Sleeping With Cats

Yes, it is true! I spent the last couple of nights sleeping with two to three of my four cats. I fell asleep on the sofa. I woke up with Max on my chest in a deep sleep and Zeus asleep with his head in my lap. Kitty Kitty was asleep on the back of the couch close by my head. Tigger was in another room ignoring us.
At times Tigger will come close by and schmooze with me when the others are busy. Often I turn and find him staring at me intensely through the lens of his large, orange eyes that match his equally orange coat of fur. He is skittish and yet craves to be close on his own terms and in his own time. He will drape himself over the top of the couch placing one paw delicately on my shoulder as he sleeps.
I am a dog person. It's true. All four of these cats are adopted. I love them yet I am a dog person. I want a dog. My lifestyle does not leave room for the attention a dog needs but does leave room for the felines of our home. They are independent, opinionated, quick to judge and slow to forgive. Except when they are not that way, and they set that schedule, and they become soft, cuddly, possessive, demanding lap space, neck space, head scratching time, and my complete commitment to staying in the same position until their time is done and, you guessed it...they set that schedule. I have become, without malice or forethought, a cat person. They are perfect for this time of our lives. It must have been divine intervention.
As I write this the grey cat is asleep on the table behind the laptop, the orange cat is asleep at my feet, Max, the adventurer, is outside and curled up on a step snoozing and observing the neighborhood and the Siamese, kinda sorta Siamese, is slacking in a chair near me. I am surrounded by snoozing, feline love. I need it. They offer it. For now, until tonight, when they become possessed by the spirit of ferocity, chasing one another, waiting for a chance to pounce on each other, leaping over chairs, sliding on the slick, kitchen floor, crouching around a corner with their backsides arched into the air and their tail hair flared out as the tail snaps back and forth. Their backside begins to swing in a slight side to side motion. The intensity is palpable. The pounce is quick, quiet, effective and the victim's loud meow a reward for the victor.
It is a day later and after midnight. I went outside to call Max home. Wherever he had gone it took him awhile to come running to me. The moon was and still is, I assume, full and bright. A wind had come up since I was outside earlier in the evening. The night evoked a yearning in me. I do not have a name for it. Max is a black cat. He moved towards me blending with shadows then visible on the pavement as he passed through a patch of moonlight. Branches swayed to and fro in the warm late night wind. I scooped Max up into my arms nestling his head under my chin, nuzzling his warm cat hair while murmuring my love of him into his ears. I was rewarded with a soft purring sound. As I stepped up the deck steps I glanced in through the living room window into two pair of cat eyes watching my every move, anticipating this nightly ritual of the door opening, Max sliding from my arms into the living room, the door closing as these cats of mine and I head to their food bowls. Late night feed and maybe some cuddle time on the couch or not. It is their decision. Anyone who attempts to cuddle a cat who does not welcome it gets what they deserve.
This tiny evil thought of how much a puppy would humble these arrogant creatures passes through my head. It is enough for me that I have the secret knowledge of how to gain payback should I choose that option. I pretend that knowledge evens the playing field.

Lightening Bugs

For the past two nights I have seen lightening bugs along a nearby ditch. I turned to look for traffic and there were the glittering bugs. Lightening bugs evoke the childhood years I spent in the mountains of North Carolina  Were there a contest for favorite memories the evenings spent outside in the Weyehutta Valley in Jackson County N.C. would win by a landslide.
Our family rented a small, white house tucked close against the bottom of the slope of an old, worn down mountain. Our landlord had a large run-down barn on the property. A fence ran behind our house at the place where the slope began the rise that led to the top of the mountain. On the other side of the fence a wide swath of land had been forested. The earth was red clay, scattered with rocks and patches of rough, survival grasses. A trail crisscrossed  back and forth on itself ending further up the slope where the forest began.
The sweetest, cold spring water flowed from that mountain and into our home. I have not experienced delicious water again since that time in my life.
Lightening bugs always send me hurtling back to the days spent in the little house in the valley. Green grass grew thick and plentiful in our front yard. A plowed field of red clay soil was adjacent to our house. When I close my eyes and travel back to the twilight evenings spent in our yard I immediately inhale the intoxicating smell of sweet grass, earthy soil and the water flowing in the creek located between our home and the paved road. I believe I knew intuitively that I would return many times, in the years to come, to those magical evenings. 
Lightening bugs blinked and drifted through the darkening evening. It seemed there were hundreds of them. We caught them in mason jars releasing them later to join their kind. At some point the lightening bugs simply vanished to reappear the next night.
Lightening bugs, flowering honeysuckle, sweet grasses, pungent soil and a faint smell of manure from the nearby barn combined to create an entire world in my heart and mind. Within that world I hear the sound of children laughing and calling out insults as a game of touch football became challenging. Nature provided the sound of the cicadas, various birds calling out to one another, small frogs and larger bullfrogs harmonizing as the lights of home appeared in the window and our names were called for supper.
Later I would lie in my bed listening to the silence of the night. There was no air conditioning. Our windows were open with only the screens between us and the outside world. Light breezes brought the outside inside as we drifted off to sleep.
It will be fine with me if heaven is a mountain valley formed from my memories just for me for eternity.

Surrender And Then Surrender More

Contempt prior to investigation. I was dwelling on a conversation I had today with a friend. We talked about spiritual perspectives, opinions we share and opinions in which we differ. Upon reflection God's Word does not lend itself to opinion though opinion is offered enthusiastically as the Word of God. I saw myself in that framework. I realized how much of my spiritual life has been built and supported by opinions rather than scripture plain and simple.

I believe this bent towards opinion as opposed to the acceptance of the Word of God at face value stems from my desire to find a detour around the untarnished truth.

I thought of David and Saul. David would not speak against Saul because Saul was a man of God and David's king. David surrendered himself to the admonition in scripture regarding the respect due God's anointed. This is the point at which I saw my opionated and arrogant self speaking of the various virtues and vices of people in leadership in our church or in other churches. The well-meaning gossip that comes so easily to mind, the smug glance and unspoken judgement passing through my thoughts fly in the face of God's will and instruction. Who am I that I should judge the God of the universe?

In one form or another I am continually at the point of surrender. At first that sounds repressive and controlling. Submission of my will was not a plan I had for my life. Even a cursory look at my life thus far would prove conclusively that I submitted my will on a whim. Indeed I seemed determined to exercise an anti-will campaign for years. Yet I saw myself possessing a strong will that I would not surrender. My nature held a cunning and baffling ability to lie to myself. Years later, when all my efforts had been exhausted, I found a total surrender and submission of my will to be filled with the freedom I sought most of my life. It is a bit of a mental exercise to find, after years of resistance, that the prison I saw in surrender did not exist. I had to escape the actual prison my self-will had built. Escape the bondage of self-will and run towards the freedom of surrendering my will. 

The task set before me each day is to surrender yet again and again with joy and of my own free will. In that choice I am found.

I Steal A Peek

This child has captured me from the beginning of his life. He did not allow me entrance for a time. He held me at bay with his need for his mama or his dad. But I would steal a peek at him and know that one day he and I would be the best of friends.

Time passed. Our moments together grew longer. I thought my heart would burst with pleasure and with joy. He would be the mailman and I would wait for him to bring the mail. He would ask for the hundredth time for me to read his favorite book called "Piggy Pie". His eyes would slowly close as sleep came softly to him and I, in that sacred moment, would steal a peek of rosy cheeks, long eye lashes and the patterned breathing as his chest rose and fell with deepening breaths.

The day he knew his dad was not coming back home to live, dear God in heaven, his pain and his sense of loss tore my heart from my chest. A helplessness like none I have ever known crushed my heart. He stood so small and crying said good-bye. I stole a peek and made a silent vow to stand in the gaps with him if God allowed. God allowed.

Today we rode to church together. Almost 10 years from the day he was born and 8 years from my vow. We laughed and talked and fussed over music. He spoke of a girl at school and we day dreamed a bit of summer possibilities. He knows I think he is wonderful. He knows that I will love him until forever. He gave me a grin, turned his attention back to the game he was playing and I stole a peek. My heart is full. Another peek and I am content to let him be as I drive to church.

God loves me some kind of good and he loves my grandchild in the fierce way that God loves children and that is when I steal a peek at the heart of my Father God. I am blessed to be a blessing.

Say What?

A friend of mine who knows my family dynamics well was talking with me today about my mom. My mom is 87 years old. She lives near me and I spend a lot of time with her. My father died several years ago and I have been looking in on my mom all of that time. She and I are often at odds. Nothing dramatic and loud but silent and passive aggressive.  My friend has a unique position in our lives so, over time, she has made her own observations of my mom and her relationships with her three chuldren. I am the oldest. My brother is the middle and my sister is the baby.

To keep a long, long story short, my mom identifies most with my sister, adores her son who is bi-polar and has conquered many challenges and has, as long as I can remember had an ambivalent response towards me. I don' t even want to know what birthed her response to me but I have felt it for years.

Time has  passed and in my life today my mom's preferences have become visible to my friend. I did not think anyone knew or noticed. I felt foolish like a petulant, jealous child as this woman told me one day how much she admired my involvement with my mother and how she did not think she could handle it. I was shocked. Since then we have talked about my mom and I have had the opportunity to get out of denial about my relationship with her. I have struggled with the truth and grieved it.

Today I was talking with this dear friend about a recent event with my mom. We were both laughing when she said, "In your mom's eyes your sister was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, your brother is the son and you? You are shit outta  luck!" I realized how far I have come when both of us burst into laughter without an edge to it or resentment in my heart. My friend told the truth! Giggling. And I found the truth hysterically funny.

Say What?!

Measuring Out My Day

I played with a squirrel yesterday. He was chattering in the water oak tree by my mother's porch. At first I thought it was a loud and intense bird. It dawned on me the mad chattering could only be coming from a squirrel  because squirrels fuss with great vigor and this squirrel was letting me have it. So, I talked back. Well, I talked back in my secret squirrel talk learned in the wild woods of .....o.k., maybe not a squirrel language. I talked back in an attempt to calm this furry creature down. While looking for this gray and angry fellow I discovered, high up in the top limbs, the squirrel's nest. The squirrel was fussing like a banshee in order to drive me from the nest. I caught a brief glance of him, smiled to myself and did the right thing. I walked away.

Sadness and Grief Deeper Than The Deep Blue Sea

waiting inside suspended animation, bathed in the numbness of sadness mixed with the heat of grief building upon itself. No answers. No way out. "So brave," they say, "to stand your ground." I hear "so brave" as a distant voice shouted towards me from far away. I am confused. Who is so brave? Not me. Not me inside this silent place waiting for a reprieve, a momentary release from the exquisite, laser sharp focus fueled by sadness and grief. A sense of loss intrudes. I look around me. I am a stranger in this place. I wish to be excused, please.