The other day Jason was hanging out in our backyard not doing much of anything. This–in his middle-age–has become a favourite thing to do. As he said a little while ago, “My youth was spent trying to cram my head with as much stuff as possible. My middle-age is spent trying to get rid of it.”
So, in spite of the concern of neighbours, sitting in the back yard just STARING is a passion. He was an old man from birth. This shift was inevitable. But it has come sooner, perhaps, than expected. “There’s a lot going on back there,” he says, to no one. “Birds, squirrels, planes.” He sits on our boys’ swing set and stares at the sky.
Our cat Wednesday sometimes joins him. She hasn’t adjusted well to the house. She’s an adopted cat, offered to us (thrust upon us) by a relative who got it from a friend. Wednesday is a mouser. A half-wild, half-witted weirdo with attitude. During the winter she sleeps in our laundry hamper. During the summer she preys upon the local rodent population. We rarely see her during the day. She doesn’t give affection. She doesn’t hang around us. She is Satan’s minion, and we love her.
Jason was hanging out on the swing set, again, staring at the cardinal that appeared in our neighbours’ tree. Wednesday sauntered over and jumped up on his lap. This was new, this interest. She said hello. She jumped up onto the cross-beam of the swing-set and paced from one end to the other. For all we knew this was the first time she had made it up there, aided by the middle-aged man on the swing. Finally there was someone there to give her a boost, and she took advantage.
From up there she could see the roof of the house. She could see over the fence into the neighbours’ yards. She could see INTO the trees so much better. She stood at each section of the beam, taking each perspective in–recording, planning, cursing animals smaller than her. It was a success. A new place to rule. Yet…
She was stuck. She had jumped up there and now could not get down. It was too high. Bravery took her there, but bravery was gone. She looked down at Jason, who looked up at her. What to do? So Jason stood up–a little more slowly now–and held out his arms. She stared back, blankly. This would not do. He bent his head down and tapped his shoulders. Silence. Then, the tumbling, graceless thump of a dumb cat hitting his head.
She clung on. She scratched his neck. She slid embarrassingly down his chest into his arms. It was disastrous, in cat terms. But he caught her. She was stunned, confused. Jason sat back down on the swing and let her flop into his lap. She looked up at him–synapses lit by this new reality. A friend. Someone who would catch her. Someone who would aid her in her great adventures. She pressed her head into his COVID belly and purred. He gave her some pets. It was beautiful.
Now she follows him around everywhere.
Friends, the world is nuts. We have jumped onto the swing set beam and are looking at the world completely new. Say what you will about the Great Tides of History, but we’ll see your Thomas Carlyle, your Edmund Burke, and offer you a cat in Blackfriars. We’ll offer you a street, a city, a planet, where no one really knows what’s going on.
Lets remember that, although we may be a little dumb, a little weird, and a little frightened right now, a half-wild cat can befriend an aging bookseller. And although this cannot solve any of the world’s problems–and there are many–it can serve to remind (at least the two of us) that there are neighbours who, when we’re pacing a beam perhaps a little too high up, will let us crash into their heads. And we, freaked as we are, will offer our dumb heads to them in return.
Much love,
Jason and Vanessa
