Blog Post #5: The Stillness of Day / In the Company of Cats

Sunday, February 17, 2013   1:29 pm

Part I: The Stillness of a Day

Snow. No gloves. No hat (but I do have a hood on my ski jacket).  Deciding to brave the elements.  These are the things in my mind, as I try to adjust to the chilled weather.  My hands won't last long out here, without gloves, and when they start to numb as I write, I will know it is time to go back inside.

Snow is falling, heavy and swirling all around me.  It brings movement, and yet for some reason I can't figure out, everything feels more still, quiet, when I am surrounded by these falling crystals.  The wind that accompanies them swings our backyard gate, which is not latched, inward toward me.  The noise of the heavy door set loose by the elements startles me, making me think for a moment that someone is intruding on my quiet time--but when I look, I see only a door moving seemingly on its own, with no one there behind it.  Just me, the snow, the backyard.

My roommate is out of town for the weekend, and I can feel the contrast of an empty house with last weekend's Mardi Gras festivities and post-party cleaning spree.  Usually, this silence and alone time would comfort me, but for the past day or so, I've been feeling out of sorts.   I have so far managed to avoid all of the social plans--a book club, an art tour--that I made weeks ago, as I cannot seem to move into action today, and yet, I still feel the sting of solitude, even though I've chosen it for myself.  This weekend, instead of a house filled with people and music drifting out to me from the open windows, I sit alone in my green chair, absorbing snow flakes on my coat and scarf.  The sun from last weekend's blog entry has disappeared, too, and the chill feels worse than usual, for that memory of my sunstreaked arms and cheeks. 

The sun suddenly peeks out, reaching my notebook paper and white furry boots.  Though I cannot feel its warmth on my skin this time, the sight of it is comforting nonethless.  Sometimes, living in Pittsburgh, I seem to forget all about the sun for days at a time.  I am glad to remember it, now. 

The snow unexpectedly slows to a near halt, in the course of mere seconds.  It has been doing this all day, as though it cannot make up its mind whether it wants to let itself rest upon the ground.  As though it is anxious to stop moving long enough to rest, just like me, and so changes its mind every hour or so.  I always feel a kind of sadness when the snow ceases to fall, when the comforting motion of the world halts and my mind is forced to refocus on the rest of the physical world and the confusion of my to-do list.  Falling snow feels to me like riding in the backseat of a car, like the luxury of not paying attention to where one is going, like the gift of forgetting oneself for a few moments.  I never mind the cold so much, as long as there is beauty distracting my senses, and a sense of wonder when I look up at the sky and am greeted by a faceful of wet flakes.

I can hear the rustle of the trees as the wind picks up.  A neighbor's wind chimes as they sing through the air.  The sound of a shovel scraping against cement and gravel, the creak of the swinging door.  For the first time since I've been blogging, I want to be a participant and not an observor of this space. I get up from my green wooden chair, the only bright splotch of color in the yard, and traipse around my backyard, leaving a set of tracks like the ones I have expected to see for weeks, but which have been missing due to the bitter cold and the hesitation of animals to leave their warm hidey-holes.  When I make it back to the chair, I survey my progress.  The tracks proceed in an oval, approaching the snow-buried fountain and then leaving it again, leading back to the flash of green that I have dragged out here with me from my dining room.  It's just me, the chair, the chimes, the shovel and its invisible shoveler, the swinging door.  

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Part 2: In The Company of Cats

When I come back inside the house, my cat Dennis is ecstatic to see me. You'd think I'd left him alone in there for hours, not mere minutes by the show of affection he's giving me.  He cries, then climbs up the side of my body with his long legs, claws and all, to beg for some attention.  His paws reach up to my waist when he does this, and it never ceases to surprise me how long his body can extend.  I give him what he desires,petting his face and paws as a reward for his patience, though I halfheartedly scold him for distracting me as I write.  I am standing up in my kitchen and leaning against the counter for support.  I don't want to sit--it would take too long and distract me from the thoughts I want to capture.  All the while, Dennis circles me, attacking me from different angles.  Thankfully, my backside is protected by my puffy ski jacket, which I am still wearing as I warm up from the cold-- though sometimes, I have to ease his claws out of my jeans slowly, so as not to impale myself on them.  The sight of him acting this way reminds me of another beloved cat I once had, who would do a forward roll at my feet whenever he was delighted about something.  Quite the gymnast, that cat.

While these cats are both domestic, I haven't had any true wildlife for company in a while because of the weather, so my observations and memories of them will have to do, for now.  I am intrigued by the ways that cats--and humans--seek attention, seek distraction, seek to have the burden of solitude removed from us.  Even when we choose to give ourselves the day, we sometimes do it half-heartedly, realizing that it is good for us or that we have work to do that is best left uninterrupted but less than thrilled about the prospect of being alone for an afternoon.  As Dennis climbs up the front of the oven to reach my hand, I think of that other cat from long ago, who did a tumbling act out of mere joy.  Wasn't he was lucky to be able to express himself so easily?  I think of the complications of language and human emotion and expression, and wonder how often we humans resort to verbal and emotional gymnastics ("verbal judo," as I think I've heard writer Lori Jakiela call it) just to get what we need and want from one another--whether that means a deeper sense or affection, or more space and time for reflection in our own backyards, or even just for another person to consider our words, to really hear what we are saying.

With my midterm deadlines approaching, I find myself buried in papers and a growing stack of books.  I have had to say no to some parties and events, as well as a vacation to my former home in New Orleans.  But the thought of missing that trip to a former home (one without a backyard, admittedly), was too much for me--and I found myself online at 3:30 am last night, booking a solitary trip for a few weeks later, after my semester is finished.  I feel relieved, having debated this trip for a while (years, really), and I wonder, "Why now?"  Is it only because I couldn't bear the thought of not being there, while others I know are exploring this place I once knew so intimately?  At any rate, I am consumed with thoughts of "home" these days--and whether "home" means the place where I dwell now, or the many other dwelling places I have connected with in the past, doesn't seem to matter.  I carry so many places with me, these days, in my mind.  And every now and again, when I am not in my own backyard looking at snow and listening for the creak of a telltale door, I find I can revisit them, even without a train or bus to carry me across the long miles.