MY FRIEND MELVIN DROPS BY

 

Just now in the door from seeing Melvin off in his white Nissan pickup with the ladder-carrying rack. He dropped by and we flapped our jaws for an hour or so. He knew Caterpillar, making it possible for me to talk about Caterpillar enough to get the only thing in my mind out of the way before we talked about Dustin Hoffman movies and tracing human ancestry by way of DNA back to South Africa. Melvin is the kind of friend you call when you need help, any kind of help, any time, day or night. His niece Tina has been one of my closest friends for many a year, aka Batwoman. His wife's family is good Whitehead people, the kind that make me glad I'm in Whitehead community. Ellen works at a daycare in town and their two girls are in high school. The night of the day I realized Caterpillar was not coming back, one of the bluest days of my life, I went and watched a football game on tv with Melvin. It mattered. I needed distraction and the company of friendly people. These are people who live by the heart. Dogs and cats, and one of the girls keeps a guinea pig. Melvin paints houses to make his way. He is somebody you have to know before you can see his value.

 

 

Before I knew Melvin, I hardly noticed him. Since I know him fairly well now, I see an extraordinarily interesting human being with his own collection of experiences and assessments. Every move Melvin makes, every word he speaks, comes from who he is. In Melvin is total absence of pretense. He's straight up. And this is just a part of what I appreciate about Melvin. He's a jolly kind of character, light-hearted and spirited. In four years of high school, in the southwestern extremity of NC, he was the school mascot at football and basketball games, the Bulldog. He dressed up like a bulldog as part of the cheerleading squad. His name all the way through was Bulldog. Everybody called him Bulldog, even the teachers. He's shaped like a bulldog too. The family lived next to a dirt track that Melvin's dad maintained, Melvin worked with him. After a race they smoothed out the ruts and put the track in shape for next race. He wears redneck pride tshirts and heavy metal band tshirts. In Melvin, you will not find somebody to apologize for being a redneck or having an affection for the confederate flag. He doesn't buy the racism of the ill-informed yankee accusations, they have nothing to do with him.

For Melvin, like everybody else I know who identifies with the flag, it is about Southern identity. It is the flag of redneck pride. White middle-class can look down on it all they want, and call it whatever they want. They don't figure, at all, to the white working class. They're so aloof that from the working class perspective they're arrogant. Even if they weren't so stuck up they exclude themselves from the working class, nobody wants to be around them. They can't talk to you without telling you what to do and talking down to you. It's not that they're actually smarter. They just think they are. After knowing Melvin as many years as I have, I see somebody I'm glad to have in my life. He affirms a part of myself that is important to me. Melvin doesn't advertise himself in any way. Melvin's heart is where his value lies. He makes me grateful I am able to appreciate somebody's heart, that it is the heart that is important to me. Some people wonder what Ellen saw in him to marry him. I don't wonder. Knowing Melvin better helps me see Ellen in a new way. She married his heart. Her sisters married men for their hearts.

I credit Melvin with teaching me a preference for taking back roads instead of the highways. The back roads have almost no other cars. You only see the cars of the people that live along whatever the road. He knows the back roads around the county as his main roads. When everybody else takes the highways, you've got the back roads to yourself. The scenery is better and the pace is slower. After seeing Melvin to his truck and watching it drive on, I returned to the house, noting while walking through the jewelweed patch in what's left of their flowers, I had a smile on my face and felt light in the spirit. I walked the rock walkway thinking, this is Caterpillar's world, and felt good about remembering her, instead of sad. I walked into the house, the blues behind me, a little more accepting the irreversible, happy to be in Caterpillar's world, seeing now that my home is Caterpillar's world. This morning I had to run to town for a prescription, did not want to go anywhere else, no grocery store, nothing, turn around and come home. A woman working there had three kittens in a cage out front for give away. I looked at the babies, my heart wanting them all. One was colored like Caterpillar with shorter hair, and the same color eyes. I wanted to take it home to be my Caterpillar replacement. I was not ready. One of those times I let mind overrule heart, looking to be practical, which, more often than not, makes good sense.

 

photos by tj worthington

 

 

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CATERPILLAR NURTURER

 

I chose to leave the house today to go to neighbor's house and do laundry. It was quiet, trees and sky in the windows, a good place to be still and read. Have begun Cormac McCarthy's novel, Suttree, which takes place in Knoxville, Tennessee, enchanted by every sentence. My first McCarthy read. Have seen three or four movies from his stories. He tells such a twisted story I hesitate to go there. Jumped in and enjoy his writing so much, it's the read I've been looking for and didn't know it. Reading mostly information books lately. It's time for a good fiction read by a writer whose prose, itself, pulls me through the story. A relaxing time, stepping outside self for a few hours in friends' house, in Cormac McCarthy's mind. Return home and want to lie down on the bed to cry and tell Caterpillar I miss her, but another part of mind questioned the sense of letting ego indulge itself overmuch in  sorrow. No need to wallow in it. I'd already done that. She's in the front of my mind every minute, remembering her personality, moments from when she was a kitten, remembering the first time I saw her, newborn and held her in my hand for a moment with mama cat's permission. Three kittens, Caterpillar, Tar Baby and Tapo. I fell in love with them that moment, holding them, one at a time.

 

 

 

Wondering what I was going to do with three more cats. It was Mother's Day, 1997. They were born in what is now the donkey den, in a big cardboard box with a thick nest of hay in the bottom for insulation, a hole cut in the side for mama cat, Celina, to come and go. I opened the top and held the babies every day, wanting my hands to be familiar to them as mama cat from birth. Celina was a calico that had been through a blender, irregular patches of orange, black and white. She came to me feral in her first winter. We had freezing rain that broke trees everywhere and left a coat of two inches of ice on the ground for two weeks. I heard her crying to me from under the bathroom. I realized right away it was a desperate cat. I carried a bowl of cat food and one of water for her, walking on ice all the way. Every day I took her fresh water to replace the water that froze in the night. She would not let me see her for a few weeks. I knelt at the opening and talked to her, telling her she's welcome here, she need never be hungry again. It was a month before she let me touch her and weeks before I could hold her. She'd let me hold her maybe ten seconds, then she had to be on her feet. She'd never been off her feet before.

 

 

 

One day I picked up Celina and felt little lumps in her belly. Babies. I fixed a place for her inside the woodshed where I kept wood scraps accumulated over years, someday-I'm-gonna items. I secured the place so varmints could not get in during the night. It was weeks after she was in her new house that she let me see her. I'd open the door and she'd run to a hiding place. I let her be that way. She caught on that I was there to feed her and give her water, provide shelter, not to control her in any way. She relaxed toward me gradually, even became friends with Aster the dog. We would go out to see her in the morning and she would rub on Aster's legs. She let me pet her. I talked to her, kept her informed she has a safe place here with plenty of food. No worries. I can still see the morning I opened the door and she stepped out of her nesting box trim in the waist. She was a mama. She was happy. I chose not to bother her with fear of the giant snatching her newborns, deciding to wait til next day to hold them, let them be hers without interference in her first hours with them. I opened the top of the nest box to have a look and closed it back. I already knew I would not part with these cats. They were my babies, they would have good lives, I would see to it. I could not turn over any of my babies to anyone, fear of the unknown regarding their fates.

 

 

The morning the kittens' eyes opened, two weeks old, Celina ran under a passing car. That's it, cat shit. The differential housing popped her head. It was fast. Leaving me with mama cat to bury and kittens to raise as their mother. For this, I took them as gifts from goddess. I put them in a paper grocery store bag and drove them to the vet's office. I needed instruction and kitten formula to feed them. Vet looked them over, gave them drops for ear mites. He told me they would not live. I already knew they would, though didn't say anything, not wanting to jinx my intention. He did not know that I knew they need mother love as much as the physical nourishment. I turned on mother love in myself while burying Celina. I promised her the babies would have good lives here with me, they would be loved all their lives. Tapo and Tar Baby both left the body at twelve years old. I brought the kittens in the house, set them up a corner. I held them, fed them, watched them, talked to them, named them. They were quick to learn their names and equally quick learning each other's names. Caterpillar was the nurturer, the kitten that keeps the other kittens clean when mama cat has been taken away. This was her title all through her life, the nurturer. She liked it when I called her Caterpillar nurturer. She also liked Caterpillar lioness. A kitten, she looked like a Japanese watercolor of a fluffy kitten. I fell in love with my babies, they fell in love with me, and they lived. Now, Caterpillar turned into a butterfly and flew away on the wind.

 

 

photos by tj worthington

 

 

 

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PAIN IN MY HEART

caterpillar among the wildwood flowers

 

Up this morning, took sunflower seeds to toss on the gravel where I feed the crows, the doves, the squirrels, whoever finds it, and a handful of carrots for the donkeys. They were up the meadow out of sight. I brayed to Jack. He brayed and came running. His front hooves slid about four feet in the thin mud at the gate, wet from yesterday's rain. It's fun for him to slide in the mud. His eyes sparkled. Jack has a playful spirit that finds play easily. I was especially happy to see them this morning, talked to them while they munched, and rubbed the underside of their necks. They like to be rubbed at the point on their backs where the lines of dark chocolate cross. When I want to touch them, this is the place I start. It calms them down immediately. I make it a point to rub Jack's neck after rubbing Jenny. They pay attention. Jenny goes first for carrots, for grain, for everything. Jenny shows her jealousy up front. Jack holds his jealousy such that I don't see it, but he gets back at Jenny. Feeling jealousy puts him in a bad mood. Jack automatically defers to Jenny, his babydoll, and Jenny's jealousy requires being first. I've learned their individual natures by now. As long as Jenny goes first, we have peace  in the meadow. No way could I ever change a donkey's nature it was born with. Jack adjusts his behavior to Jenny's jealousy about being first, and I do too, so we flow together smoothly. As we humor her jealousy, she needs to express it less and less, which eases her mind.

 

queen anne's lace

 

The morning I realized Caterpillar was gone, Jenny and Jack felt my sorrow. They were especially still. I saw it in their eyes. They could feel what I was feeling. I remembered the time Jenny lost her first baby, me crying with her, my arms around her neck hugging her while we both cried. I held Jack around the neck and cried with him awhile. Both were in deep mourning. I felt like I bonded with them on a deeper level that day sharing their sorrow. This time, they shared my sorrow. They knew Caterpillar lived with me in the human barn. A couple times I held her to let them smell her, one at a time, feel her fur with their lips. She pushed her face down into the crook of my arm. Their heads were bigger than her whole body. They were ok from a distance, but up close, they were frightening. I wanted them to be familiar with her scent, to understand Caterpillar belongs here so they would not hurt her if she were to walk into the meadow. I know she has. I found her once curled up in a bed of grass with wildflowers all around, fairly deep into the donkey meadow when they were in the meadow across the creek.

caterpillar walks among the wildwood flowers

 

Back to the house, I brewed some Sumatran coffee, called Carole and we talked an hour or more. All morning, Caterpillar dwelled in the front of my mind. I read some in a Cormac McCarthy novel and put on a documentary from yesterday's mail, Geronimo and the Apache Resistance. It took my mind off Caterpillar right away. I felt the people, felt their anguish, their determination. I felt like I was there with them. I wrung and twisted, gnawed a thumbnail, tied up in knots on the inside, feeling what those people went through. I'd read enough about them that all the generals engaged in their genocide were familiar names and faces. I felt a deep love for the Apache people. Throughout my childhood, I read about Indians, saw movies, tv shows, identified with the Indians. I knew early that white man spoke with forked tongue. There was no white man in my world that didn't lie to me, including the preacher. All of it was fake Indians, but I knew it. I thought it ridiculous the directors and producers used white guys with dark tan makeup and wigs. However, I lived in the white world and knew white attitudes toward the Indians I did not share, would never expect white film makers to make a film using real Indians. A few were made eventually, but nobody cared.

black eyed Susans and queen anne's lace

I was moderately devastated by the end of the documentary,  though knew their fate already from reading. I came out of it thinking about how devastating love can be sometimes, Geronimo radicalized by losing his wife, kids and mother to white soldiers. I was shaken to the core with the story of the Apache resistance. I have chosen for self the path of love. My unconditional love for Caterpillar made losing her a wound to the heart. My purpose has been to allow heart to open, to go about everyday life with an open heart. I was still reeling from losing my baby when I took in this documentary of the genocide of people I appreciate so powerfully it felt like I surely had some past lives among the Apache. I recall in childhood, a long time before I heard about reincarnation, a day when I became concerned about my white skin. I realized my people would not recognize me in this lifetime. I was born among the enemy. What could I do? Nothing but live out my life as one of the people that killed my people, isolated from my true people an entire lifetime for being born white. It is said, be careful what you hate; we become what we hate. I must have hated whiteman. I'd guess the white population has a large number of Indians trapped in white bodies for hate.

black-eyed susans and queen anne's lace

It is so very difficult to attempt to live in this world with an open heart. To do so, I allow vulnerabilities. I have come to believe shutting down vulnerabilities hardens and closes down a heart. I lived so much of the early life with a closed heart, it took awhile to allow it slowly to open, slowly from fear. I know how it hurts to lose a loved one, cat, dog, human. Caterpillar and I grew closer and closer in the recent months and years. I thought about it sometimes, when it is her time to go, I'm really going to feel some pain. That's ok. Eighteen years of unconditional love both ways is worth a few days of intense sorrow, weeks and months of grief. I've come to see grief is the last gift I can give my friend. I go ahead and feel it, unafraid, knowing from experience I come out of a period of grief with an inner clarity I did not have before. My mind was occupied today with how painful love can be sometimes. It's not all about Cupid shooting candy arrows. I've learned that real love is about engagement, not talking like an undertaker. I've even wondered if I over-loved Caterpillar, literally loved her to death. No. There is never too much love.

caterpillar

photos by tj worthington

 

 

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CATERPILLAR REAL GONE CAT

last photo of caterpillar

 

Yesterday at about this time, late afternoon, I realized my baby Caterpillar is gone and not coming back. She'd been gone two days and nights plus a third day. I had gone out earlier, walking to every place I've found to be her favorite places, and every place in between. I knew she would not leave sight of the house, but a 360 degree circle around the house has thousands of hiding places a cat could snuggle into and never be found. I had no confidence in the search, but as two days and nights went by, not dropping in for water or catfood, confidence grew that I'd never see her again. Last time I saw her go out the door she was healthy and alert in her wild mind. The last two nights I took her to bed, she was up within a half hour and out the door to stay the night outside, return at noon to refuel, then back out the door. This was when wild mind overtook her. She came into the house to fill her tank and went back out. She had a determination in those two days that became her focus. I've always allowed Caterpillar her own mind. I don't check on her to find her when she's gone several hours. She's at home here, this is her world, the only place she's ever known. 

 

caterpillar

 

Around 4am of the second night that she left the bed to go outside, I saw her in a dream standing on the floor beside the bed where she stands to wake me when I'm sleeping. She said mao to me one time. I did not wake because I knew it was a dream. It fell into the pattern of my dreams the last few years of a place I know well with something missing or something there that is not there, only one thing. Like in a dream I walked into the house and catfood bowls were missing, everything else the same. In the dream  of her speaking to me, I saw her and heard her, taking it for a dream because it fell into the pattern of my dreams lately.  And she did not say mao a second and third time, which she always did. The evening of the first day she was gone all day and came back before dark, I recall a moment of holding her up, eye to eye. We looked into each other's eyes for a long time. I saw something in her eyes that told me she would not be with me much longer, and she knew it. I wrote it off as my sentimental imagination and fixed on the beauty in her eyes, that they did not look like old eyes, yet had a weariness behind them. I'm glad, now, for the moment. When I think of her, which is all the time, I see her eyes full of her love for me. She saw my love for her in my eyes.

 

caterpillar

 

Several times a day the last two days, I expect to see her walking in the door, then remember she will never walk through the door again. My feeling now is when she spoke to me in the dream, it was her last moment. I suspect a coyote found her, maybe a big owl, but the owl would have had to be eagle size to pick her up. If neighbor's dog had killed her, I would have found the remains. Strangely, I feel satisfied if a coyote caught her.  Like burning the body, there was no grave left for her soul to cling to once it's left the body. It feels like the natural order for the four-leggeds. I understand that once an animal goes into shock, like when a coyote grabs one, immediately it goes unconscious like the soul left the body in that moment. I suspect this is the moment Caterpillar called to me. There is no pain and it's fast. Therein lies my comfort. She saved me the sorrow of taking her to the vet and holding her while she's given a shot and goes out instantly. I did not want to go through that, but would have been happy to, to keep her to the very last possibility of her natural life.

 

caterpillar

 

She seemed like she was on a mission the last two days. She walked into the house with purpose, refueling, and walked back out. When she stopped to appeal to me while I was writing, her plaintive mao tore me up. It sounded desperate, needing my attention, a depth of desperation that gave me concern, needing so much to be held. I'd hold her awhile, she'd snuggle in and purr while I sang her song to her and told her I love her. Her need was such that it made me suspicious something was up. Looking back, I can see several signals that pointed to Caterpillar knowing it was her time. She had taken to lying out in the open near the road. I wondered why she did not hide like usual to take a nap outdoors. Today, my feeling is that she was offering herself to be found by a predator. She knows the predators around here. She used to be one of them. I had feelings I called sentiment that she was ready to go on and had chosen her way. Her attitude, what I called her wild mind, appeared to have taken over her mind. She never came down out of it but for the moments I held her. I'd put her down and out the door she went. I miss my baby so much today, I'm in a constant state of sorrow. At the same time I feel so much love for Caterpillar in my heart it wells up and trickles tears down my face. I weep and sob a little bit and pull myself together. My love for Caterpillar keeps my heart billowing in love and sorrow as one. All that's left is gratitude for eighteen years with a beautiful soul I fell in love with the day she was born.

 

these are my last 5 photos of caterpillar, 8/31/15

 

 

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