Wednesday, December 21, 2011

six word story: Phoenix

Cat-shopping, I'll bring money, you name.

So, I cheated, added a dash. The idea was semi-cute.

Nine 9/11 ago-es, my mother and I, pre-Zora, pre-Brian, pre-job and NY, pre-damn near everything, went looking for a cat. Perhaps she wasn't but I was, hoping to find Eve a friend, more so, hoping to find someone to befriend my night-wailing lonely tabby.

Most of my cats have come from the same place, the Animal Rescue League of Boston, and, yes, I said most. I've had as many cats in my life as they have lives; a strong herd of 9, not at the same time of course, though we maxed out at 4 in '08.. but that ain't the point.

I was getting a new cat.

I've been told I approach love in the same way that I cat-shop. I think any likely can do as long as I've chosen them, love them first, hardest, and they'll fit into a small box. Sounds about right. This one didn't fit in small boxes. Wailed like a background singer in the taxi ride home. Hid everywhere one can and can't hide: a box, a well-stuffed study. In a plastic bag. This one was my favored and favorited. I loved her like a child, like my child, in that strange catlady type of love most likely. In the way I think, we deserve to be loved, but most times, can't recognize that we are, that we're not, that we may not ever, or that we will be soon.

There is no way to credential it, to figure it out, unless it drops out of the sky and into your lap and says: "I've got you. Loved. Life-long. Not to worry."

But it doesn't. That time it did. But most don't approach love in that whole cat-buying-by-the-catlady type of way.

My mother loved her too. They had much in common. Passively accepting love from their low-laying-ports.

Perhaps they got it right, righter than I ever likely will.