"What I've learned from Mitty"

"Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it". 

- Rod McKuen

     Every morning, our sweet, adorable, snick-snack loving cat, Mitty walks into our bedroom, climbs up her carpet lined stairs at the foot of our bed and walks over to "The King" and strategically walks on his groin.  As I hear the sudden "Ummmph, Mitty, really?" I roll over and get try not to burst out laughing. But it doesn't end there.  Mitty walks up to King's chest and head butts him, first on the left side and then the right.  She then walks between us and I give her a scratch.  King gets up and makes coffee. Life is as it should be in that one daily routine.  We get summoned and we get up.

     Mitty recently turned twenty years old.  Twenty years of service.  When I first met King, Mitty wasn't exactly convinced that I was necessarily worthy.  She would sniff me out, rub against me and when I would get the urge to grab her she would run. I would clearly have to earn her trust. This was new for me because I never met a pussy cat that didn't like me right away.  In fact, I couldn't identify with Mitty at all.  I had opened my checkbook to everyone.  If they wanted in, I let them in because I wanted to be be liked so badly that it never occurred to me that there would be any hurt in my future.  Mitty knew better.  Through the years, I began to understand that Mitty respected her boundaries.  Boundaries for Mitty were a way of regulating who earned her trust and who didn't.  I had to wait and wait I did.  

     It wasn't all that long ago when Mitty finally decided to "own me."  We were downstairs in the family room, watching a movie.  Mitty came downstairs and jumped onto the couch.  This time, I grabbed her. I mean, she let me grab her and I held her close on my lap. I held her so gently and held her close to my heart so she could hear it.  I rubbed her ears and under her chin.  I had learned  where her favorite places. She started to purr and extend her paws, her eyes half closed.  We must have stayed that way for almost an hour.  No one wanted to get up. Mitty and I moved to a new level in our relationship.

     Mitty's bursts of energy come after she's been scratched and kissed and an ample amount of snick-snacks have been given.  I've seen her gallop down the hallway.  I've seen her lament at the bird feeders.  I watch King with her.  She has such an amazing way of getting him to do whatever she needs him to do.  There is no mistaking a true woman.  She gets what she wants because expects it and will eventually give back in spades if she knows there's gratitude.  No gratitude, she'll avoid you like the Plague.  That's a woman.  I was immediately under Mitty's tutelage.  Everything a woman needs to learn about being a woman in this day and age, can be learned by watching Mitty.  She gets doors opened for her.  If she doesn't get to eat at a certain time, there is hell to pay.  A clean litter box is a happy litter box.  Pet her in the right places and her tail goes up immediately...her paw twitches too. She appreciates comfort.and quiet moments.  She enjoys simply "being."

     Mitty has been therapist, nurse, confidante, sometimes coy, sometimes protective, particularly if King and I start kissing.  She has to be a part of whatever is happening...just to be sure.  She is observant, patient and well, not so patient because she knows no other way to be. Frustrate a woman and you're "mouse-meat."   She's "Mity."  She is comfortable in her own fur.  She doesn't worry about much.  She sleeps when she feels like it and where she feels like it. You will pay if sleep is interrupted and rightly so.  She has her own mind and demands respect for her efforts.  A true "Fem Cat-Al." Mitty's loyalty to King and I is unyielding and ours to her.  She runs the show and why shouldn't she? She has earned her right as most women do when have years and years of work behind them.

     At night, like the morning, King and I are grateful for "Mittens King."   She makes us grateful for each other too.  Animals make us better people, because they know better.  Mitty certainly does.

Why 2016 is so important...

"Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."  - Robert Frost

     I am at my laptop, nursing a cold, watching the snow cover our pond and what I lovingly call "King's Mountain."  The snow gives me peace which is why I find myself asking why so many are wishing that the year 2016 would just "end already."  I've caught myself asking the same thing but then I stop myself.  I have a personal mission NOT to wish any of my time away.  Whether we admit it or not, to wish our time away seems to go against the very mantra that most of us would tell anyone else, including our elderly, our young, our friends, our lovers.  When we lose someone we love, we always wish for more time, no matter what the circumstances.  When time stops, so do we.  We stop enjoying the world that's right in front of us.  We stop enjoying the people that are right in front of us too.

     At the beginning of every school year, the faculty at my school have to get our picture taken and when I first started teaching, I dreaded "picture day."  Now, I look at each photograph, which are worn as our badge of honor and think, "This is what evolution looks like."  Good, bad or ugly, evolution has taken place and it is for this reason, I will not wish my time away.   As I sat with my family at different intervals this season, I saw all of them differently.  We have all evolved and as the wine flowed, so did our admiration.  Why would I want 2016 to end having realized that?

     I will not wish to be younger.  I will not wish to be older.  I simply have no more wishes.  It's the present that matters to me.  When I "waste time," I do it consciously, on purpose so that I slow myself down and breathe.  I will not wish for things to be different.  I embrace what I have and if change needs to happen, hard as change can be, I deal with the pain and the discomfort.  You cannot stop the hands of time, you can only live in it.  Like most of us, I find myself wrapped up in the routines that define our private world.  We can either get bored with our lives or embrace that we have one to live.  I have made my choice.  This is what it means to be human.

     This doesn't mean that I have become complacent or like every single thing in my life's experience...far from it.  I will never be complacent about injustice.  I will never be complacent where cruelty is concerned.  There is a price to be paid for cruel behavior.  We tend to hurt those who we love the most but it's funny that when we chose love over hurt, we end up getting so much more than we could have ever imagined. 

     2017 is right around the corner.  2016 brought more challenges than most of us would have anticipated but if you are reading this, you are still here.  You still have choice and you are still capable. Whatever the world brings, whatever politics brings  If you love, and are loved; if you feel empathy and surround yourself with people who can do the same, then 2016, as 2017 will be full and no one will want their time to be taken away.  If your world needs more love, more intimacy and more mindfulness, you have today.  You are today.  "Nothing gold can stay..."  You are today...

Tis my season

"I just like to smile.  Smiling's my favorite."  -  Elf, The Movie

     When I was about nine years old and it was Christmas Eve day. I was so excited and over-whelmed for Christmas to come.  I believe I drove my mother crazy about wanting to open all of the gifts that were under the tree.  I was in fact relentless.  As I sat in my father's chair trying to calm myself down, Mom walked into the living room with one small gift that was neatly wrapped and handed it to me.  "Here Claude, this should tide you over until tomorrow morning."  I wiped a few left over tears from my eyes and opened up the gift.  It was my first journal/diary with a hot pink vinyl cover.  It had a lock on it too.  I was in heaven. Elated.  I immediately grabbed a pen and spent the entire rest of the afternoon writing.

     I learned at an early age the importance of writing.  I was or least my family thought I was, very good at it.  I would write silly stories and my sisters would take them to school and show their friends.  Writing was my release of anxiety.  Writing was my proclamation of my hopes for a great love in my life and happiness.  I don't exactly remember what I wrote that day and sadly the hot pink journal is forever gone but what I do know is that writing made me happy.  Writing created a safety zone for all of the angst and pain of growing up and as I grow older, it's provided me a way to appreciate what I have been given and to lament and plan what I needed to change.

     Christmas always makes me smile and I think it's because, when I was a kid I always got presents that seemed tailored to my personality.  Mom always said I was born a chatterbox so one year I got a talking monkey by Mattel called "Chester-O Chimp."  God I loved him. He went everywhere with me.  From him came another talking toy "Baby Secret."  I learned I could talk and talk and talk and well, try to keep a secret or two.  At least I tried.  Then one year, I was given my very own tape-recorder.  I used that tape-recorder a lot.  At times much to my family's chagrin.  

     When I got to college, and entered journalism school, I was given my very own Smith-Corona typewriter and a Canon AE-1 camera.  My tools.  My my sanity.  I remember feeling as though that each time I turned that typewriter on, my life had meaning. I learned to appreciate other people's writing.  I learned to love theater. I learned to love musicals, and other playwrights.  I loved Shakespeare.

    I have been on the receiving end of many gifts through the years.  One, I wear on my left hand.  It's a gift that requires me to give of myself and has taught me patience and has toughened me. It reminds me that sometimes when we want to give up and take the easy way out, we need to breath.  When we don't, we lose. 

   Christmas has gotten quieter over the years but it still makes me smile to think of all of the Christmas "firsts."  This year I am reminded that the best presents can be wrapped and handed us but the even better ones are the ones we give to ourselves in terms of our own health and wellness.  Those are the gifts that keep on giving.  This year, my gifts are the quiet, peaceful moments of thought that I am taking for myself and some time to cover the grays in my hair.  To look in the mirror and appreciate the history...

     So smile.  It's Christmas time!  What lies ahead is not in our control but let love be our driving force.    I smile and I well up in tears this time of year.  

     

"Blocked"

“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”
—Allen Ginsberg

I've always had this undying goal to be heard so imagine my surprise when I started to write over that past couple of weeks and well, nothing, NOTHING evolved.  I've given in to the frustration.  It all seemed either predictable, trite, and incredibly boring. 

Perhaps the other reason I have had so much trouble is because there is too much to write about these days.  It's making my head spin.

I could write about politics and well, I will, but not now.  I'm still digesting this past year's debacle.  I'm not sure whether to be totally in denial or scared half to death that most of the American public needs so much, works so hard, and sees nothing for their efforts. Or last they feel that way.  What I hope is that the result is more compassion and not a revolt of ignorance.  Ignorance is my biggest fear. Having said that, it's a good thing I am not ready to write about public education.  I will, but not now.  

I could write about relationships, familial, marital, friendships.  I will, but not now.  Lately, I have come to realize just how important all the relationships I have are so vitally important to me that I could break into tears knowing that each and everyone of the people in my life have changed me, kicking and screaming, into to a middle-aged, more patient, more humble, more resolute person...hopefully.  I don't rush to judgement any longer.  I don't pass judgement either. I am less sensitive but more empathetic if that makes any sense.  I have been graced with getting in touch with so many people from my past lately and all of the laughter and pain of my youth has come rushing through me like a tsunami. I have learned that it wasn't all bad. I wasn't all that bad...well, I tried to be bad but I wasn't all that successful. In fact, I was told in college that "I was just too good a person to date." We move on and we move away from the past. I am grateful to be in love with my husband, in love with my family too.  What's different is me. I'm older and less eager to please everyone.  I have realized that I can love with all my heart without feeling like it's not enough.

Sometimes I dream to have more knowledge and become more curious so that my writing sounds more relevant.  You cannot have an ego as a writer.  I tell my students that the best way to feel more comfortable with writing is simply sit down and do it.  If it doesn't evolve, then walk away and let the frustration disappear.  Writing is a powerful tool that breaks down our emotional walls, and let's us release the emotions that we dare not admit or speak.  The release is enough.  Once it's on paper, or on Microsoft Word, it's not part of our worries.  It's there for reflection and part of our history.  Words have a legacy.