish.
He says it like he's had enough
of the whole scintillant world,
though what he means is
he'll never be satisfied and therefore
has established this discipline,
a kind of severe rehearsal.
That's where they leave it,
him looking out the window,
her knitting as she does because
she needs to do something.
Later he leaves a message:
Yes to the bowl of goldfish.
Meaning: let me go, if I have to,
in brilliance. In a story I read,
a Zen master who'd perfected
his detachment from the things of the world
remembered, at the moment of dying,
a deer he used to feed in the park,
and wondered who might care for it,
and at that instant was reborn
in the stunned flesh of a fawn.
So, Maggie’s friend-
Is he going out
Into the last loved object
Of his attention?
Fanning the veined translucence
Of an opulent tail,
Undulant in some uncapturable curve
Is he bronze chrysanthemums,
Copper leaf, hurried darting,
Doubloons, icon-colored fins
Troubling the water?
the Continued Quandry of a Jack-o-Lantern
My roommate called me, after our landlord's visit, and informed me of what had happened. "As I see it, we have three options," she said. "We adopt him and turn him into an indoor cat, we find him another home, or we find out about a place where he can be put down."
I replied perfectly calmly even as a wave of anger made the world waver before my eyes. "No, we have two options. The last is not a choice, and we won't even discuss it."
"Thank you," she said, with evident relief.
Now the problem of what to do with Jackl is an urgent one. My roommate is leaving this summer, with her two cats. In the meantime, we're trying to teach Jackl how to be an indoor cat. He gets along decently with the other two, so that isn't a problem. Yesterday was his overnight trial, where we kept him inside the entire evening. We're not sure whether or not he used the litter box, although we think he did. Certainly he left no messes of any kind in the house, did no damage, had no conflicts with the other two cats, was not unhappy, and was reluctant to leave again this morning. We're going to start converting him to the food the other cats eat. Today we're going to see if he'll put up with a collar. This weekend he gets his two-day trial, since my roommate will be at home the whole time.
We're going to have to give him a bath, since he's kinda smelly right now, and he has ear gunk again, so we'll have to take care of that. Then we have to try to trim his nails, which will probably be quite the process. Come to think of it, we might want to do that pre-bath.
I'm dreadfully afraid that someone in the neighborhood will take him away before we get him started as an indoor cat, so we're moving as fast as we can.
This doesn't solve the problem of finding him a permanent home, though.
We didn't adopt Jackl initially because of the two cats we already had. Ashley was planning to at first, but the issue of how to get him back to the States came up and promised endless difficulty. I wanted to, because I would love to have a cat of my own. The problem is that at this stage in my life I have no home of my own, and every year where I'm going to be during the next is called into question. I have a home with my parents, of course, back in the States . . . but we have a cat already, another rescued stray, and she Does Not Like other cats. Or other animals of any sort. Those few times that we've tried to introduce her the other animal has come away bleeding.
Not to mention the fact that my mother might kill me, daughter or not.
I thought about my sister, who has her own place, but it seems wrong to impose on her a pet of mine, without knowing when the favor will come to an end and I'd be able to take him back. It was possible that I could find him a home with another friend of mine, or someone else back in the States . . . but several issues with this remained. First, could I find him a home? Second, could I even get him back to the States without seriously traumatizing the poor thing? He hated his trip to the vet; how would he do on a 13-hour plane ride? At least he wouldn't have to sit in quarantine at the States, since Japan is a rabies-free country and he's had all his shots, but that didn't solve the plane trip problem.
As it seemed irresponsible to adopt Jackl for a year and then potentially have to abandon him again, we (as I mentioned) left the situation alone. Perhaps the next resident of our house could be persuaded to feed him, we hoped; if not, it seemed that Jackl had other sources of food, so he'd probably be okay.
Now, however, simply putting off the problem in the hopes that it will somehow resolve itself is no longer possible. We still have to see if he can make the transition to being a soley indoor cat. All the previous problems are still facing us. Plus there are additional complications. For one thing, I don't intend to come directly home when my contract is up. I was considering spending a month volunteering and then another month traversing Russia; of course I wouldn't be able to drag Jackl along on that.
Which means that, if I were to bring him back to the States, it would have to be around Christmas time. It would also mean a significant investment on my part, since with fees, buying a carrier, etc, the total cost to get him there would be around $230. Which is not an inconsiderable amount of money. The part of me that has issues about financial independence, waste, expenses, etc, quails and cringes in shame, and wails. The part of me that revels in generosity and moral rectitude sternly chides, "is that not a small price to pay for a life?"
But before it's even an issue I'd have to make the decision to subject him to the 14 hours on the plane, plus however long the layover in Detroit is. And I'd have to know that I was bringing him to a good home.
I could try to find a home for him here, but that promises its own difficulties. He's not a kitten anymore, at least not in looks, and doesn't have the appeal of being soul-killingly adorable. azusachan had trouble finding homes for the ones she saved (two of which now belong to my roommate), and they were soul-killingly adorable kittens ( see here for pictures; Rainbow and Nobu became my roommate's Shunki and Ensei). He's certainly handsome, but by no means beautiful. He's a little timid and has some rough edges left from living wild for his first year of life. He's a sweetheart, but he's sure to have bad habits, some that will probably crop up later on. It's hard to trust him to a stranger when I don't know whether or not he's going to end up abandoned again at the first sign of trouble. Having experienced the often callous attitude towards animals here firsthand, and having received so many second-hand reports of it, I have little faith in anyone's kindness to a homeless cat who wants only to be loved.
And would I even be able to find someone willing to accept him? Excuses run long, compassion runs short. Human nature is to be selfish, and caring for another creature means inviting difficulties into your life, despite the payoffs. Even were this the US rather than Japan, I would still run into the same round of excuses and shifting eyes. For that matter, I have my own sad reasons for why I cannot extend this perfectly lovely animal a home, so how am I any better? I'm not, I'm not at all, but I can't bear to let Jackl die. I've accepted responsibility for him, but now what am I going to do?
Kitty pictures!
Jackl (orange) having a cat-nap with Ensei (white and grey) and Shunki (calico).
Drinking a bowl of water together . . .
What is that weird clicking thing she keeps pointing at us?
Water's more interesting than a human, even if she is a weirdo.
Was there something?
Cat naps: no longer just for cats! Now for roommates, too! Ahh, space heaters, akin to gods in an ill-heated Japanese home.
Jackl likes to nap on my bed.
Even if he's not a kitten, he's still cute and charming!
See? Just look at that face!
Okay, he needs a bath. But he does have beautiful eyes . . .
I dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me, for azusachan
Ironically, in my early years I was in face obsessed with horses, and wanted to become a veteranarian. I read horse books endlessly, devouring every single one in the school library. Walter Farley, C.S. Anderson, Marguerite Henry . . . I read them all, not even caring that many of their books were novels generally considered beyond the reach of an elementary school student, and then I reread them dozens of times. I poured over reference books of all sort, as long as they were about horses. Horses and unicorns were all over my room, on posters, on calendars, on shelves and in baskets. I played with horse models and collected Breyer's beautiful sculptures. The first book I ever tried to write was a careful typewritten manuscript summarizing the evolution and development of the horse. When I drew pictures, I drew horses. My father rented me videos occasionally, always about horses, and I happily watched them all.
My mother took me to the National Horse Show every year. We went on occasional family car trips, mostly to historic sites-- on one of these trips, my great treat was a chance to visit the Saratoga Race Track. My mother even took me down to Morristown one sunny, memorable day, what seemed to me to be an amazingly far journey, in order to see the Olympic training ground and the perfect horses in their pristine stables. I had a subscription to Horse Illustrated, another to some kid-centric newsletter about, you guessed it, horses. Like every little girl ever, a pony topped my Christmas list every year, even though I knew I'd never get one.
I think I was in the second grade when my parents responded to my begging and got me horseback riding lessons. I loved them, and I was good at it. I was tiny, so I always had to ride spoiled, tempermental ponies that misbehaved and made things difficult, but I kept going. I even fell off twice in one day, dumped rather vehemently by one such spoiled pony, and I got right back up and climbed on again because I knew that was What You Did. The retired Mexican cavalry officer who ran our stable nicknamed me "Tiger." I wanted nothing more than to spend all my time at the barn, like the people in my books do, but was constrained by my dependence on my parents for rides to and fro, and thus had to leave once I'd groomed and fed whichever horse I rode. I was in three horse shows, all of them thoroughly miserable experiences. The first two were successful in terms of wins, but hideous in terms of weather. For the third I was on a spoiled, green little chestnut pony who was on his absolute worst behavior. I came in last in every event, but one of the judges came by our trailer afterwards to tell me that I was the best rider there, and it was only that my pony was so bad.
I read other books, too, like the veteranarian stories of James Harriott, and thought that I would like to become a veteranarian. I couldn't see myself as a professional rider of any sort, somehow; I had not enjoyed any of the three horse shows I was in. Running a stable and giving lessons didn't seem too great, either. My understanding of the grimmer aspects of the profession were naturally quite vague-- I was very young. But it seemed a fine thing, to me, to make sick animals well.
When did it all go, and where? Maybe that passion that I had was too strong and burned itself out. Gradually my focus shifted. My instructors moved inconveniently far away, and it became impossible to follow them any further as they hopped from one boarding stable to another. My lessons became fewer, and eventually stopped. Finally I gave up my hope of them ever being renewed, gradually I lost my desire that they should be renewed. I went to summer camp and was a part of the horse back riding program there, but that was the last hurrah of my riding career. I held on to my desire to be a vet for a while longer, but eventually realized that I liked looking at the outside of an animal a great deal more than I liked looking at the inside.
I donated my carefully collected grooming kit to another horse-crazy kid. My reading had already wandered from horse books to sci fi and fantasy. My horse models were worn out and gradually disappeared-- I don't remember throwing them away, but it must have happened, at some point. My horse posters faded and fell, and were replaced by other posters that had nothing to do with horses. I gave the Breyer models to my new younger sister, and many of the horse books, as well. My unicorn collection I kept, still dear to me.
Sometimes I still miss it. I think, now and then, that I would like to return to it, that maybe I could rekindle that old fire. But now I'm aware of the expense and trouble involved. I can no longer expect my parents to pay for the necessary equiptment, the horse hire, the lessons-- I would have to carry the burden myself, and I don't have the money. Horseback riding is an expensive hobby, one that has moved well beyond my reach. My focus has moved elsewhere, reality has shifted.
Brilliance, by Mark Doty
Maggie's taking care of a man
who's dying; he's attended to everything,
said goodbye to his parents,
paid off his credit card.
She says Why don't you just
run it up to the limit?
but he wants everything
squared away, no balance owed,
though he misses the pets
he's already found a home for
-- he can't be around dogs or cats,
too much risk. He says,
I can't have anything.
She says, A bowl of goldfish?
He says he doesn't want to start
with anything and then describes
the kind he'd maybe like,
how their tails would fan
to a gold flaring. They talk
about hot jewel tones,
gold lacquer, say maybe
they'll go pick some out
though he can't go much of anywhere and then
abruptly he says I can't love
anything I can't finish.
He says it like he's had enough
of the whole scintillant world,
though what he means is
he'll never be satisfied and therefore
has established this discipline,
a kind of severe rehearsal.
That's where they leave it,
him looking out the window,
her knitting as she does because
she needs to do something.
Later he leaves a message:
Yes to the bowl of goldfish.
Meaning: let me go, if I have to,
in brilliance. In a story I read,
a Zen master who'd perfected
his detachment from the things of the world
remembered, at the moment of dying,
a deer he used to feed in the park,
and wondered who might care for it,
and at that instant was reborn
in the stunned flesh of a fawn.
So, Maggie’s friend-
Is he going out
Into the last loved object
Of his attention?
Fanning the veined translucence
Of an opulent tail,
Undulant in some uncapturable curve
Is he bronze chrysanthemums,
Copper leaf, hurried darting,
Doubloons, icon-colored fins
Troubling the water?
the Continued Quandry of a Jack-o-Lantern
My roommate called me, after our landlord's visit, and informed me of what had happened. "As I see it, we have three options," she said. "We adopt him and turn him into an indoor cat, we find him another home, or we find out about a place where he can be put down."
I replied perfectly calmly even as a wave of anger made the world waver before my eyes. "No, we have two options. The last is not a choice, and we won't even discuss it."
"Thank you," she said, with evident relief.
Now the problem of what to do with Jackl is an urgent one. My roommate is leaving this summer, with her two cats. In the meantime, we're trying to teach Jackl how to be an indoor cat. He gets along decently with the other two, so that isn't a problem. Yesterday was his overnight trial, where we kept him inside the entire evening. We're not sure whether or not he used the litter box, although we think he did. Certainly he left no messes of any kind in the house, did no damage, had no conflicts with the other two cats, was not unhappy, and was reluctant to leave again this morning. We're going to start converting him to the food the other cats eat. Today we're going to see if he'll put up with a collar. This weekend he gets his two-day trial, since my roommate will be at home the whole time.
We're going to have to give him a bath, since he's kinda smelly right now, and he has ear gunk again, so we'll have to take care of that. Then we have to try to trim his nails, which will probably be quite the process. Come to think of it, we might want to do that pre-bath.
I'm dreadfully afraid that someone in the neighborhood will take him away before we get him started as an indoor cat, so we're moving as fast as we can.
This doesn't solve the problem of finding him a permanent home, though.
We didn't adopt Jackl initially because of the two cats we already had. Ashley was planning to at first, but the issue of how to get him back to the States came up and promised endless difficulty. I wanted to, because I would love to have a cat of my own. The problem is that at this stage in my life I have no home of my own, and every year where I'm going to be during the next is called into question. I have a home with my parents, of course, back in the States . . . but we have a cat already, another rescued stray, and she Does Not Like other cats. Or other animals of any sort. Those few times that we've tried to introduce her the other animal has come away bleeding.
Not to mention the fact that my mother might kill me, daughter or not.
I thought about my sister, who has her own place, but it seems wrong to impose on her a pet of mine, without knowing when the favor will come to an end and I'd be able to take him back. It was possible that I could find him a home with another friend of mine, or someone else back in the States . . . but several issues with this remained. First, could I find him a home? Second, could I even get him back to the States without seriously traumatizing the poor thing? He hated his trip to the vet; how would he do on a 13-hour plane ride? At least he wouldn't have to sit in quarantine at the States, since Japan is a rabies-free country and he's had all his shots, but that didn't solve the plane trip problem.
As it seemed irresponsible to adopt Jackl for a year and then potentially have to abandon him again, we (as I mentioned) left the situation alone. Perhaps the next resident of our house could be persuaded to feed him, we hoped; if not, it seemed that Jackl had other sources of food, so he'd probably be okay.
Now, however, simply putting off the problem in the hopes that it will somehow resolve itself is no longer possible. We still have to see if he can make the transition to being a soley indoor cat. All the previous problems are still facing us. Plus there are additional complications. For one thing, I don't intend to come directly home when my contract is up. I was considering spending a month volunteering and then another month traversing Russia; of course I wouldn't be able to drag Jackl along on that.
Which means that, if I were to bring him back to the States, it would have to be around Christmas time. It would also mean a significant investment on my part, since with fees, buying a carrier, etc, the total cost to get him there would be around $230. Which is not an inconsiderable amount of money. The part of me that has issues about financial independence, waste, expenses, etc, quails and cringes in shame, and wails. The part of me that revels in generosity and moral rectitude sternly chides, "is that not a small price to pay for a life?"
But before it's even an issue I'd have to make the decision to subject him to the 14 hours on the plane, plus however long the layover in Detroit is. And I'd have to know that I was bringing him to a good home.
I could try to find a home for him here, but that promises its own difficulties. He's not a kitten anymore, at least not in looks, and doesn't have the appeal of being soul-killingly adorable. azusachan had trouble finding homes for the ones she saved (two of which now belong to my roommate), and they were soul-killingly adorable kittens ( see here for pictures; Rainbow and Nobu became my roommate's Shunki and Ensei). He's certainly handsome, but by no means beautiful. He's a little timid and has some rough edges left from living wild for his first year of life. He's a sweetheart, but he's sure to have bad habits, some that will probably crop up later on. It's hard to trust him to a stranger when I don't know whether or not he's going to end up abandoned again at the first sign of trouble. Having experienced the often callous attitude towards animals here firsthand, and having received so many second-hand reports of it, I have little faith in anyone's kindness to a homeless cat who wants only to be loved.
And would I even be able to find someone willing to accept him? Excuses run long, compassion runs short. Human nature is to be selfish, and caring for another creature means inviting difficulties into your life, despite the payoffs. Even were this the US rather than Japan, I would still run into the same round of excuses and shifting eyes. For that matter, I have my own sad reasons for why I cannot extend this perfectly lovely animal a home, so how am I any better? I'm not, I'm not at all, but I can't bear to let Jackl die. I've accepted responsibility for him, but now what am I going to do?
Kitty pictures!
Jackl (orange) having a cat-nap with Ensei (white and grey) and Shunki (calico).
Drinking a bowl of water together . . .
What is that weird clicking thing she keeps pointing at us?
Water's more interesting than a human, even if she is a weirdo.
Was there something?
Cat naps: no longer just for cats! Now for roommates, too! Ahh, space heaters, akin to gods in an ill-heated Japanese home.
Jackl likes to nap on my bed.
Even if he's not a kitten, he's still cute and charming!
See? Just look at that face!
Okay, he needs a bath. But he does have beautiful eyes . . .
I dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me, for azusachan
Ironically, in my early years I was in face obsessed with horses, and wanted to become a veteranarian. I read horse books endlessly, devouring every single one in the school library. Walter Farley, C.S. Anderson, Marguerite Henry . . . I read them all, not even caring that many of their books were novels generally considered beyond the reach of an elementary school student, and then I reread them dozens of times. I poured over reference books of all sort, as long as they were about horses. Horses and unicorns were all over my room, on posters, on calendars, on shelves and in baskets. I played with horse models and collected Breyer's beautiful sculptures. The first book I ever tried to write was a careful typewritten manuscript summarizing the evolution and development of the horse. When I drew pictures, I drew horses. My father rented me videos occasionally, always about horses, and I happily watched them all.
My mother took me to the National Horse Show every year. We went on occasional family car trips, mostly to historic sites-- on one of these trips, my great treat was a chance to visit the Saratoga Race Track. My mother even took me down to Morristown one sunny, memorable day, what seemed to me to be an amazingly far journey, in order to see the Olympic training ground and the perfect horses in their pristine stables. I had a subscription to Horse Illustrated, another to some kid-centric newsletter about, you guessed it, horses. Like every little girl ever, a pony topped my Christmas list every year, even though I knew I'd never get one.
I think I was in the second grade when my parents responded to my begging and got me horseback riding lessons. I loved them, and I was good at it. I was tiny, so I always had to ride spoiled, tempermental ponies that misbehaved and made things difficult, but I kept going. I even fell off twice in one day, dumped rather vehemently by one such spoiled pony, and I got right back up and climbed on again because I knew that was What You Did. The retired Mexican cavalry officer who ran our stable nicknamed me "Tiger." I wanted nothing more than to spend all my time at the barn, like the people in my books do, but was constrained by my dependence on my parents for rides to and fro, and thus had to leave once I'd groomed and fed whichever horse I rode. I was in three horse shows, all of them thoroughly miserable experiences. The first two were successful in terms of wins, but hideous in terms of weather. For the third I was on a spoiled, green little chestnut pony who was on his absolute worst behavior. I came in last in every event, but one of the judges came by our trailer afterwards to tell me that I was the best rider there, and it was only that my pony was so bad.
I read other books, too, like the veteranarian stories of James Harriott, and thought that I would like to become a veteranarian. I couldn't see myself as a professional rider of any sort, somehow; I had not enjoyed any of the three horse shows I was in. Running a stable and giving lessons didn't seem too great, either. My understanding of the grimmer aspects of the profession were naturally quite vague-- I was very young. But it seemed a fine thing, to me, to make sick animals well.
When did it all go, and where? Maybe that passion that I had was too strong and burned itself out. Gradually my focus shifted. My instructors moved inconveniently far away, and it became impossible to follow them any further as they hopped from one boarding stable to another. My lessons became fewer, and eventually stopped. Finally I gave up my hope of them ever being renewed, gradually I lost my desire that they should be renewed. I went to summer camp and was a part of the horse back riding program there, but that was the last hurrah of my riding career. I held on to my desire to be a vet for a while longer, but eventually realized that I liked looking at the outside of an animal a great deal more than I liked looking at the inside.
I donated my carefully collected grooming kit to another horse-crazy kid. My reading had already wandered from horse books to sci fi and fantasy. My horse models were worn out and gradually disappeared-- I don't remember throwing them away, but it must have happened, at some point. My horse posters faded and fell, and were replaced by other posters that had nothing to do with horses. I gave the Breyer models to my new younger sister, and many of the horse books, as well. My unicorn collection I kept, still dear to me.
Sometimes I still miss it. I think, now and then, that I would like to return to it, that maybe I could rekindle that old fire. But now I'm aware of the expense and trouble involved. I can no longer expect my parents to pay for the necessary equiptment, the horse hire, the lessons-- I would have to carry the burden myself, and I don't have the money. Horseback riding is an expensive hobby, one that has moved well beyond my reach. My focus has moved elsewhere, reality has shifted.