Connections

Spring has given way to high summer, and although this July is cooler than normal, the weather leaves no doubt that we are moving further away from that cruellest month with every week that goes by. In recent weeks I have made major changes to my little backyard garden, entertained my visiting Brazilian goddaughter, and hosted my sister on a couple visits to my place, one to accompany me to an appointment with an estate attorney. I’m sure I’ll say more about these things in later entries, but I’m thinking about my cat Murphy today. This morning I took him to a veterinary ENT specialist. He’ll be having a CT scan and surgery tomorrow for an obstruction in his nasal cavity or nasopharynx, and the vet prepared me for fact that it might very possibly be a malignant tumor. Certainly, we’ll deal with that once we know for certain if that’s the case, but for now I feel immense relief that he will finally be getting some effective help and, whatever else comes of this, will be breathing more easily once he recovers from the surgery.

I am thinking about a moment of realization I had a few months after I moved into this house. Before becoming a homeowner, I had been living in a two-room apartment, had been catless for two and a half years, and was not in a relationship. Then I bought this house. I moved in the first weekend of May, and by late winter, early the following year, I had acquired Murphy as well as a tenant for my spare bedroom and her cat, and had begun to date Alex. I clearly remember one night during a severe thunderstorm when Alex was visiting, which meant I had two humans and two cats under my roof as well as myself. I lay awake listening to the wind beat against the house and rattle the tin roof, thinking to myself with amazement, I have a houseful of people and animals for whom, since they are all in a house I own, I am responsible. Less than a year earlier, I was a woman about whom it could be said that if I had disappeared on a Friday evening, there would have been a good chance no one would have known about it till I failed to show up at work the following Monday morning. No cat, no boyfriend, no roommate, no roommate cat, no house, no one and nothing for whom to be responsible; no front-line, day-in-and-day-out connections in this world at all. Anyone whom I loved or who loved me, far away and taking care of themselves. Perfect freedom.

It’s been a rough road watching Murphy get sicker despite visits to two other vets before this, and struggling to get him to swallow any number of pills, powders and drops, when all I would have hoped to do with Murphy at this point in this challenging year is play with him, snuggle with him, and watch him tussle with his buddy Lucky. Loving and taking care of people (and I count Murphy as one of my people) is hard work, and I’ve had my share of watching people go off their food for one lifetime in this year alone. Murphy has been at Alex’s place for the past few days, and I’d be lying if I said not having to listen to him struggle for breath since Sunday has enabled me to calm down a bit and rather enjoy some inner and outer quiet. But of course I wouldn’t trade that connection, as heartbreaking as these connections inevitably are, for all the quietude in the world. There may be freedom in being unconnected by bonds of loving obligation to other living things, in not having the responsibility for anyone or anything other than oneself, but having experienced that, I’ll take this, thank you.