New legs

Simeon...casual and elegant

It seems all it does is rain this summer. How can it be so dry? Rain. Sun. Dry. I guess that’s the cycle, but still. It seems incredible. It’s the first year I’ve had any trouble in the cabin with mosquitoes, or flies, or gnats. Got them all this year. Just a few, most stuck in the front window looking for release, but that’s awfully near my table. If they’re not hovering over me they’re there in my peripheral vision.

I’ve sat outside more, but when I do, the flying insects drive me in. It’s okay. In or out feels so nearly the same. When I stay out, it’s usually for the smell and the touch of the breeze that’s different from when it’s coming through the window.

Simeon is sitting on the white chair across from where I sat a few minutes ago, looking elegant with one paw hanging casually off the seat. After his few nights outside, he seems like a different cat. He is not so clingy. Maybe he’s mad at me. I am good now for opening the door and I no longer open it at night. He’s gotten his alley cat legs under him. I always knew it would happen. “Simeon,” I have said, “is not to be trusted outside at night.” I knew he could turn – step out of being a “house cat.”

I feel kind of like Simmy. Like I’ve gotten some kind of new legs under me.

I’m surrounded by people who will do sweet things to please me that aren’t exactly what will please me…you know? It’s hell to be such a loner within a “togetherness” family. Sort of like waiting to be let out the door. It constantly makes me feel bad. I swing from “I deserve my time alone” to “they deserve to have me engaged.” There’s something really skewed about that and I’m ready to get out of it. I want sweeter thoughts in my head if I’m going to have thoughts there…you know? I’ve been praying for that lately.

Simeon’s been the kind of cat I have to push away, always in my bed, on my table, at my elbow, clamoring for my lap. Now he’s not. I’ve thought, several nights, that he must have gotten outside, because he’s not on the bed. But he’s been in. Maybe sitting in a window looking out. Pining in a cat way for what he hasn’t got.

He’s changed. Maybe it’s seasonal, but for the moment, he’s a different cat. I kind of miss the cat he was; kind of don’t. I do know I don’t want to do the thing that will make him happiest – let him roam.

He’s come in the cabin now and is sitting on the small wicker table that holds a conch shell. Not bugging me at all. Independent.

Angie is on vacation from school and she’s off with Henry. The blue eggshell is still sitting on the path. I kind of like the feeling of being connected but not so involved…and kind of miss the way things were.

Life is like that lately… an exploration of autonomy…of having new legs.

Some damn thing

I’m worried about my computer and the sun is rising. I woke up early, reached for my cell phone to check the time, and discovered it wasn’t there. I didn’t want its alarm going off elsewhere and waking everyone, so I figured I’d better get up right away. I was still tired, but once up, I felt I might as well come out in full dark, which I’d swear it was at 4:45, and besides that, I had to check to see if Simeon was out here, since he wasn’t in bed and didn’t follow Max and Sam to the door.

About the time I first walked out the sky was my favorite brilliant backlit blue, and then I got to the cabin and realized Simmy wasn’t there either. So I’m worried about Simmy and worried about the computer, when for the first time in a pretty long time, I’m seeing the dark give way to light. Since the pre-dawn blue faded, the ground got darker and the sky lighter and the view over the fence golden. I’m probably going to get in on a spectacular sunrise by accident.

Yesterday, Donny had guys over rather unexpectedly. He'd forgotten about his birthday dinner – just us and his mom – and I’m not sure what happened, but somewhere between leaving home pretty upbeat about 4 and coming back at 6:30, he got crabby, or he got crabby once he got here with having to drag his gyros machine up, or with the rushing, and so all evening, he was either distracted, or later, out at table with the guys, (where you got no feel he wanted the rest of us to be).

Katie didn’t get here until late and maybe that figured in. My 5:30 phone call didn’t wake her; my 6:30 phone call did. She told me later that she wondered, ‘Who is calling me at 6:30 in the morning?”

We didn’t sit down to eat inside until 7:30 and afterwards she wanted to go out by Donny, and I wanted to bring the cake out for grandpa to blow candles with Henry before he went to bed. It was after 8:30 and I felt as if we were interrupting the conversation, and I think Katie felt left out. Or maybe it was her longish walk over to the side of the house to pick grape leaves, which got her tired out but excited and planning a grape leaf picking afternoon for us today.

The evening passed, Donny and I passing at the end of the night like weary travelers at a bus depot. If he wanted birthday sex at that point he was out of luck.

So just an altogether ornery sort of night, that I don’t know if anyone was too happy or unhappy about – just one of those nights.

Why am I writing about this? When I’m out for sunrise? And the candle’s been lit in here since Mary came yesterday morning. And Simeon’s not around. And the computer is acting up. And I need to run back in for more coffee and the bathroom. Ah, hell.

Back in the house, I’m thinking, “Where could Simmy be? If he wasn’t stuck inside somewhere, he’d be at the door now that I’ve been in and out a couple of times." Which leads me to think of the garage, where thankfully, Simmy is found. He meows in his loudest voice to protest the indignity of spending the night locked in strange quarters, and I feed him and Max, and have one less worry as I head back out.

I think the thing is that, after semi-quiet days full of time and a relaxed feeling…the busy, less relaxed ones, are more jarring. I see how many things I do because it’s the way it’s been done before, or the way someone else wants them, or the way I think they want them, and I get mad at myself for putting myself through it all. Often I see that no one particularly enjoys the thing. And yet, I don’t know that I care enough to change it. Maybe some day I will. Maybe some day I’ll reach the “Okay, no more birthday parties” point. But there’ll still be the cat and the computer or some damn thing.

And the sun will still rise.

Routine

Simeon, Max and Sam

This is the first morning in a really long time – maybe years – that none of the animals wanted to go outside. Although Simeon hasn’t wanted to go out since it dropped below thirty degrees and snowed, Max was still game. Sam, like a good dog, uses the outdoor facilities no matter what the temperature is. We’re a veritable parade every morning – them following me or me them, a parade of one human, one dog, two cats. Sam’s about seven-years-old, the cats a year older. So it’s a routine of many years.

It was the absence of Sam that made for the change this morning. She’s gotten so she sleeps in. If I get up too early, she doesn’t always greet me as soon as my feet touch the floor as she does otherwise. The cats might have glanced at the door, but without Sam panting to go out, I simply got out the cat food, made my coffee, and didn’t even think of the unusualness of it until I got to my room and looked out the windows at the back yard. Then I thought, ‘Man, I didn’t smell the air or look at the sky, or feel the cold. What’s the day like?’ I can’t tell from here.

It’s a real haze out there, is what it is. The kind of haze that gets you blinking because it appears to be out of focus. I’m settled on my love seat now with the Fahrenheat blowing on me or I’d get up and check it out. But I can tell you the windows aren’t frosted – so it’s not them – not the windows today.

It’s just minutes before six o’clock and lighter outside than you might expect. Everything solid is black against the whitish-pink haze. This could mean there’s a fine mist of snow coming down and I can’t see it. It could actually be foggy. I can make a good guess that there’s fresh snow because there’s areas that are flat and un-trampled by boots or tracked by rabbit feet. The shadows of the apple trees just lay down flat and sublime on those stretches, as if giving up to the season. Totally surrendered.

Yesterday I took my mom Christmas shopping. The day was totally different: clear and bright in that crispy winter way. I purchased the only gift I’ve bought this year when I was with her last. It was a three pack of cars from the movie “Cars.” It was three dollars. It was for Henry.

I came home without a single gift this time, thinking maybe I should shop from inside. Do the internet thing. Don’t go out into it and see what’s it’s really like. Don’t go sniff the air in the aisles or hang out under the florescent lights.

In the store, I am swayed. Even not buying a thing I feel undisciplined. I can just see Henry with that kid-sized Black and Decker tool set with a belt and hardhat.

Henry wants some dinosaurs (and candy) for Christmas. That’s all.

So far I haven’t seen a dinosaur that doesn’t come with a gimmick. They roar or spit water or sense movement and turn toward it or to avoid it (I’m not sure which). I know the plain kind are out there somewhere and that the way to find them might be from home. I can sit right here. Not even sniff the day.

It’s just plain weird.

There’s different kinds of going out and different ways of staying in, and times you get in a routine and it takes you a while to realize you missed it…or might miss it.

What Does Freedom Feel Like?

I’m up…finally…before the sun. It’s because of Maxie. He got left out all night. He was crying so loud right outside my window about 6:20 that Donny and I both flew out of bed with that “what’s wrong” feeling. Max came in like a scared teenager out past his bedtime. He is a well-trained yard cat in the daytime. If he gets forgotten or accidentally left out after dark, he returns to his untrained nature. He roams. Then he comes back to the door puzzled to find it closed. Who knows how long it took him to bring his sorrowful and desperate cries to the bedroom window.

Max came in. I came out to the cabin.

It took me 20 minutes to do it though, to get out here, part of that time spent sitting on the bed. I wasn’t really debating whether or not to come, just waking up. Max’s cries had made me do one of those jump-start wake ups. Now I know there’s not all that long left before sunrise. The difference between 6:20 and 6:40 is extreme. Along the freeway side of the fence the trees are silhouettes of black jiggling shapes against a white sky with a little color along the edge, and in front of me there’s some distinction growing out of the darkness on the ground, but there’s other places the light hasn’t reached, and this is what I love. I feel thrilled. There’s just something about it – about me being here at this hour – that feels so fantastic, as if I’m in sync with this time of day and free.

The day hasn’t gotten going yet, it’s not fully formed, there’s nobody else up and there’s no expectations. No one’s missing me. I’m not missing out on being with Henry in his own cuddly waking-up hour. Not missing breakfast.

But it’s more than that – something about the change – the way the day comes alive around me that makes me feel part of it, and with the world, that one-with-it-all feeling.

I just started setting my alarm for 5 again. (It went off this morning and I somehow managed to shut it off without waking up as I have for about three or four days in a row.) I didn’t used to have to do that. I’d wake up early on my own. Then my rhythm got all screwed up by the job. Why is it that when you’ve got a job you have to use an alarm and when you don’t you get up naturally? The job’s behind me by two months now, the next one not yet here, and still my body hasn’t found it’s way back to what’s natural. Part of it is that I get the same kind of feeling at night that I get in the early morning. I’m ready to go to bed. So is everyone else. The house quiets down. Then I want to stay up even though I’m bleary eyed.

You’ve got to find your quiet hours. And sometimes they’re one’s like Max finds when he’s out on the prowl at night, when he turns into that untrained cat that doesn’t follow the rules. They’re the one’s you’re desperate to find even if it means you sometimes stay out too late and find some door closed when you’re ready to come back from wherever it is you’ve wandered. It’s why you go there; part of the thrill. What’s out there? What will you discover?

What does freedom feel like?

And if it feels so good you can’t hardly stand it, you don’t mind getting scared once in a while.