Cat Scratch Fever

I came down with a case of feline fever yesterday.  I suppose I should have seen it coming.   After all, cats fascinate me, although mostly from afar. 

Growing up, I didn't have a lot of exposure to cats, aside from Boots Johnson, our most excellent next-door-neighbor cat whose name sounds like it belonged to a 70's jazz saxophonist.  On the occasions I have actually gotten to pet a cat, I usually walk away grateful to have escaped with nothing more than a phlegmatic clearing of the throat and a slight swelling of the eyes.

Once, when face to face with a pair of Maine Coons, I simply didn't care what price I'd pay to pet those beautiful beasts.  It was like being at the zoo and slipping into the cage of a lynx family, so exotic were these large, striped, wild-looking cats.  They took my breath away.  Literally.  And my eyes were swollen for days.  But I would not trade that experience for anything, even an epi pen.

But back to yesterday's fever, one tinged not with Claritin D so much as with grief and concern.  My good friend Kristie awoke yesterday knowing that, by mid morning, she'd have to say goodbye to her fine friend Freckles, a formerly homeless cat who was lucky enough to find the key to Kristie's front door.  And her heart.  They became fast friends, delighting in their time together.

What a strange thing to wake with the burden of holding another's fate in your hands. There is a heaviness in knowing what the other does not--that this is the last bowl of milk, the final brushing, the words that mark the end.  Her vet--who is mine, as well--was gentle and loving and quietly supportive during the final moments of Freckle's life.  And there was a sense of peace, tinged with deep sadness, that came with that last act of compassion.

I know that my friend will be okay.  I also know that some other lucky feline will slink its way into her front door and realize that he has found his nirvana.  Lucky them. 

I look outside as I type this,  wondering when the day will finally break.  It is 7 a.m. and still the inky black skies prevail. And so I wonder about the fate of another cat, a thin, black fellow who met Finn's enthusiasm, head on, yesterday afternoon.  In the final leg of that chase, the cat skittered up the backyard fence and high into the neighbor's Oak, settling on a slim branch that offered just enough space between the cat and the dog to bring a bit of peace to that cat.

An hour later--close to the time when the sun would head to bed--that cat was still there, perched and alert, if not exactly comfortable.

And now I wonder if that cat spent the night in the tree, both safe and trapped.  I look impatiently to the skies, waiting for the first rays of dawn to wend their way between the stars and bring me news of this cat.

I truly hope I won't see its dark outline tucked tight among the arms of those branches.  It was a cold night, after all, and Finn was just playing.  But, until the day lightens, I worry about a cat whose name I do not know, hoping, this time, that it is not me who knows what the cat does not yet realize.  And so, I send a prayer to the heavens, for a lithe, black being whose agility is both gift and burden:

God, let there be absence where there was dark being.
Tell me that this young feline
is swatting young mice among the dead grasses of a backyard garden,
oblivious to the chase that
haunted its twilight moments.

Here Ye, Hear Ye!

If you haven't been in a school library in awhile, you might be surprised.  Gone is the tight-lipped, bun-wrapped, vulture-like schoolmarm shushing the students with an icy stare from her beady, little eyes. In her place is (I hope) a fun-loving, super smart and, really, surprisingly-trim-for-her-age librarian who "gets" students. 

As with all transformations, though, there is a downside to today's accessible, active school library.  Often, working in one feels a bit like running downhill with a stiff wind behind you and a really loud soundtrack thrumming in the background.  Because of the library's propensity for craziness, I made myself a little pledge to do just one thing at a time this school year, and to look people in the eyes when they are talking to me. 

Easier said than done.  But a pledge well worth honoring.  Unlike, say, all the pledges I've heard in the past few weeks.  But that's another blog. . . .

It has been good for me to take my hands off the keyboard when someone's bidding for my attention.  Sure, it probably means that the Pulitzer-worthy sentence I was typing will fall victim to my limited memory, becoming just another pile of broken Times New-Roman letters scattered at my feet.  But this process of stopping, looking and trying super hard to really listen has been a healthy one for me. 

And it would behoove me to adopt this goal at home as well, where, more often than not, a question from daughter Allison is met either with distracted silence or with the uttered gripe that "I've been on the same sentence for 10 minutes, dadgummit!!!"  She is, after all, my housemate for just another year and a half, if all goes as planned. 

And I really, really want things to go as planned. 

Not that I'm hankering to convert her bedroom into a home spa or anything.  But I do desire the chance for Allison to find her own way in the world, all my well-taught life lessons and super helpful suggestions tucked snugly in her brain, and her endless clothes jammed into a very packed van.

Both at work and at home, then, it just makes sense for me to focus on the here and now (or the "hear and WOW!," depending upon what exactly I'm hearing).  Who cares about cataloging books when a kid leans over the counter to tell me her tales?  Those are the stories I should be cataloging.  The ones that are connected to the person who is standing in front of me, wanting--for whatever reason--to tell the 50-year-old librarian who can sometimes be cool a little something about herself.

After all, what's the point of all those stories unless someone's listening, really listening?

Uncivil Engineering

A society can no longer be considered "civilized" when truth becomes inconvenient and facts are viewed as conspiracy.  When "us and them" becomes the go-to mode, suddenly, no one's going to the middle anymore.

And, without that middle, there are no more conversations, only the echoing din of our own thoughts, costumed in the aping choir of the "us."  I would no more wish a world of "us" upon others than I would wish to be a "them," especially if it meant losing the chance to meet each other.

So focused on the end,  no one seems to notice that the body count is building.

Gone are the bridge builders, evaporated by the focused laser of cynical anger.  Gone are the pure of spirit, muddied by invisible puppeteers whose hands move frantically to guide us.  Even our dictionaries have changed, becoming lighter as words of compromise and community are nudged off the edges, deemed too quaint for such heady, important days.

Weeks away from the elections, I have never felt more used or less understood than I feel these days.  I am on a speeding train not of my choosing, a faceless passenger whose voice is eaten up by the furious winds surrounding me.

I am tired of the machine.  I yearn for the imperfection of human skin, a calloused hand to hold onto.

The Magic of Music

Last week, a song eased its way out of my car's radio and pulled me to the curb, where I sat with my 14-year-old self, hunched over the turntable, my heart at my side.   Never in my life had I imagined someone else would play Joni Mitchell's "Judgement of the Moon and Stars," especially on the airwaves. 

I had thought this complicated, wrenching mess of a song was written just for me. It was my discovery, made all those years ago on the floor of my childhood bedroom.  Hearing it again was like reading a long-lost diary, my toes dipping across the fence of time, my mind remembering how it felt to be me all those years ago.  So in love was I with this song back then that, upon hearing it again, I have no idea if it's even good.  I just know that it's mine.

I spent the last hour playing "For the Roses," the album that holds this song.  It has been a fine hour indeed.  Not only did Joni get me to clean the kitchen, but she helped realign my soul a bit.

Only a fool would label music as "entertainment."

Just yesterday, I sang myself home from a retreat set in the western hills of the Bohemian Alps, again finding myself in the company of old favorites.  Crosby, Still, Nash and Holt had never performed better than we did on Highway 15, our harmonies tight, our joy obvious as it rushed its way out of my mouth.  That Liz Phair and Aimee Mann could join us for a song or two?  Icing on the cake.

I fall in love with song just like I fall in love with people--completely, hopelessly, joyfully.  And my patience for those notes and words and voices is limitless.  In the midst of my musical reverie, I think of nothing else except the satisfaction I'll get in pushing the "replay" button in three and a half minutes and doing it all over again.

My voice was raw by the time I got to Lincoln.  But my heart was full and I was glad to have had the company of such magical songs.

A Hundred Veiled Voices

I’ve had voices in my head all week. 

It started with the funeral of my friend’s brother, a man I didn’t know but quickly grew to respect.  After all, there aren’t many people who sing the closing hymn at their own funerals.  His booming, emotion-tinged voice filled that place with reverent silence, followed by a standing ovation.  That same voice has been resonating in my head ever since.

Last night, as I drifted in the in-between, waiting for Allison to come home from a volleyball game in Omaha, other voices seemed to float from their graves, landing softly on my pillow.  First was my dad’s, his cackling laugh conjuring up images of long-ago stories well told.  Naturally, his laugh led me to the hearty guffaws of my brother, Mike, who shared my dad’s robust way of living.

 In cluttered formation came a dozen others, eager to rise from the dust, each distinct yet fleeting.  Suddenly, my head was filled with strange snippets, polaroids from days and people long gone:  Mindy, a Yearbook student cut short by leukemia, her slightly nasal voice touched up with humor;  Jerry, a long-ago boyfriend, also shot down by cancer,  his voice wavering between this place and another; Sarah’s throaty, low voice, her laugh immediately recognizable, long ago buried by Idaho snows on Christmas morning.

I thought of my grandpa, the gentle, lumbering man whose photo adorns my Facebook page.  But I could not quite find his voice, tucked away in the pocket of his well-made suit coat.  And I realized how many voices I’d lost over the years.  Lives replaced by Gaussian-blurred memories, voices silenced by time. 

Just as I began to mourn all those voices recorded in outdated, unreliable formats, I heard the familiar tinny groan of the backdoor, a harbinger of a daughter returned.  Minutes later, I was blanketed by her strong, lean body, her whispering voice regaling me with stories of rude boys, lunch-time tests, bus rides to Omaha, the air filled with the voices of chittering girls, laughter exploding like fireworks against the highway.