Thursday 3 January 2019

Vulnerabilities

It's going to be dangerously hot tomorrow and Leonard and I will stay indoors. So I went for a ride along the creek this evening. I went north for a change. Around the confluence of Edgars and Merri Creek the light suddenly went soft and mellow. There were a lot of very chilled birds perched quiet and still in various high positions across the wetland. What I'm saying is that it was very beautiful.



I'm not too good at the moment. The thing is, by now I'm used to feeling like this, and used to waiting it out. I don't feel like I can keep it together but I also know that actually I can. I've done it before. Reading is a really good distraction. Writing is not helpful, but I felt it was important to push the last post off the top of the page.

I did pause outside a house by the creek just south of Moreland Road because there was a nice little cat sitting in the driveway, like they do, and I wanted to say hello to it and give it a pat. I was sneaking up to it when out of the corner of my eye, in the dim twilight, I saw the face of a tiny tiny ginger kitten appear in the fork of a tree on the nature strip. I walked very carefully around the tree but the kitten seemed to have vanished. I peered up into the branches for a while, expecting to see it peeping out from the leaves but the tree was empty of kittens. And it was then that I realised that the yard of the house behind the tree had about fifteen cats in it, walking up and down the driveway, sitting in the bushes, climbing on and off the fence, busily rubbing their heads on one another.




Can you see the little ginger here, watching me intently from just beyond the railings of the garden fence?

I stood and watched the cats and kittens for a while, hoping one would come over for a pat but none did.  As I turned to go I looked up at the second-floor window. It was lit from within and a soft warm orange glow came through the heavy lace covering the glass. Outlined against the lace was the dark form of a standing woman, watching me while I looked at her darlings.

4 comments:

ernmalleyscat said...

they must have quite a society going on in that yard

JahTeh said...

It was a monster of a day with a cat stretched flat on the floor, still recovering from NYE.
Nice to be able to read your blog again,I could not find your email to ask permission. I now have another blog to talk to and with kittens.
Mother finally had enough of this world and left and I was surprised at how much we spoke to each other every day and now I'm reduced to watching the news with the cat on my knee pointing out who not to vote for. I'm always on the verge of picking up the phone before I realize I don't have her new number and there's a lot of silence in my life which I had filled with chit chat with staff at the Home. See, not friends for deep conversations but time fillers.
Anyway you are back and Mother out of the struggle and hopefully hand in hand with my father.

lucy tartan said...

JahTeh, I'm so sorry. x

Anonymous said...

Awesome post.