Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Camilla breaks her vow of silence...


Just lying there in her favorite chair in the new place, Camilla appears to be a regular cat, you know, sweet, cuddly, etc.

But as she has watched me move from "semi-orderly" to "reformed chaotic" and even "frenetic," quietly evaluating my daily kitchen choreography...



...she has broken her vow of feline silence...issuing barely audible, low semi-critical moans of disapproval followed by a kind of melodic pleading for acceptance of my less than perfect state. Oh, for Heaven's Sake, will you please stop it and sit down?!

Take the spice cabinet, where in former years, an ironing board was stored. When we moved in, she watched me fill it with spices (never alphabetized, but just all together), then as "the life lived" began to sink in,

start putting the aspirin and


ointments in with the cinnamon and nutmeg,
or here a roll of bandages next to the oregano--
and nasal spray coupled with garlic powder.
Yesterday, she watched calmly as I dumped about half a bottle of thyme into my morning coffee, thinking it was a nutmeg sprinkle.


Luckily for the reader, I will keep this short. The most gratifying moments have to do with trees and birds--and the deer feeding just outside my door! I took the advice of a friend and positioned the feeder as high as possible in a tree outside a window. When a bright red male Cardinal visited it--my spirits soared.
It made me feel settled, nested, as if the bird-friends from the other place knew I was here and even though I know that isn't true, it doesn't matter.




Now, on this first day of December, we are fully engaged in the new place, and it fits...our hearts. Camilla follows me around, silent, although wary of future outbreaks of craziness, as I pay bills, wander here and there looking for something, and put out a few Christmas decorations--such as this cloth Santa placed over an old bottle of absinthe, with tomatoes and a string of flowers from Ariella's baby shower in 2008. Weird Mom, but I still care for her and she feeds me!
We are at home again now, together as always...and at peace. My Camilla...



12/1/10

3 comments:

Caroline Gill said...

How lovely, Kay, to have Camilla's perspective ... and what a 'homecoming' to have the visit from the Cardinals, birds I first met as pictures on our childhood set of Pelmonism cards. I have never seen the 'real thing' ...

Anonymous said...

Delightful and you obviously enjoyed writing it.... Happy to know that you are Happy in your new home. LOL TJS

Anonymous said...

Sounds as if you and Camilla are settling in nicely. Cardinals and mixed up spices and all.

Mary Berglund
St. Petersburg, FL