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| A Sad Kindness
1 December - pondering finalities
Was on my way home this evening and was rounding the corner just before turning down my street. It was about 6:30pm so it was dark - that kind of dark that makes it hard to see, that inbetween dark. I saw a car stopped on the other side of the road and a woman waving her hands... and then I saw the cat.
It had been hit and it was struggling to walk/run and was disoriented and scared. I stopped my car and put on the four-ways until the gal on the road could catch the poor cat. He scooted (as best he could) away from the traffic and onto the front lawn of a house. I pulled my car over to the side and got out to give the girl a hand. Another woman, the one who hit the cat, tentatively got out of her car and wandered across the street with me.
The first gal and I managed to find the cat underneath a car in the driveway of the home. He was scared and struggling with the young gal. I managed to get a hand on him and gently coaxed him out from under the car. I asked if he'd been run right over or if he hit the side of the car. The young gal said she couldn't tell as it was too dark. The lady that hit him - who was feeling very badly - said she wasn't sure either.
As soon as I had him in my arms, I cradled him and softly pet him, whispering to calm him down. He was having difficulty breathing, but he didn't struggle with me. I knew he wasn't going to make it. He snuggled in, and after a few moments quietly slipped away. I couldn't feel any broken bones so I have to wonder if he didn't take a very hard knock on the head from the undercarriage of the car. He went fairly quickly - about 5 minutes or so from getting hit. I truly hope he didn't suffer in pain too much in those last minutes. It left me sad.
I've never had an animal die in my arms before. I truly hope I gave/brought him some comfort in those few moments of cradling him while he fought to breath, to keep living. The three of us have no idea who he belonged to (he darted across the road, so he could belong to anyone in the neighbourhood) so we called the Humane Society to let them know we had a pet. We actually made an initial call when the cat was still alive, and were told the office was closed but that an emergency contact would call right back. By the time they called back, he was gone. They were on their way to pick him up.
He was a beautiful long-haired grey and white persian, a big fella - gorgeous creature. He was clearly well cared for and the fact he didn't go wild-crazy struggling against us, I knew he was well acquainted with affection and human care and attention. Someone has lost their beloved pet and they don't yet know it. That makes me sad, too.
I'm glad he didn't have to crawl off and die alone. I may seem odd in saying this, but I'm grateful I was afforded the opportunity to give a comforting kindness to this cat, to be a cradle of warmth in his final moments. It was a humbling, heart-tugging experience. I would want the same from any stranger if it were my pet. I love animals, and it leaves me teary-eyed thinking about this fella now as I type out the experience.
I am hoping the H.S. will give the animal a proper tending and burial in their facility's pet cemetary. I'm not sure what the procedure is with them, when they know it was someone's pet. I hope my assumptions are right.
Not sure how to close out this post. Except to say I love cats and I'm sorry this fella is now gone.
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|  30 of 30
30 November - and now, it's the end of the line for NaBlo...
"Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did."
~ Sarah Caldwell
6:00 p.m.
I have opportunity knocking on my door. I have decided to take up this offer and be open to what it is and may become. I have nothing to lose, loads to gain. I have fear to conquer, old patterns to break, new things to learn and experience. I have time on my side. Where do you suppose an evening walk could take me?
...
9:00 p.m.
People ever fascinate me. Positive people especially so. What a difference there is in tone, timbre and content of a conversation and how it impacts one's sense of being --- I go from talking politics and policy all day at work to a conversation of ideas and interactions this evening. The former drains my energy, the latter restores it.
My life is a study in contrasts at the moment, in so many different ways.
I am finding my personal worldview challenged and refabricated more and more as I get older. Experiences and people met continue to shift my perspectives on so many things... some of which I held fast and true has crumbled away to dust. Other things I never thought I would embrace I have come to accept as being so. Topsy-turvy stuff. The world as I see it today is so very, very different from the world I envisioned twenty years ago, even ten years ago. I have to wonder how I will perceive things a decade out from now. Will I be more tolerant (that is to be hoped) and more open-minded? Or will (heavens forbid) I be more rigid and closed to change and challenge? I wish to expand, not constrict. I wish to experience, not hide away.
The conversation tonight - of ideas and interactions - really reinforced how soul-deadening my day job is. My ideal job would be... philosopher queen. Baha. Sit and contemplate the things of life over tea. Great gig if one can find it, I suppose. Though I expect I would quickly get bored of it and move on to something more earthy and fundamental. Seriously, though. The best conversations to be had are about ideas and interactions --- exploring what makes people tick and how the world works as it does. Love that stuff.
I have to wonder what is going to happen upon me as I move down this path of mine in life.
NaBloPoMo is finished with this post. I have travailed and triumphed. Sans the technical glitch, which was the fault of Xanga. I rose to the challenge, although not as nobly or as astutely as I had intended. There was a whole lotta superficial snippeting with a dash of worthwhile writing. A bolder, better writer would have that the other way around. I attest to be no such thing, even though I would aspire to be. Ha.
NaBlo is doing an interesting challenge for the month December - its called Mitzvah... to give something to someone every day of the month and then blog about it. Big or small, from volunteering time to volunteering a smile. Sounds like a cool idea. A month of random acts of kindness... and what better month than the one that so many souls on earth find the hardest to endure.
Maybe I'll give it a go, though not sure I can hit *every* day. Or at least blogging about it (that sounds boastful, really). Maybe I'll try to enact the challenge and just write about the interesting interactions that held an impact to/for *me* as kindness returned. I know from experience that humbling things transpire, beautiful things unfold, powerful things impact life. I like the idea of giving something to someone every day, just because it's such a wonderful thing to do. The best giving is that which goes silently unnoticed, too.
Blessed are those who give in secret -- and those who do such know exactly what I mean.
I have now shed 12 pounds. 2 pounds of that, I swear, was from the haircut. Haha! Slow and steady wins the race, say the wise. I'm down with that.
Well, then. I've rambled a bit tonight. A little of this, some of that, none of it important. And so closes the torpid month of November...
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| 29 of 30
29 November - lazy Sundays are the best days...
"Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan."
~ Albert Schweitzer
I made a promise awhile back that I am now ready to deliver on. This fella here had made a very nice offer to create something to give any of us who read him, free from his creative hands to our receiving thanks. One catch, we would have to pay it forward to five others. So I said, 'sure, sign me up!' It has taken me six months to get motivated and creative and producing some outcomes of my commitment, but I have finished. It is a piece of me in symbolic fashion, and universal as well. I enjoyed creating it. There are five souls to whom this creative output of mine shall be winging its way shortly. As it were. Ha.
So... KameraSutra, karos, Landlubber, intopieces and Stultiloquent (who appears to have left the Xanga world entirely), I have something for you. I've flipped you all a note. Hope you like the outcome.
I went back to the beginning of this month to look at what my bold claims were for the course of this NaBloPoMo endeavor and I have to chuckle. Rather audacious of me to claim I was going to write a 250-word minimum story per month. I've done anything but that! Same old drivel, different month, is all. Yeesh.
I would like to say I'm going to end the month with a rip-roaring tale of 1000+ words. I would like to. However. I'm not. Gotta make sure that I have my 'yes' be yes and my 'no' be no. Easy said, that! Try making it happen daily in life!
Maybe I'll send this NaBloPoMo out with a bang tomorrow. Or maybe I'll limp out in a whimper. Either way I'll have posted every day for the month (save Xanga Technical Glitch Day, where I would have posted had I been able to access the site) and fulfilled the challenge.
And, now. I need groceries...
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| 28 of 30
28 November - ...
"Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy."
~ Jane Austen
I feel constricted tonight; the damp cloak of loneliness threatens to cocoon me even as I am aware of its attempt at emotinal hijack. I make myself attend to the feeling as it is, as it comes. I find it lessens the blow of impact when I acknowledge the moment as I find it - it dissipates more quickly and I move on less scathed. It's only for the moment it's found, after all. I don't need to carry the sentiment forward into tomorrow, or even the next hour.
So, yes. Constrictions of loneliness are the mark of this hour. I long for strong arms and an attentive mind. I wish to talk, of things and ideas, and to banter in coy wit. I wish to feel skin-on-skin affections, just because. This glowing screen cannot supply that which I desire. I can only acknowledge the pang of longing and turn tides of attention to other things.
And, still. I am grateful for that which surrounds me. There is much I can turn my attentions to, to feed and grow, that frees me from the burgeoning weight of segregation. I can lose myself in these things and bridge the chasm until I am beyond the ache and settled again in content with what is.
I am exactly where I am supposed to be. Even if I cannot see why that is so. It is as it is.
Contemplations leave me realising that: I can continue to walk in success if I don't bite off more than I can chew ~ I can conquer my inner contradictions ~ I can prove my strength if I, for once, assume I know little/nothing of matters at hand ~ I can overcome my hurt, disappointment and reservations as I open myself up for things to happen in my life ~ I can lift the burdens of those hurts and disappointments from my heart and let them go ~ I can show a heart of gold, be reconciliatory and forgiving with that which demands such ~ I can separate from these existing feelings and leave the inner conflicts of plurality for the peace of unity ~ I can move forward without prejudice. I can. I shall.
I do believe the universe is teaching me the art of slow...
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| 27 of 30
27 November - weird week
"Caressess, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots."
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nothing like a rapid-fire week of wobegones and woebegottens - and general all-around woe - to wear a body out. It's 8:30 in the p.m. and I am fighting to keep my eyes open. I could curl up and sleep 'til springtime; those furry woodland creatures have the right idea... slumber to spring. Would that I could.
Tomorrow I buy supplies so that I can fulfill my creative makings to the five I committed said makings to - ray, karen, pam, jackie and shane. I just need to remember the colour preferences of y'all...
Redux from '07
manskins
... he is so far under my skin I can no longer tell where I end and he starts and it feels strangely wonderful to be attached and detached not owned but free on standby to fly fly fly up up and away and his touch moves me through me to my core in reverberant decrees that ring and echo through my head finding the channels and side alleys of thoughts not traveled for some time... he has awakened my inner cat-beast which now prowls at shadow's edge circling and awaiting chance to devour his flesh and his essence in sate of growl...
... and the words exchanged in heat stir core fleshbeat and I want expressed and extrapolated and emancipated from the churn of the ecstasies stirred and simmering and bubbling over and the seep it drives me to my back and I pull the rhythm from the air to my centre and I rock rock rock the beat to the crest and crash and I sail the waves of delight to the shores of empty longings where I pat down and turn to side and sigh sigh sigh...
... I need him to pin me to my mat as he is buried deep deep deep...
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True
Lifetime
