A cat named Grace?

Thursday, February 5, 1998

        Pyewacket always keeps me company when I'm in the bathroom in the mornings getting ready for work. This morning she was sitting on the side of the sink while I was combing my hair, and I decided to cut my bangs. For some reason, that really intrigued her. Whether it was the snip-snip-snip of the scissors, or the little bits of hair falling through the air to the sink below, something about it was exciting.

        She got down in the sink, and the little snippets of hair rained down her for a few seconds, then I decided it would probably get in her eyes, so I picked her up and set her on the vanity. When I was finished, I got a tissue and wiped out the sink, then turned on the water to rinse out the remaining bits of hair. She got excited about that, then, and scrambled to her feet. She lost her footing, though, on the fake marble countertop, and skidded off the side of the vanity, ending up with her rear end in the wastebasket and her front paws hanging onto the vanity top.

        So further to my essay about naming the other night, "Grace" wouldn't have been a good name, either.

        Bob was still in bed, and he called out, "Could you hold it down a little in there?" And I felt like a chastised kid--"It wasn't me. I didn't do it. It was Pye. She's the one who was noisy. All I was doing was cutting my hair. She's the one who fell off the sink." And then he said, "Well, you shouldn't have let her fall off the sink. She's just a little kitty. A little sick kitty. Have a little concern for your cat."

        This morning as I was driving to work I drove by a daycare center. I hit a red light and got to sit there for a few minutes, watching the people bring their children in. There was one little girl who skipped and ran on her short little legs, clutching papers and toys to her chest, urging her mother on, anxious to get to school. The next couple that walked by was a mother and another little girl, but this little girl hung back, hanging her head, scuffing her feet, making the walk into the building last as long as possible.

        While I was sitting there I was wondering what kind of little girl I was. I remember my first day of school ever, and I remember all the first days after that--the new lunch box, the school supplies, the Big Chief tablet and the fat pencil, rulers, erasers, glue. All that wonderful stuff. And I remember the first time I knew I could read. I remember sitting in my friend's father's car, waiting for him to drive us to school, and demonstrating to her how to read. She hadn't gotten there yet, and I was so proud. But in spite of all of that, I'm afraid that I was the little girl who was sort of afraid to go to school. I was anxious to get there, I wanted to learn, but I was always afraid that no one would like me, that I would be odd, or that I wouldn't know where to go, or what to do. That I would be called on and wouldn't know the answer, or I would know the answer, but would be afraid to hold up my hand. Anxious to please, but resentful that I wanted to.

        If Pyewacket was a little girl, she'd be a tomboy. She'd be eight years old, and she'd have frogs in her pockets, and scabby knees. She'd collect river rocks and bugs, and she'd have holes in the knees of her jeans and a streak of mud across her t-shirt. Her hair would be messy, and she'd have dirt under her fingernails, and she'd stay up at night until her eyes closed by themselves and she had to be carried up to her bed. She'd be in the emergency room more times than anyone else you've ever heard of, and she'd have to have her hair cut because she'd gotten bubble gum caught in it, and she wouldn't care. In fact, she'd just as soon have a crewcut.

        This is what I wrote to the people on the mailing list last night:

Bob just came into the kitchen and got a pudding cup, and he was standing there going through the silverware drawer looking for a
spoon and making a big production out of it. I forgot to tell that story the other day.

I guess it was just last night. Pye was sleeping on my lap and I
hated to disturb her, so Bob heated up a can of soup for me and
brought it in in a mug, with a spoon. I told him I didn't like the spoon, and he said he knew that would happen. He just sort of threw his hands up and said, "I just figured out about the glasses, now I have to worry about spoons, too?!?" :)

        I very seldom talk here about email that people send to me, but several people wrote to criticize me about this little story, and I'd like to comment on that. Yesterday was a horrible day at work. I was depressed all day, and near tears by the time I came home. But I had a bunch of errands to run for Bob before he leaves on vacation tomorrow. So I decided not to go to yoga class, the one extracurricular activity that I do during the week, and spent the evening shopping for Bob.

        I went to the drug store for vitamins, Marshalls for new golf shirts, the bookstore for a road map, and the card store for a get-well card for his uncle.

        He didn't force me to do these things for him. He said he he could do it himself, but I like doing things for him. He works hard, and I like doing what I can to make his life easier. So I'm not saying that it's a hardship, I do enjoy it, but it's not what I would have been doing if I was doing exactly what I wanted to do (probably sitting where I am right now, writing). And right now, as I am sitting here, I'm doing his laundry, and once that's finished I'll go upstairs and pack for him.

        I know that I tend to overreact to criticism, but I just want to say here that you don't know my whole life. You know a lot of it, if you read this every day, but you don't know everything. I thought that was just a slightly funny vignette about something that happened in my life. And you weren't there, and maybe I didn't describe it well enough, but it was just a funny little thing that happened. It's not a capsule summary of my life.

        I'm not sitting around forcing him wait on me hand and foot, just in case I gave that impression.

        I had a much, much better day today than yesterday. I'd think it was the St. John's Wort kicking in, except that I've only been taking it for four days, and it's supposed to take a month or more to have any effect. Maybe it's the placebo effect.

        MaryEllen wrote today and asked me for Charles DeLint's web site address, and if I hadn't been falling asleep last night, I would have linked to him. It's here: http://www.cyberus.ca/~cdl/

        I had been going to start "Indian Killer" today, but I decided that I needed to read something just a little lighter, and I couldn't resist starting "Someplace to be Flying," anyway. It's wonderful. People turn into animals, animals turn into people, it's delightful. But it's not simplistic. It's sophisticated and hard-edged. There's an excerpt, here.

I think maybe we started to forget when we stopped looking up. Instead of remembering there was a world of sky up there above our heads, we'd sit on the ground and look at our feet. We'd get together around the trunk of some old tree and tell stories, consider how it was that the world began, try to make sense of how we got here and why--same as people do now, except we did it first, because we were here first. Back then, we were the people. Animal people. Same as you, but feathered and furred and scaled. Those stories you tell each other, you got them from us, all of them. First World, the Garden, the Ocean of Blood, the Mother's Womb.

~ Charles de Lint, "Someplace to be Flying"