CATERPILLAR AND THE SIBS

 

caterpillar

All I've wanted to do today was sleep. And that's what I did. Get up, fuss about, talk on the phone, go back to bed, sleep several hours, wake up, back to sleep. Finally, up around 7 in the evening and put on a Japanese samurai film, When The Last Sword Is Drawn (2003), one of the better samurai films I've seen, including 7 Samurai. It's up there in that league. It's like a really good film that happens to be a samurai story. Told in an old-fashioned kind of way by the son of a man significant in the story, who is also married to the daughter of the story's hero, though I hesitate to use the word in his context. He was just a man until he became the hero. Beautiful story and photography. It was told beautifully all way around. It had many levels and dimensions. The story of a man of honor in the Japanese way of his time. It felt culturally Japanese as seen from the inside instead of from outside. The characters and story were so Japanese they could have been wearing business suits and Jimmy Carter masks, using guns instead of swords and the story would still be Japanese and no other. It was filmed and visually conceived by the Japanese eye. It made me google the director, Yojiro Takita, and look for other films by him. Found I have 2 in my netflix Q. I wondered if I was in the mood for a samurai slasher film today. Wasn't sure. Turned out I was. Caterpillar used me for a pillow half the time, then wanted out to see the night critters. She's becoming peculiar. No matter what cat food I put down for her when she tells me she wants some catfood, she sniffs it and walks away. Leaves it all day. In the night she eats it after she's given up on waiting for me to give her something different all day. I've asked her to give me a clue to what she wants when she comes to me and says Mao. It means, I want. It could be food, wants out, wants litterbox changed, wants fresh water, or wants me to hold her. I asked her to lead the way to what she wants. Mostly she wants me to hold her. So I do. She doesn't ask a lot. She likes to be held, talked to, petted on top of her head. She likes me to cup the palm of my hand over her face for her to snuggle into for a snug-fitting face glove. She will hold her face in my hand like she's meditating, and when she's done, that's it. Takes her a moment to come back to the world.  

 

caterpillar

 

Caterpillar was born here Mother's Day, 1997. She has developed a habit from an affectation of wanting my attention every time she sees me give attention to the computer. It must get lonesome for her with my body present and my mind preoccupied. I don't think she understands a preoccupied mind. She's fully present. It must be odd for her to live with a human whose mind is off someplace else all the time. What she's doing when she says, Mao (I want), is asking me to let her in, like open the door. Hello in there. Is anybody home? A little touch on the head would go a long ways toward making me a happy cat. There are times, like now, after I've given her attention and given attention, she still wants more, I explain I'm in my head right now. Mao. So I just do the way cats do one another. I just stop paying attention and she walks away in a little bit. Walks to the food bowl, stops, turns, stares at me and continues to stare. Animals know that staring draws the attention of the one being stared at. Caterpillar is a good one at staring. I've been ignoring her stare. She said, Mao. I had to say, again, "Not now, Caterpillar." That's the same as saying, Now is a good time, Caterpillar. She's a Maine Coon, the first cat to cross the sea from the Old World to the New World. They were good cats to have on sailing ships to keep the rodent population minimal. Their fur is so thick it is water repellent. Cats sometimes went ashore wherever ships landed all up and down the East Coast. Caterpillar was born in the shed that is now the donkey shelter that was originally a chicken house. In between, it was a shed for keeping scrap wood out of the weather. A feral cat took up under the house in the winter with two inches of ice on the ground for two weeks. I took her some water and catfood daily. She would not let me see her for over a month. Eventually, she let me touch her and after quite awhile let me hold her. Celina was the name that came to me for her. I began to feel kittens inside her. Didn't want them under the house. Found a cardboard box, put hay in it, cut a hole in the side and put it in the shed. Let the opening flaps be the top of the box I could open to see inside without disturbing the newborns.

 

caterpillar

 

Celina went into a new freak-out in the shed. I left her alone for several days. She would hide in her hiding place. Kept food in the bowl. She settled down and became friendly, became friends with Aster the dog, rubbed Aster's legs, which drove dog out of her mind. Cat wouldn't run. Couldn't play chase. Peck, the cat living here at the time, hated Celina being here and beat her up every day she caught her outside the shed. I didn't know what to do. I don't understand cat mind. I let them do whatever cats do. Peck was being territorial, loyal and jealous. She hated me touching her with Celina's scent on my hands. Celina was using the box for her bed. One morning I went out to feed her, she stepped out of the box and was thin again. I thought I'd leave her the privacy of her babies and not open the top and fondle them. I wanted her to be able to do her mama cat business with the kittens feeling secure in her closed-in space. Second day I opened the top and looked at them, picked them up to see my new friends in their beginning. All three of them have lived here all their lives, Caterpillar the survivor. Two black ones and a Maine Coon. Eyes closed. I'd look at them and wonder why life forms are taken so lightly. I've known women who put little things like this in a bag with a rock and take them to the river. Babies have a way of making me feel life is precious. They make me unable to kill anything. You can't avoid killing something driving in these mountains, rabbits, squirrels, dogs, possums, cats. Sometimes they run under a wheel from the side and there's no avoiding them. I say a prayer for the soul of every animal dead in the road I pass. I feel the same about them as if they're children. It makes me sad to be in a society that doesn't respect the individual autonomy of the animal world. I visited the Mt Airy stockyard one day and had a hard time with what I saw. I wanted to take care of Celina's kittens, give them as good a life as I was able. There is so much killing going on, my part of living the way I want the world around me to be is to give kittens delivered to my doorstep on Mother's Day a good home.

tapo

Their eyes were closed the first two weeks. The morning their eyes opened, I went out to the shed. No Celina. She was not in the box with the kittens, not in the shed. I didn't know she could find a way out. I start to walk back to the house. I see Celina sitting by the edge of the road where I park. Next door neighbor's car came down the road. Aster took off running to meet the car if it were to stop. Celina saw Aster running toward her full tilt. Aster had never chased Celina. Cat darted across the road between the front and back tire, was knocked senseless by the differential housing under the car. Very sad moment burying her. It was the end result of a such a chain reaction, I could find no blame. It just happened. It was set up like the Divine hand was in it. I accepted my new role as mother to little ones given to me. Set up a place to keep them in the corner of the room, put them in a paper bag and took them to the vet to ask how to take care of them and buy some kitten formula. Vet told me they would die. I knew better, but didn't want to sound like I knew his business better than he did, so I didn't say what I knew: they would make it. These babies were going to live. Caterpillar was named first. She hobbled across the floor like a caterpillar, fur sticking out all over her, black and gray stripes. Next, I named Tadpole, who was wiggly and black. I saw from the beginning she did not like her name. One day after a few months, she got with me and told me she didn't like her name. I didn't want to change it too much, so I changed it to Tapo, close but a very different sound. She was good with Tapo. Then Tar Baby. Tar Baby never pushed himself ahead of the others. He stayed back, didn't need much attention. I already had an affection for all of them, but Tar Baby felt special to me. I called him Tar Baby because a tar baby sticks to you. Tar Baby was already stuck to me. Sade sang a beautiful song called Tar Baby. He's been gone five years now, and Tapo a few months later. Caterpillar is the one that outlived the others. She grieved their loss too. Cats don't show it quite as much as we do, but I saw and felt it in her. I feel like I have some understanding, now, of why women appear to value life more than men do. This was my only mother experience. I learned from it mothering is a powerful energy.
 

tarbaby and portrait of

 

 

*

 

CATERPILLAR BIRDWATCHER

caterpillar in the window

snowbird and squirrel

Caterpillar reclines on her window seat watching the snowbirds hop about in the half inch of snow that fell an hour or so ago, snowbirds and chickadees looking for seeds on the ground. They are candybars with wings to her. She knows how they taste. She knows how to catch them. Before she was old, lethargic and heavy, she could catch one whenever she went hunting. I watched her bat one in the air that she'd been stalking. It flew over her head about 4 feet above her. She jumped straight up, reached up like she was playing handball and swatted it. She hit a wing and set it to wobbling. The bird caught its equilibrium in a frantic hurry and flew off. I realized she'd done that before, and probably has been more successful than the one time I saw. Like a Maine Coon, she has involuntary twitches of her lips and cheeks, whiskers wiggling, and an involuntary squeak comes out of her mouth. Whenever I hear that squeak, I know Caterpillar is watching a bird. I've seen her at the screen door looking at the squirrel on the other side of the screen, just a few feet away. They looked at each other a long time.



Now that she stays indoors, I am free to feed the birds. When she goes outside, she'll lie still and look like a gray rock, part of her hunting method, sit and wait, looking like a rock. She'll lie there and watch them for a long time, never moving except to squeak and wiggle her whiskers. She has green glow-in-the-dark eyes. She's sitting up now watching them, the occasional short meow, a big yawn. Maine Coons are awfully automatic. They don't seem to have much of a mind for thought. Her brother TarBaby, sleek black cat, could think. He had a brilliant mind for a cat. He had automatic behavior too, but he was able to think about things. Caterpillar is too deep inside her intuitional nature; thought is something her breed evidently needn't do so well. They were the first breed of cats in the New World. They were kept on ships to keep down mice and rats from the grain storage. Maine Coons were good for ships because their fur is so thick their skin doesn't get wet. They're friendly cats too. They can run like a bullet.



One characteristic I've seen in all the Maine Coons I've met, there comes a time in being petted when they've had enough. The moment you feel their discomfort, it's time to stop. One more second and they bite. Caterpillar can't allow herself to bite me, because I've never hurt her. She'll touch her teeth to my hand to let me know if she didn't love me so much she'd be drawing blood. I raised her in the house with her two siblings, both black, TarBaby (m) and Tapo (f). Caterpillar never liked them. She was the biggest and toughest. She ruled. She bullied Tapo all her life. I didn't know what to do about that but to call Caterpillar off when she'd start intimidating her. After TarBaby died, I felt like Tapo died to get away from Caterpillar. She couldn't live with Caterpillar without TarBaby to protect her. She loved TarBaby an awful lot. I feel sorrow for her now that she had to live her entire life with Caterpillar. I didn't realize it was such a burden for her until the end, or that she loved TarBaby so much. Looking back into their lives I can see it. I miss them so much I could cry every day if I let myself.


Now it's just me and Caterpillar. I can't know Caterpillar as well as I knew TarBaby or Tapo, who had different minds from Caterpillar's. Caterpillar stayed off to herself much of the time. She'd come around to me seeking affection every 3 or 4 days, leaving me to TarBaby and Tapo the rest of the time. Since they're gone, we're together all the time I'm at home. She sleeps in the same room I sleep in now. We had to learn to communicate. I had not noticed that I communicated very little with Caterpillar to not at all. I see now her mind was far away because the other 2 cats were between her and me. I've taught her how TarBaby communicated with me, showing me what he wanted. When he wanted out, he'd get my attention, then walk to the door. TarBaby's method of asking to be let in would be one meow. Caterpillar asks to be let in by plucking the screen with a claw. Tapo's way was to stand up at the window and scratch on the glass until I noticed her eyes that were calling me.



Caterpillar was the nurturer after the mother died when they were 2 weeks old, the day their eyes opened. Caterpillar kept them clean. She started liking it so much she kept their little rear ends raw and she started getting woozy from so little nutrition. Then it was time for the kittens to take care of themselves and Caterpillar recovered from her wooziness. The nurturer in her was as automatic as wiggling her whiskers when she sees birds. Now that we're together, we are communicating very well. I talk to her, she understands my meaning. When she wants to look outside, but not go outside, I'll hold the door open for her to look until she's satisfied. When I want to close the door, I'll touch the tip of her fur with the door, not even a nudge, to tell her it's time to decide. If she wants to go out, she'll go, and if she' wants to stay in, she'll turn around and walk back in. We have a good mutual respect going. I only treat her with respect and she only treats me with respect. It's always been that way with us. It's not a matter of will. It's the love between us that makes respectful regard automatic for both of us.

* 

TAPO IN THE SUN

above

tapo outdoors

Tapo is home from the hospital for the weekend. I'll be taking her back in the morning. She'd been in a cage surrounded by dogs in cages several days and nights, needed more time in there, so I wanted to bring her home for the weekend. I can't care for her to the extent they can in the hospital, force feeding her. I can do it, but it's such a struggle when she doesn't want it. I have never forced her other than putting her in the carrier to take to the vet. I've had to hold her down to put the one-spot flea poison on her. That's it. It doesn't feel right forcing her mouth open and using the syringe to squirt this formula down her throat. I don't know how else to do it.

She has essentially stopped eating and drinking water. She acts like it hurts her to drink water, and often will gag it up later. They've had her on an IV and I don't know if they force fed her, imagining they did. She's in pretty good health with her dehydration cured and some nourishment in her. I've not kept up with the schedule for feeding her I was sent home with. Didn't even come close. She spent all day both days lying in the sun from morning til sunset. I felt like lying in the sun for her is so special a cat thing to do I could not disturb her composure.

She was at home, she may be dying, I want her to be able to lie in the sun in her own space, the place she's known all her life.

I don't want to lose Tapo. I have a decision to make, let her die in comfort at home if that's what she wants, though I don't know that's what she wants. Maybe she's so ill she's relaxed into it. I don't know. I don't believe she wants to die. I just don't believe it. It's clear she doesn't want to eat or drink water, but I don't believe it's suicidal. Her symptoms tell of a problem with the liver in cats her age that have been overweight. There is a cure. It's rather extreme, so they haven't done it yet. When I take her back Monday it will be with the go-ahead to put a tube into her stomach through the nose (makes my toes curl to think about it) and get her stomach accustomed to having food in it again. It's a kind of priming the pump method to get her interested in eating again. If this doesn't work, then I'll bring her home and let her die here instead of in a cage surrounded by dogs.

The decision has been made. If this treatment at the vet works, then it's worth whatever it costs. If it doesn't work, I'll have only one left, Caterpillar. I've often wondered which one would be last. Looks like Caterpillar. Maybe Tapo is tired of a life of laying about. Outside, she's not as free as she was back when the dog was living and kept other dogs away. Now the dogs are free to come around all they want, coyotes too. So cats stay indoors. TarBaby was as much an outdoor cat as indoor. It wasn't safe any more. I couldn't make him stay in the house when he wanted out.

It's a sorrowful time with Tapo fading away like Jr did. TarBaby gone. This is how it is after a certain amount of time in a body. People we know and are close to start dropping off. Pets drop off. This one is gone, that one is gone. So many of my friends, relatives and pets are on the other side, they make over yonder more attractive every year. I don't have any idea what's on the other side. It's something I learned long ago is a waste of mental energy to wonder about beyond a certain point. We have several different interpretations of what's over there. Different psychics say different things. People who went over and came back didn't stay long enough to tell us much more than the entry, which must be pretty incredible going by the different accounts I've read.

I'm not afraid of Tapo dying for her sake, only for my own. Another period of time with a heavy heart missing Tapo. I raised all three of them from the day their eyes opened. I became their mother keeping them alive with mother love. I nursed them with kitten formula for a few weeks. Tapo was the ravenous one. Tapo and Caterpillar. Tapo was born hungry. She was a charming kitten. They all were, but Tapo had a charm all her own. She's been the smallest of the 3 all her life, meaning Caterpillar and TarBaby could pounce on her, threaten her, make her hiss, but she couldn't do it to them. In that way, she's had a miserable life. But that's catness too, something outside the realm of my understanding. I've stayed out of their relationships with each other, except when Caterpillar or TarBaby was being especially cruel to her. When I drew the line, they seldom crossed it again, that is, in front of me.

I don't know what they did when I wasn't around, so I tended to let them be when I was around and stay out of their cat scuffles. I didn't want to suppress them fighting each other when I was around, believing they would attack Tapo with purpose while I'm gone. I'm thinking Tapo misses TarBaby quite a lot too. She always liked him. He was never mean to her like Caterpillar was. He'd give her a rough time occasionally, like walk up to her looking into her eyes until she turns and goes away to find a hiding place with TarBaby right behind her tail. The problem with being chased by another cat was TarBaby could get into any little space she could get into. She'd go as far as she could and start growling. TarBaby would pretend to swat her, she'd hiss at him. Made him laugh. That was just cats being cats. She and TarBaby have been close all the way along. She may be wanting to die to get away from Caterpillar. She's never liked Caterpillar. I believe she misses TarBaby as much as I do.

*

INTERIOR FOUNTAIN

tarbaby memorial

This morning I took down the large b&w photo of Tommy Jarrell playing fiddle from above the home entertainment unit and replaced it with a painting I made of TarBaby when he was about a year old sitting on a fence post. Only about 5" of the top of the post visible, the post a pedestal for the cat, like a block of wood or stone a sculpture stands on. Somehow it happened that it's not just a painting of a black cat, it's TarBaby in particular, almost in person. Somehow the eyes just happened as TarBaby's eyes. I look at it now and it's almost like his spirit is in the painting. Like the feeling I had after painting Tom Pruitt, that his spirit was in it. It's still in it. I'll never sell either and both are accounted for upon my demise. Tom will stay in his family and TarBaby is for Meredith. I know if Meredith had known TarBaby she would love him as I have.

It still doesn't feel right. No matter how I try to accept it, it's not right. Nothing is right about it. I have to disclaim that I am in full acceptance of it as the right time, and will be happy to find that acceptance, but haven't yet. I can't help but conjecture that when I took him to the vet at 7 on a Sunday morning, when he was within a few hours of dying, that might have been his time. He came back to give me some more time. Our friendship grew in those 4 months as closely as my friendship with Jr grew in his last 4 months to such, that like Jr said, we are like brothers. Maybe TarBaby chose a quick way out when he'd finished what he stayed with me to do, to weave our souls inseparable. I open my arms and say to him, Please come live inside me, live in my heart, if that's what you want. I want it too. This evening after I walked in the house from seeing friends I sat down and spoke to TarBaby. I found myself singing to him his song I started singing to him when he was a kitten a few weeks old. Each one has their own song. I sang TarBaby's song to him a long time, calling his spirit, tears dripping off my chin, questioning my good sense, throwing that out the door like a banana peel. I was singing to my friend in my heart, where he's been all along anyway. It did my heart good. And I'll do it again and again.

Acceptance is on the slow boat. I'm like John Lee Hooker sitting by the waterfront waiting for his baby. There's fog in the harbor, waiting for the ship that's carrying his baby to him. It's a quiet, talking kind of song with his guitar making notes around his voice, waiting in the fog. The song is The Waterfront. It's done as only John Lee Hooker can do it. It's his song and nobody else's, like Crawlin King Snake and Boogie Chillun. I'm sitting waiting in the fog for the ship that's bringing my baby, my acceptance, sitting on my bench by the waterfront. In the fog.

I stopped by to see Melia and Joe Edwards and Judy Carmichael at their Gallery in Pine Swamp. Spent a good bit of time talking with them, my new friends by Jr, Melia and Judy Jr's second cousins, their daddy, his first cousin, Claude Edwards. They were super supportive in my sorrow upon losing Jr. It was their sorrow too. They've loved Jr since they were babies. Their daddy and Jr were close friends as well as cousins. Jr has always been important in their lives. Though the natures of our loss were different, all felt the void in the heart. When we're together, we bring Jr back for each other. We talk about him in our memories. And we like each other too. Throw Melia and Judy's mother in too, and they are 4 supreme human beings I am grateful to God for bringing into my life.

One of my friends suggested I make a memorial to TarBaby since I can't bury him. I liked the idea of it. But it's not me to do memorial kind of things like spontaneous ceremonies, lighting a candle and saying a prayer, for example only. It's not me. I don't believe a "ceremony" unless it comes from my own heart spontaneously. So I thought I'd wait for that, if it's to be. When the image of TarBaby took its new place, it came to life. Putting down the Jarrel photograph, I saw a foot high figurine of a black cat sitting like TarBaby in the painting. Gloss black stylized, leaning toward Deco, kind of 50s, with the three spots of eyes and nose in gold. It's a beautiful cat I found at Karen Bledsoe's shop by the river. It was so TarBaby I had to bring it home. I kept it in a box to protect it most of the time. I didn't want to stand it up anywhere, because I didn't want to chance breaking it. There was a feeling about it that after I lose TarBaby it could be my beautiful reminder to see every day. Now it is. I've found my memorial. A sculptural and a painted representation of my friend I mothered into life and never weaned. It makes me think of a mother losing her teenage daughter in a phone call telling her the girl died in a car wreck. The bottom drops out. Thats it, cat shit. Accept this.

At lunch with Jim Winfield at the Pines, we talked with a dairy farmer friend of his, who sang us some serious blues of what's become of dairy farming as a way to make a living. He's at a place where he's ready to let it all go. I talked with a friend yesterday who was telling me about his ability to walk away from a good paying job and start a little something of his own he knows will work for him from the start. When they 1984 him into a corner he might come out swinging a two-handed samurai sword. Not really. It was just an image that came to me from seeing so many Asian films with sword fighters going at it and red fluid that never looks like blood squirting even on the camera lens. Just meant it as a metaphor. He's not really going postal with a blade. Just talking about having his bases covered and the freedom he has from worry. We both like Asian sword fight movies.

Talking with Winfield at the table, I told him a little bit about the fountain of love flowing from my heart and filling my whole being with love almost beyond containment, like a cup runneth over kind of love energy going on. It's like there is a big fountain, water rushing from it in all directions. The least little thing, an old man entering the restaurant stayed outside the door as an old woman with a cane was being assisted out the door by her daughter. He helped her down the steps, stayed with her until she was steady on her feet, came in and joined his wife waiting for him. That little moment happening out the window by where we were sitting brought a welling up of tears of compassion. I said to Jim, I'm getting tender hearted in my old age. He said, I think we all do. Maybe so. I'm happy with it. It's like the fountain of compassion is a gift from God to help me in the time I sit in the fog waiting for acceptance.

A GHOST VOICE

cat on a log

I walk slumped forward with head down on the way to the car. I feel the way I walk and it's like you see in newsreels of people down and out as far as down and out gets. Cannot hold the head up, living in the mind so deeply that visuals are shut out. Just look at the ground where you're walking. Sometimes I feel like I'm walking like old Chinese people I see in movies, walking in what looks like a kind of short-paced shuffle compared to our American long-gait way of walking. That's how I feel I walk now. Head down, shuffling along, uninterested in anything outside my head, my head dwelling in what I want that I can't have, like my closest friend back.

The netflix film for the day was Shine A Light, the Scorcese film of a Rolling Stones concert at the Beacon Theater in NY, 2008. With Tapo on my lap, it carried me out of my mind. I've loved the Stones since the first song I heard by them, Time Is On My Side. It had the same affect on me as the first time I heard James Brown's, Try Me, and Slim Harpo's King Bee. I lost touch with the Stones' new music over the last 30 years or so, since about the time of Some Girls. Most of the songs they played were familiar. My musical interests changed. When punk started in 75, it took my attention away from what they now call classic rock, which they didn't even play it on the radio in its day. But every time I hear something by the Stones, I listen with satisfaction.

It was the distraction I needed. I was constantly fascinated by what an abstract guitarist Keith Richard has become. He seemed to me to be doing something with his guitar like Monk did with a piano, looking for the chords and notes to play around the melody in a way that carries the melody by suggestion. I was thinking of Mick Jones of the Clash andTom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, how they took guitar playing to total abstraction. No melody, just sounds that can be made with electric guitar strings never heard before. Morello is more like a gymnast with a guitar than a picker. Richard is a picker. He and Ron Wood have played together so many years they've become one. The whole band. They work together perfectly from 50 years experience. Early on in the show, Keith Richard stepped up to the mic after a song. He said to the audience, "It's great to see everybody. It's great to see anybody." He's not much to look at, but his pickin makes up for it.

One moment in it I'll never forget. The Stones had Buddy Guy, blues singer and guitar picker, for a guest on one song. Guy and Richard played in and out of each other, Ron Wood in there jamming with them, Jagger wailing blues harp. They came into an incredible, very intimate jam of master guitarists / master musicians, nobody outdoing anybody, because they're all the best, and they took it all the way. The song over, Keith Richard took his guitar off and handed it to Buddy Guy saying, "It's yours," and Buddy walked off stage with it, meaning, I imagine, Richard gave it to him in memory of the jam. I'd guess from the looks of the guitar that it once belonged to somebody they both respect. Ron Wood looked at the guitar in Buddy's hand, recognizing it with a look of approval that said something like, Keith would do that. Charlie Watts, the drummer, looked on in visible approval too. Every one of the musicians fell into a zone during their jam only musicians know about and they sailed. It had the energy of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie together. I'll watch that jam again before it goes to the mailbox in the morning. It was a jam I believe every musician would appreciate, even ones that don't like rock or blues. It transcended genre and became universal.

You know what I know that I'm avoiding going into missing TarBaby like I did the day after Jr's funeral, went off completely away from it to give it a rest. After the BROC meeting yesterday, I was talking with Gary Joines in the parking lot before we went to the cars. I said at one point, I have so many people I love on the other side it makes me anxious to go over there. He said in his Gary Joines straight face when he has something to say that's not in fun, "Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?" I had never seen it like that. It fell into the drawer in my head of sayings I'll never forget. I saw what I already knew about Gary, that it has to be way high up there before it's over his head. He plays fiddle and bass in the band at the Jubilee.

I just now heard a faint "Mao," and ran to open the door, turned on the light and no one was there. I tell myself it was my own breathing. Today I was out in the meadow behind the house looking through the row of rhododendron along the fence, a place I didn't look yesterday. Twice out in the meadow I heard a faint Mao come from the direction of the house. I go look under the house and call his name, including El Gato, and nothing came back. I find myself looking for him all day. When I'm not searching with my eyes I'm searching in my mind. I want to allow for hope and don't dare.

Talked with a few people I know today and they told me their similar experiences, losing cats and small dogs to coyotes and neighbor dogs close to the house, and their grief. Every one of them recommended I cry as much as I feel like. It was comforting because I saw that these are just 4 people I talked with. It probably includes almost everybody else. I wasn't singled out. In this case, I don't think it's so much that misery loves company as misery loving understanding. The Regular Baptists showed me a man crying is nothing to be ashamed of or even think about. I've seen every one of the preachers cry openly at the pulpit as if they were at home--they were at home. During foot washings everyone cries. It's what we do in sorrow and joy when it's past containing.

I feel like the tears in grief are attempts to hang on to the beloved. I believe that's what I do. This morning I woke feeling good and then felt guilty for feeling good. I think that's when I got it that I'm using the sorrow of the grief to hold on to an illusory tether, pulling him back before he goes completely out of sight. It was the shock that knocked me down. It challenged everything I believed I understood about death and dying. It showed me my mind might think it gets it, but my heart does not. I've become so tender hearted in my old age I'm like a child too young to be taught that it's not ok to feel what I feel. I don't mind. I like it.

POP QUIZ

tarbaby first day home from hospital

Awake all night. Bawling overtook me and it hurt deep inside so much I got up from the bed and made myself stop it. I was squealing like a child begging, pleading with God, who knows all, to please help me find TarBaby so I can feed and water him and get him to the vet. Through the night I confessed to Tapo that I am afraid. When I started to say it, I held it a moment remembering that I thought I didn't have a great deal of fear in me. I have it. That may be why the crying hurt so much, it was coming from fear, fear TarBaby was dead or would not recover if found alive. I started to say to Tapo, I'm afraid TarBaby is not coming back. It came out, "I'm afraid," and realized I was. Very afraid. Afraid and bawling like a helpless child, no one to turn to but God, and God didn't give any sign of paying attention, as far as I could tell.

I heard myself making high-pitched squeals like a child, pleading, begging for any kind of help, just help me find, guide me to TarBaby. I knew I was calling on God, from the heart, to beg for something I want for myself, TarBaby back, the kind of prayer that doesn't carry a lot of importance, but at the same time I know God knows the fullness of my relationship with TarBaby as a cross-species friendship. "This is not a good time! I can't stand it!" Over the last 5 months since I've been home from looking after Jr, TarBaby and I grew closer that ever at a fast pace. We came to a place we automatically understood each other. I was seeing myself suffering over attachment, wanting, wanting TarBaby back. I wanted it for me. It's one thing to bemoan a cassette tape that slid off the seat of the truck into the space on the floor between the seat and the door. One day I opened the door, my Wade Mainer tape fell to the ground with The Cat Came Back on it and was gone forever. It's replaceable if I want to get another one. But TarBaby is a spirit, a soul, a being, a feline being.

I see myself going against what I believe that we go when it's our time. I didn't want this to be TarBaby's time. Still don't want it. I fell into a state of passionately going against a great deal I hold true, because I didn't want it to be so. Undo it, God. You can raise the dead. Then I get an image of a 6 year old child in Iraq whose entirely family was killed when a shell hit the house by mistake and she's the only one to survive. I was getting with myself, asking if I deserve to have my miracle prayer answered any more than she does? She's not getting hers answered, so why should I think I'm more deserving of God's special attention than this instant orphan. I said to myself, "When it comes to selflessness, you failed that test."

In first light, I was out getting my shoes wet in the dew searching, calling TarBaby's name, breaking down into tears, calling to Heaven for help, and kept on searching. I went to the different places I thought he might be and he was not at any of them. After an hour of some of the best exercise I've had in over a year or 2 I came back to the house and talked with Carole on the phone awhile. Then another walk to look at some new places I had not thought of before. At 10 Jolene turned up by herself. I yelled GIT at her, waving my arms. I picked up a stick and threw it in her direction, not to hit her, but to make her think I was trying to. I yelled at her, "I'm not your friend any more." That didn't feel good to say. I knew it was nothing but confusion for Jolene. Killing a cat is not cause for guilt in her. She looked at me confused like. When I pitched a long stick straight at her, though caught by a bush half way between us, she took off running and went back home. I felt bad doing that without being able to explain. I did her like she did Martha; one day I'm no longer her friend and turned aggressive.

I don't believe Martha was involved, because she wasn't here that day, but she and Jolene have become killers. They're not going to kill Caterpillar and Tapo. I don't like having to turn my back to Martha too, but I have to. She loves me so much, and I love her, it's going to hurt her again after Jolene's rejection when she gets mine too. I don't want them around here. Any time I see them here, I'll run them off. It won't be long before they run when they see me, which doesn't feel right either. But I don't know what else to do to keep them away. It's surely a confusion to them. Jolene looked at me puzzled the whole time I was acting so unpredictably. She kept watching me to see if it was temporary or would last. She'd back away and watch me. Back away again and watch me. At first she started running from me in play, like I was wanting to play. But it never became fun.

These dogs have been my friends for several months. I'd come to love them. Now it's all changed because I believe Jolene killed TarBaby. To him, that's nothing. To me, it's a very big deal. And in this relationship, like Jolene's with Martha, I'm dominant, not your friend any more, get away from me or I'll hit you. I don't like it, but can't find any other way to keep them away from Caterpillar and Tapo. Sitting down for a conversation won't do it. I have to stick with it. When I'm at their house, I'll be good to them and we can be friendly there. But not here. We'll settle into a new kind of friendship, only at their house. They are not welcome here. I don't feel at all good about it, but I have to protect Tapo and Caterpillar. That's more important to me than the relationship with the dogs, which, actually, is important too. The cats were here first by a dozen years. A line must be drawn to keep Caterpillar and Tapo safe. This is the only line I can see to work with self-willed dogs that have tasted blood.

The second search didn't find TarBaby either. I found myself walking in the woods repeating his name over and over, a casccade of tears running down my face. Giving up that search and accepting that he is more than likely dead in a secure hiding place, I drove to town to see Mary at the Hospice office. I had 20 minutes with Mary because our monthly BROC meeting was next. I went over this complexity of losing TarBaby suddenly to a dog I trusted, mixed with the overwhelming wave of missing Jr, that started with a simple urge to drive down to Whitehead to see him like I did for years. I explained to her how I found myself squealing like a child bawling. I'd never done that before. It sounded like a helpless child. I wasn't ashamed of it, because I'm ok with crying. It showed me I was struck deep to the core. It was a measure of how much I love TarBaby, Caterpillar and Tapo. Every one of them is worth a face full of tears. They've given me so much joy and love over so many years, a few days of sorrow mourning their loss is like nothing on a scale.

A DAY OF UNKNOWN SORROW

elgato tarbaby

I don't feel good today in a whole lot of ways, but don't feel bad either. I forced myself to get outside and do some work with a shovel and to cut up some big tree limbs on the ground and throw them on a brush pile I'll be working on until the next rain when I'll burn it. The right-of-way people have been through here cutting limbs away from powerlines, leaving the limbs on the ground. I'll be going around gathering their leavings to put on the brush pile too. It seems ridiculous to be thinking about a brush pile in a subdivision. Back when we were working farms, brush pile burning was done quite a lot, the leavings after cutting up some trees for firewood. Now it seems odd to be doing something like that around here with Christmas tree patches and exurban houses, new cars up and down the road, like going back to the 19th century for a day, something that doesn't require a computer.

I've had the blues the last few days. I've identified it missing Jr, missing his talking, his way of thinking, his way of seeing. Today I called Mary Lee, the grief counselor at Hospice to make an appointment to get with her and talk about what I'm feeling, to keep myself reminded this is as natural a process as water flowing downhill. I want to talk with somebody about Jr. In my mind's eye I see moments from the last few months, those moments I didn't like at the time, but look back at now as a blessed experience. The little sponges on sticks like tootsie-pops with water in them to keep his mouth moist when he was unable to drink from a cup. At the time, staying with him was my commitment to take care of him to the last breath.

At the time, it was what I was doing, keeping him as comfortable as possible, mind largely in the present. From 4 and a half months later, I look at those last days, weeks and months as an enormous commitment by one human being for another. I didn't then see it as now. Then, it was immediate. It was struggling against service agencies and nursing homes that were a serious threat. Without a stubborn bull like me, they'd have got him. Perhaps what has hit me the last couple days is the enormity of that, how major an act it was for a friend. When he told me with just a couple days left that we're closer than friends, more like brothers, it took hold of me. It was the magnitude of my respect that made me want to do whatever it takes to keep him out of a nursing home. When someone I respect that much says we're like brothers, it means something to me. It means more as time goes by.

At the same time as I'm feeling this surge of missing Jr, TarBaby is missing. He's been gone over 60 hours. He has gone off for 3 and 4 days at a time rambling. He also stayed away about 4 days after a serious cat fight where he hid someplace and licked himself back. I have a concern about a dog attacking him, Jolene in particular. She had blood on her face yesterday from a nick in her ear, which I took for a groundhog bite, but it could have been a cat claw. I suspect Jolene, because she attacks cats, even at home. I've had to run her off from TarBaby a couple of times.

This evening I couldn't get it out of my mind that TarBaby was hurt or maybe dead. Not knowing what to do, I called my friend Kay in Ohio, who can touch in with animals in a psychic way. I told her how long he'd been gone. She got off the phone right away and went to see if she could get in touch with him. A half hour or so later she called. She said she had a difficult time reaching him, but when she did, she knew it was TarBaby by the light she's seen from him before. She had the sense he was hurt and hiding someplace. She felt like he was licking himself. And he's trying to get back to me. I felt like she was right. She said she's convinced he's alive. So I wait til morning light.

This could be a real problem in my relationship with Jolene and Martha. If it turns out to be the case, which I feel like it is, that Jolene attacked TarBaby, I'll keep them away from the house and from me. When they come around, I'll run them off, and keep on running them off until they never come back. And I'll keep the cats in the house during the day, which is the rule from this minute on. Jolene and Martha have killed every possum on the mountain. My .45 can make a racket that will set them running down the road. I'd never shoot at them, but it's the loudest noise I can think of to scare them out of their wits. This is just fantasy. I don't know what's going on, though I'm inclined to believe what Kay found, because she's done it before with all my animals. She was accurate every time. I have such a close psychic connection with TarBaby, not the way Kay does, but closeness by feeling, I'm wondering if I've been picking up the last couple days from TarBaby, what he's feeling, hiding, in pain, healing himself, wanting to get home, unable to make it yet.

Could I have been feeling TarBaby's situation unable to connect with where the feeling is coming from, getting it mixed up with missing Jr, which I've not been quite certain of? It was an inner sorrow I felt, feel, that I couldn't find where it was coming from. Now I don't want to sleep. I want to go out with a flashlight and look for TarBaby. I'd say he's within a radius of 200 yards from the house in one of possibly 5 directions. First light in the morning, I'll be going to places I suspect as I search in my mind the places he might be hiding through probably a sleepless night. The best thing I think I can do right now is remember the drama I created around the sheriff, the helicopter and men in 2 pickups. Let it go as a drama and wait until morning, because there is nothing I can do in the night but pray.

TARBABY'S RIDE

mr whiskers

Another day of good weather for outdoor spray painting. Again, a little bit of wind, but not enough to matter. It took about 3 hours to paint 2 of the wheels. It's good to have them done all the way around. I was flagging a bit toward the end. The last one I had to force myself to keep going at it until done. It doesn't seem like much, but it's tiring. I'm so far out of shape it's just the kind of exercise I need. Mostly stretching leg and arm muscles. Before I went to the place where I do the work, where it's level and close by, I went to my spring to clean the screen because I'd opened the pipe a few days ago and let it run for awhile to wash the silt out that gathers in low places. It draws debris, tiny bits of vegetation, to the screen over the end of the pipe.

I walked by the vacant Vance Caudill house and saw crouched among flowering daffodils TarBaby's face. He was looking at me like he wasn't sure. Looks like, but cats and dogs don't go by looks like alone. I called his name. I said, TarBaby. No change of the wariness in his eyes. I said, ElGato, he said, Mao, and followed me to the spring. I didn't know that was one of his hunting grounds. When I found him, he was stalking something and didn't want to let up. But the call of the human is a higher card than the call of the wild. At the spring, I found the big pink spring lizard (salamander) wiggling around on the bottom. It's been there for some years. Last year a Christmas tree worker grabbed its tail and my friend swam/walked up into the spring. The tail is back, but still has a little bit more to go on the end, maybe half an inch. It's a faded peach color with a pattern of tiny black dots all over it. I ran it up the spring so I could take the screen off the end of the pipe. Don't want my friend to have to live the rest of its life in a 2"pipe, then one day plug up the plumbing in the house when I turn on the water. Tear into the pipes and find it, or its parts.

Got the screen cleaned without drawing the spring lizard into the pipe. Mission accomplished. TarBaby walked back to the car with me, I picked him up and carried him when I got in. He's been in a moving car only in a cat carrier to and from the vet. He does not like it. I started the car and let him walk around exploring the interior, looking at the land outside through the windows of the big spaceship the giant gets in and goes away and comes back. He was nervous, but his curiosity was dominant because the giant was with him. I went onto the road and TarBaby watched the road and familiar landscape kind of fascinated to see his familiar world through glass from inside the human space ship. He seemed a bit taken with it, like my first time in a plane did for me. I drove slow so he could see everything. At a certain speed, it becomes faster than they can comprehend what they're seeing. It was fascinating for me to see him look at his world in ways he'd never seen it before. I have an idea it stretched his mind a little bit.

I drove up the driveway to Carpenter's parking place that is good and level. TarBaby watched the road after we left it until it went out of sight, like the last bit of familiar territory was there no more and we were heading into the place where the wild ones walk at night. It's as scary a place for a cat as a cemetery is for somebody superstitious. He turned uneasy when the road went out of sight. We were off into the unknown where everything that roams there is bigger than a cat and fights to kill. It's the house of horrors for him on Halloween. Being with me behind the shield of glass, he felt fairly secure. He was anxious, but not frightened. I opened the door and he jumped down to the gravel and stood around close to the car, waiting to see what I was going to do.

When he saw I was settling in, trunk lid up, taking out the jack and everything I need that's in a couple of plastic bags, he set to exploring. He knows the house and the ground around it.I saw him hunkered down on the deck in shade after he'd looked all around for anything he needed to know about for a heads-up cat. He watched me between a couple of uprights on the railing. When we're out of sight of the house, TarBaby is comfortable that he's safe with me. I'm his only defense against dogs and bigger. He's impressed that I am dominant over dogs. When the dogs have him cornered, the human yells at them and they quit right now. It's not, however, that they're obeying anything or even that it registers they're being scolded. The yelling caught their attention that I was outside the house.

They look up and see me, forget about the cat, take off lallygagging with tongues hanging out, bounding like Pluto, eyes rolling in ecstasy, running as fast as they can run for the chance to be touched by the human. See me. Feel me. Touch me. Heal me. The dogs were so predictable I almost felt like I was cheating. All it took was distraction. Last Sunday I saw a car of people park to go to the waterfall. The dogs were at the car in an instant, lallygagging, excited to see humans. Bless me O Great Advanced One with the Grace of Your Divine Touch; I'm a humble dog at your feet. They're like people in India who go around from holy man to holy man to receive blessings. The dogs run to the humans for a blessing, for the touch of one of the gods. The man inside the car door where both dogs were waiting for him was half afraid and didn't open the door for awhile. I knew the dogs wouldn't hurt them, I and watched.

He opened the door and Martha, who can slither into any space she can get her nose into, squirmed in on him trying to crawl onto his lap like a seal, giving him no choice but to pay attention to Martha. She's squirming all over him, him trying to keep her back, like I do when I open the car door. Jolene jumping up and down wanting to get in there too with those eyes that probably kept him in the car for awhile. After the people made it out, the man picked up a stick and threw it for the dogs. Distraction. But it didn't work. Allan doesn't throw sticks for them and I don't either. Nobody has ever thrown a stick for them to chase. Both dogs just watched the stick fly through the air.

I know the man was frustrated beyond his wits end, but I thought I'd let him handle the dogs. He opened the door and saw they were friendly, but was overwhelmed by the power of their adoration for humans. I don't feel bad about it, though. It's back to cat humor, getting a kick out of watching somebody jump. Down. Down. Get down. No. Down. Down. No. Get down. Down. Down. I don't know if that's what he was saying; it's my ongoing conversation with the dogs. No. Get down. Down. Feet on the ground. Down. Stop it. All the while they're dancing around me in an ecstatic rite of spring. The nearness of a human being, O how great. Jesus said we are gods. Dogs regard us as gods. I'm wondering if there might be something to it.

BOYS & GIRLS

composition in gray #19

I've been paying attention to my own automatic reactions to gender. The two female cats, Tapo and Caterpillar, I treat one way, and the male, TarBaby, I treat quite another way. It's automatic in me. I catch myself talking to TarBaby the way I'd talk to a male, man or boy. I praise him for being a good hunter and a good jumper. I don't sweet talk with him. With Tapo and Caterpillar I tell them they're my babies, call them my darlins. But not TarBaby. I don't cuddle TarBaby like I do the girls. It's not because they require that I treat them these ways. I've done it since they were kittens.

It's the same with the way we automatically treat children. Little boys get talked to the way we talk to boys, praised for being good at chasing, hitting or catching a ball, taught at an early age how to handle and respect guns, called Little Man, given toy tractors and trucks. Little girls have baby dolls they play mother to. We tell little girls how cute they are, how pretty they are, how charming they are. It's what I tell my girl cats. It's not what I tell TarBaby. It's like from the day we're born and wrapped in either pastel blue or pink we're treated according to our gender and expected of according to gender, named according to gender.

In the big culture we all share, there are two distinctly different cultures living side by side, intermingled every way it can be be done. They are male culture and female culture. Male culture encourages warriors either on the battlefield or football field. In female culture girls learn to dumb themselves down if they want a man's attention. You say, that's perfectly natural. That's right. It is. I just bring this up because I like to entertain my self-delusion that I am sometimes conscious and even make somewhat conscious decisions. You might say the very first thing we learn is our gender. According to Freud, it's our number 1 concern.

In the same house, boys are raised one way, girls another. I've found in later years that my 2 sisters and I didn't know the same parents. Parents, both mother and dad, treated me like a boy, and treated them like girls. It's only come out between us in the last few years that we had very different parents. I think it's fascinating in the way William Faulkner would tell the same story told by maybe 3 different people and it turn out to be 3 different stories.

I can't get out of my mind the little girl I saw yesterday with the light gone out of her child eyes. The Stanley Brothers song comes to mind of the woman sitting at the bar who's more to be pitied than scolded. I don't know the divine plan for the girl's life. Don't know anything about her. But I saw pain, the depth of which can only come from one place. It's one of those many times it is necessary to have a word with self, a reminder that I can't take care of other people's stuff that is no business of mine any way you look at it. To persist would be the way of the control freak. And it could create complications out of control. Best to let it be. For all I know, she didn't sleep well the night before and was sleepy. What I felt was triggered by my own imagination.

Part of why my heart was so moved by what I took for pain in her demeanor and eyes was she's a girl. It's not right for girls to suffer. But they do. We, every one of us, have learned to live with our own inner pains that are with us all the time. My impulse was to save a little girl from feeling pain, a little girl who should be pretty and cute and charming, not hurting inside. I don't know how I'd have felt if this had been a little boy. Suck it up, kid, hold it inside, little man. I know I wouldn't say that, but I have an idea it would lean in that direction, though I really know better than to say one way or another. I wouldn't know what to do, but be kind to the kid and treat him with respect. That's all I could do for the girl too. I believe I would feel the same compassion for either girl or boy.

For one thing, it tears me up to see a woman cry. When I see a man cry, I tend to think, Get over it. That's definitely a gender response. Boys and men tend to be competitive with each other. Girls and women tend to be competitive with each other too, though not always. That's one thing we have in common. TarBaby just now jumped up here onto the desk. I said, "Hey, my friend." He's different since he returned from 3 weeks in the cage at the vet's. He learned meditation there. He has a position he hunkers down into and he sits perfectly still gazing straight ahead with eyes open. Sometimes he'll have his nose an inch or less from the wall. He goes around to shelves up high he can jump to where there is only enough room for him to hunker down and meditate. It helps him pass the time in the house when he'd rather be outside hunting, but the dogs keep him indoors. TarBaby has discovered inner stillness.

WILD KINGDOM AT HOME

tarbaby watches the dogs

TarBaby went outside an hour or so ago. Martha had evidently gone home and TarBaby knew it. He was cautious. On the back porch I have some stacked wooden chairs with bottoms up. He likes to get in that cage and lie on the woven chair bottom. He's safe there. But he went across the road right away on a mission, like yesterday. Yesterday he went out the door minutes after Martha left to go home. The dogs make so much noise outside the cats lay about in the house and listen to what the dogs are doing. Twice this morning TarBaby wanted out and came nose to nose with Martha at the door. Martha hears me turn the doorknob and takes off like a bullet from wherever she is and meets me wiggling and jumping before I'm out the door.

I let them look at each other, holding the door so Martha could get her snout in, but not her whole head and shoulders. TarBaby looked at her up close, noses almost touching, Martha still and quiet, not in a pleased to meet you way, but in a stalking way. TarBaby looked at Martha eye-to-eye curiously. Martha's excitement can't be contained more than a few seconds at a time, then she breaks into squeals and wiggles. TarBaby took a couple slow steps backwards, turned his head, made a U-turn, slowly walked away listening with his ears turned back for Martha's proximity.

TarBaby stayed at his barn across the road until dark yesterday. He'll probably do the same today. He is tired of catfood. He's tired of catlitter and using the same box as the others. Tired of laying about. He wants to taste some blood again. It might be a good day for mousing with the temperature in the high 50s, snow melting a little bit, mice setting out to find something to eat, bored too with being shut down by the cold and ice. I've not heard any mouse toenails in quite awhile, probably because the cats are hunting as I sleep. If there's a mouse anywhere in the house, it will be found. TarBaby will start spending the nights out with the temperature above freezing. The night is TarBaby's time. The invisible cat.

TarBaby's balance hasn't been so good lately. It's because he's been laying about since he spent 3 weeks in the cage at the vet's in November. He's not had a chance to get out and walk around and hunt because the temperature has been below freezing and the ground covered with ice. He's learned that the dogs go home at the end of the day and return at 7:30. I understand now why he's been waking me the last 2 mornings at 6:30 to let him out. He wants to do his cat business outside. He's an outside cat at heart with indoor privileges.

He likes to go walking with me, but his territorial boundary doesn't extend as far as I like to walk. Anyplace out of sight of the house is out of bounds. He starts calling to me in a lonesome, worried tone of voice. When I stop, he reaches up my leg fully stretched out and sinks his claws in. He wants me to hold him. I hold him and he's wanting to go home. Turn around and go home. Not deeper into the world of the wild animals that roam about looking for a cat to eat. It's a very real concern, too, considering coyotes eat cats. They're genocide to the feral cat population. Tar might be able to evade 1, but not 2. It's been 4 months since he's been able to get out and survey his world, see what's new, what's changed, see if the good mouse hunting places are still good. And to get away from the other cats. He's out of shape and getting older.

The little barn across the road only allows entry to a possum or smaller. It's a good shelter for a cat. He knows how to get around in the place. It's so secure, I expect he can sleep there without a concern. Though, I'd bet he sleeps with ears awake. I'm glad to see he's getting out, that he's learned the rhythm of the daily dog visitations, when not to be out. I feel like he has complete understanding of what he's doing and I'm glad he's able now to stretch his muscles and limber his joints, get ninja cat back in shape for spring when mice and rabbits make lots of bite-sized snacks. We like chocolate. Cats like blood.

Again this spring I'll be hearing the squeak-squeak of sweet little bunnies screaming in horror being carried in a cat's mouth to the table wherever TarBaby decides is a good spot to have a picnic. Often, he likes to take them to the kitchen where the cats eat and let me hear all of it. When he's done there's just a spot of blood smear on the floor. I wipe it up with a paper towel and that's it. You get used to quite a lot living with cats.

TARBABY OUTSIDE

tarbaby meditating

17 degrees all night long. Wind all night. The trees on the ridge to my north roared all night. Wind chimes kept a symphony going all night. The electric clock lost 10 minutes in the night. In first light TarBaby wanted me to let him out the window. I got up and opened it. A gust of 17 degree air turned him away. He came back to try it again. This time a bigger gust about blew him off the window sill and he turned away even quicker than before. He came back and wanted to try it again. I knew this time he intended to go by the way he was standing. I raised the window and he jumped onto the railing around the little porch where I keep a cushion for the cats and some chairs. I had the impression he wanted to get outside while the dogs were away. He watches them all day now. He's learned their schedule. He acted like he had something he wanted to do, but didn't get past the cushion. He sat on it about 5 minutes in the wind and that was enough.

Later in the day, the dogs had been out of sight for over an hour. TarBaby had been watching from a new place he'd just discovered by a window that looks onto where the dogs hang out. He went to the door for me to let him out. He went right out and trotted toward the road where he crosses to go to the small barn across the road, the mouse hunting lodge. He's not tasted mouse blood in awhile. I was wondering if he planned to stay there until 5:30 when the dogs go home. An hour or so later I heard the dogs barking around the car. I knew they had TarBaby under the car. I'm glad it's low enough Martha can't get under there. If she were to slither under the car on her belly, TarBaby could slash his nose. I've an idea both of them are dogs that would take whatever a cat could do if they had intent to kill the cat. I don't know how they feel about TarBaby. It didn't sound like they were calling him out to play. I know they could smell that he was the cat that lives here. But they're so excitable and have no self control, I can't predict what they'll do. They've already learned how to go at something together, one snapping from the front, the other from behind. TarBaby might hold his own with one, but not 2.

I had to put on outdoor shoes as the shoes I wear in the house are slick on the bottom. Can't even stand up on ice in them. Sweater, heavy outdoor shirt over it, hat and gloves. I don't know how long I'll be. The dogs were out there barking so relentlessly I was anxious about rescuing TarBaby. I didn't know that was him under the car. Didn't question it either. Because I did know it was him. They'd already killed Posie the possum that lived here a few days ago.

The dogs continued to be gone, so I imagine TarBaby decided it was safe to walk back to the house. He made it to the car. Or maybe the car was as far as he went, but I doubt it. I didn't believe TarBaby would stay out very long with his summer coat of fur. He walked out the door with such intent, I don't believe it was to get outside and hunker down under the car. He had something on his mind. He was spotted walking between the barn and the car. I walked over there hollering at the dogs, which was like hollering at the wind. It was TarBaby.

When I reached them, they came jumping around me, then back to TarBaby and back to me, out of their minds with excitement, like they were saying to me, we found a cat, we found a cat. I yelled at them with tone of voice sounding serious, like the giant's about to cut loose and you better look out. The more intent I sounded, the more obedient they became. When I had the full attention of both of them, I started walking the other direction, away from the house and down the bank where they wouldn't be able to see TarBaby run across the road. I trusted that TarBaby's mind and mine worked well enough together that we could operate like the dogs hunt together in setting up TarBaby's escape. I walked the dogs away from the car and in short order Jolene went bounding off barking at something, Martha on her way too. Martha waits behind and lets Jolene do the fast running, because her legs are twice as long as Martha's. She keeps Jolene in sight and when Jolene runs out of sight, Martha runs up to the next place to watch her from, or turns back. If Jolene lights out after a deer, Martha automatically comes back. Jolene is doing what only fast dogs can do. She can chase a deer. She'll be gone awhile playing chase.

TarBaby ran out from under the car as soon as the dogs were away from the car and they never noticed. Back at the house TarBaby was waiting in a chair on the porch out the bedroom window. I opened the window and he didn't have to think about it. His fur was sticking straight out all over, his tail fluffed out like a black squirrel tail. It wasn't because he was cold, either. He was making himself look the biggest he can look for the dogs. This is a good example how fear can look like aggression. I remember from childhood not to let a dog see your fear. It makes them attack. But I wonder if it's because the physical manifestation of fear, to automatically swell up, just like the animals do, gets read as aggression by the dog, meaning you're ready for a fight. I don't know. I've been told, too, that dogs can smell fear. I don't doubt it. I can also see fear attracting a dog to attack. Predators in the wild pick the weakest gazelles from the herd. The weak ones are easy prey.

Whatever the case, TarBaby was scared and I was too, because the dogs are so out of control. I haven't had a chance to spend time outside with them because it's always cold and mostly ice. I want to get out there with them and do some walking, get them used to understanding I want them to come to me when I call. They're very obedient already to tone of voice. They get it. They've taught me to use tone of voice, which works every time. They're so responsive to it I seldom have to growl. They're at a perfect age for teaching and I'm not going out in this cold and ice. The temperature might rise above freezing some time in the future, but I'm not wasting any hope on it.

An hour or 2 after TarBaby was in the house I heard barking again out front. I looked up the hill across the road. They were barking at a young deer that was just standing there. Jolene would lunge from the front, the deer would get into a challenging stance. Martha bit a leg from behind. The deer moved a little bit. I couldn't tell if the dogs were wanting to play or hunt. Martha snaps at Jolene's back legs when she's wanting to play chase. Martha seemed to be thinking it was about play, but I can never tell about Jolene, Martha either. Jolene especially has a way about her that seems like she can switch from play to attack in a nanosecond. Martha has it too, but in Jolene it looks like it has potential to make her a ruthless dog. She needs to learn what the limits are to her dog temperament. They learn plenty at home. And they need to know plenty more. That is, if we're going to go on being friends, and we are going to go on being friends. They need to learn the rules that apply here like they've learned the rules that apply at their other home. The young deer took off loping, staying just ahead of Jolene, playing chase. Martha watched them run out of sight into the woods. TarBaby watched from his window.

FLOW

goat rock, whitehead

Two months of snow on the ground, frozen solid, and more in the forecast. I understand why Sarah Palin left Alaska, after, of course, the money in her new role as the next Republican hopeful, getting the public appearance makeover they gave Paula Jones and Linda Tripp on the way to the trash heap of media suckers when their treachery was no longer needed. I don't understand somebody like Sarah Palin at all. Barbie for militia calendars, maybe? The world is full of all different kinds of people, and if I were to experience some of the really nutty ones, I'm certain she'd look like somebody I'd like to spend some time with. She's just of a mind that I'm not. That's all. So is everybody else on earth.

I finally saw why I've not given Patti Smith the affirming she deserves over the last several years. Just because her first album was one of the great albums of rock, and the second one right there on its heels, and from then on nothing as good as the beginning. I caught myself holding it against her for not making the greatest album in rock over and over every time she recorded something. That was retarded thinking on my part. Even when she's not as good as I want her to be, she's still good.

It told me I need to be watching my conclusions that spring up unconsciously and lock me down. A conclusion is an end. When I conclude something, it's signed, sealed, delivered. That's the end of it. No two ways about it. Then my mind locks down in that conclusion and I miss everything else around that context and changes since then. Concluding perhaps impedes inner flow, shuts down that which is in continuous motion like water in a stream, and blocks flow. Then my mind atrophies with a log jam of too many conclusions, I get a mind like Rush Limbaugh's and jump off the nearest cliff to end the noise.

This is something I've found with my own intunement since the passing of Jr. I've changed, I can feel it, but I'm not yet far enough into the changes to see manifestations enough to connect the dots. One thing I feel has changed inside, an awareness of the ongoing flow of the present. When I'm aware of the flow and seem to be going with it, I never do anything that needs undoing or inspires regret. It's when I'm out of my own flow that my decisions aren't necessarily on target. I'm in no hurry about anything anymore. Not much comes up that makes me anxious. I pay closer attention in the flow. But I do feel it is something to do with a greater awareness of the present moment.

I take it for Jr's gift. Like when he told me he regretted he couldn't pay me for all I'd done for him, I told him he'd paid in advance. What all I learned that is really worth knowing from Jr Maxwell is worth everything I did for him and more. Again, for me, it was the monk and the abbot, serving the master. From my way of seeing, just Jr's way of putting me in closer touch with the present moment was worth my efforts for his sake and more. All the time I stayed with him I was in the present moment only. No past, no future. Just now. I liked that. I liked getting into the habit, which evidently is what happened. I hear better, see better, think better, even walk better. I can't say I'm fully in the present, though closer than before.

TarBaby, the cat I have the closest mental connection with, suffered from so much absence, but loving him back to health has made us closer than before. We communicate very well now. In the morning, when he wants my attention the moment he hears my breathing change telling him I'm awake, he says , Mao, directly into my ear. One time, a couple weeks ago, when I didn't respond fast enough to suit him, he started gagging into my ear like he was about to puke. That one got my attention to his satisfaction. I had to laugh at the clever trick it was, thought up by a cat's mind, to set me in motion.

TarBaby's health has come back. He still has some issues, but it's looking more and more like 12 going on 13. Cat's becoming an old man. And he hasn't been outside in months. He likes to stalk mice. They keep the mouse population down in the house. The understanding going on between TarBaby and me now is a result of that absence. For one thing, I understood how closely connected we were. I find I tend not to believe another being could care so much for me that a period of absence would matter so much. I believe I've had a problem with that all my life. TarBaby is helping me see it aint necessarily so.

CRAZY CATS

tapo's eyes


Finally I got a picture of Tapo with her eyes doing like they sometimes do, appealing for something, like petting. When she was a tiny kitten she appealed with those eyes calling from the depth of her belly for food, then the bottle. I got one picture with a polaroid of her then that caught her eyes fairly well. Since then I've never been able to get another. When I hold up the camera, everything changes. They aren't quite sure about it. It's a foreign object and it's being aimed at them. Humans are notorious in the animal kingdom for pointing something at you that goes bang, you're dead. I saw her on the red pillow and liked her configuration. As I was getting ready, she looked at me like this and I went click, caught it just as she was moving out of it, first motion. The motion gives her eyes the life I see in them that photographs have a difficult getting.



When she was going outside a lot, Tapo learned to get my attention when she wanted in by scratching the glass window beside the door and looking at me with eyes that believe they can get my attention if they just stare hard enough. They do. Sometimes she won't scratch the glass, she'll stand at the window and bore a hole in me with the intensity in her eyes until they catch my attention. I look up and see Tapo's eyes telling me she's back, needs the door opened, would open it herself if she could, please help. Most often, the scratch on the glass gets my attention, her eyes do the talking.



She was born ravenous, wanting feeding all the time. To calm her down from climbing my pants leg every time I put her down, appealing with her eyes, feed me, feed me, I fed her with the bottle until she passed out. I felt a little guilty like sticking a baby's head in the gas oven to put it to sleep. But it was that or she's climbing me all the time with those eyes like headlights on high beam leading the way. Finally able to feed herself, she ate herself round as a soccer ball. She walks like a soccer ball with cat legs, kind of stiff legged and wobbly, black tail straight up, head bobbing, cat ears up like a Batman logo.




At a certain size she didn't get any bigger, stayed there. I feel like she's comfortable there because she's the smallest of the cats, bottom of the pecking order, and wanted to bring her weight up to Caterpillar's for better defense. Both TarBaby and Caterpillar can attack Tapo, but Tapo can't attack either of them. If she does, they teach her a lesson she won't forget. So she doesn't. In their time equivalent to our teens when they were establishing pecking order, TarBaby and Caterpillar jumped Tapo every day, kept her furious all the time. They did it to make her mad and it worked. Every time. The cats never hurt each other. But one of them would jump on her, start a screaming catfight and they roll around on the floor like a bowling ball with a mind of its own.



She hated it and I couldn't blame her. I thought I'd try talking to her, it was the only way I could explain something that might help. Didn't know if it would take, but it's ok to check it out. When she was on my lap I explained to her, talking like I would to a 3 year old child, which seemed to me about their human equivalent conceptually at the time. I told her that when they pounce on her, "roll over on your back and rip their guts out with your back claws. They'll quit in a hurry." I thought I was just talking to hear my head roar. Next time Caterpillar jumped on her, Tapo rolled onto her back and started kicking at Caterpillar's belly with her back feet, and Caterpillar found something else she'd rather do, like get the hell off this cat that went berserk.



It sent TarBaby on his way a number of times too. Before very long, they were pouncing on Tapo less. Even now, when they hardly ever do it, something will come over Caterpillar. She takes a bead on Tapo's eyes and tells her whatever it is she says, girl talk, I'm gonna splatter your guts all over that wall. Tapo's ears fold back, she moves her head closer to the floor, looks up at Caterpillar showing rattlesnake fangs, green laser beams shooting out of her eyes straight into Caterpillar's that say, you touch me, I'll make hamburger of your face and feed it to the dog. Of course, she doesn't. When Caterpillar reaches out a paw in slow motion to touch her, Tapo crouches down further to the floor and hisses like a poison-spitting reptile with big fangs, nightmare snake. Caterpillar laughs.



Tapo will be inside the cage of a wooden chair's legs and make a dash for another room after Caterpillar touches her. That's what Caterpillar wants her to do. And Caterpillar follows, her nose about 2 inches behind the tip of Tapo's tail pointed straight back. There's no tight space she can squeeze through that Caterpillar can't get through as well. Tapo goes to the smallest cubbyhole she knows in the farthest corner, Caterpillar right there in her face. They growl, hiss, growl, Caterpillar attacks Tapo and it's on, caterwauling that would make a soundtrack for a scene in an animated film of demons fighting in hell. No wonder cats had a bad name in medieval times when superstition was the same as fact.



I make it a practice to stay out of their tussles. I don't know what they're doing. They do. They're cats. I don't know how they think. I don't impose human rational mind on them, because they have no way to grasp it. It's the same as nothing. I let them lead the way. Sometimes, when I feel like Tapo has had enough and I see Caterpillar start backing Tapo into the corner under the chair legs, I watch. When Caterpillar starts showing intent to take this further than mental intimidation, I've called to her gently appealing on Tapo behalf, Caterpillar, let Tapo rest.



Every time, without hesitation, Caterpillar puts her slow forward motion into equally slow reverse motion, stepping backwards, one slow step at a time, eyes on Tapo in case she takes the sign of retreat for an opportunity to attack. Caterpillar backs up, backs up until she's satisfied Tapo can't get to her before she can turn around, she'll turn and walk slowly away, head high, I'm Caterpillar the Great and don't you forget it, pussy. Bullying is what it is. I expect it goes all the way back to lady bugs. Big birds pick on smaller birds. Big dogs dominate smaller dogs. Big kids pick on little kids. Big corporations put smaller businesses out of business. It's evidently something in consciousness that goes with living in this world in a body of any sort. Big'n rules.



Caterpillar and TarBaby have learned over time it does not please me that they like to pounce on Tapo and make her mad. They like to please me, so they only do it when the impulse is so strong they gotta do it anyway. Go to confession later. I let those times go by, because I don't want to mess with their circuits in a control way. This is their catness, totally their catness. It's what cats do. They don't hurt each other. I have seen TarBaby and Tapo run straight to Caterpillar out in the woods, a bee line and not even a split second pause for thought, when Caterpillar came face to face with a bobcat kitten and let out a squawl, sitting up on her back feet like a groundhog, arms high with 10 talons slashing the air. Caterpillar Buzzsaw. The bobcat was gone in a flash.



TarBaby and Tapo gathered round Caterpillar in support. The three of them stood and looked in the direction the cat ran. I doubt the cat meant harm to Caterpillar. Probably curious and wanted to say hi, scaring the fire out of her. The cats do care about each other. Seeing them go to Caterpillar's defense, not knowing anything about what she was facing, no hesitation, at her side in the snap of a finger, told me they're closer than I believed they were.