Fall Is an Orange Tabby

There is little to report today, except it is a lovely morning under the stars...and one has come to live with me for a while.

Her name is Silverlock and she is 4 weeks old. She is full of herself, which is the definition of kitten-ness. She thinks she owns the dog, and doesn't consider him a nuisance. Yet. Max, himself, is in love with the state of kittenhood. They are just his size, and he loves everyone I have with all of his heart, poor fellow. He doesn't understand fostering means to love them enough to give them up.

So, his heart is broken several times a year, and yet, he gives all of his love and attention, devotion, to each small life that visits. He is a very deep dog.

I hope that today will be ordinary; I have plans for it to be. And what an ordinary day, to start under the stars!

Tonight, I read at Liminal, which is an artists' space, downtown. I am always nervous for a reading, so I will breath deeply for most of the day, and trying to collect myself. I will read from the blog post titled, "Busy School Teachers."

And how fortunate I am, to have such an ordinary day, with the stars, and a kitten, and some poetry? If that is the sum of my life, then I will accept it gladly. My disorders and disease rapidly fade with the coming of the sun. It's not that the moon isn't extraordinary, or that the forest isn't more than beautiful and mysterious under it. It's not that the field isn't more, with a new kitten roaming in it.

It is simply that, despite the medications and all the terrors and faults I carry with me, I have a new kitten, and the stars recede to let this sunlight in. It's the lemon sun, this sun in autumn. It has all the quality of light, and some of sadness with it. Now is the time of year to begin to count the days, the cat days of fall, with it's creeping leaves, and sweetness of air.

Fall is, indeed, an orange tabby, full and vibrant, with the edginess of being. He stays inside on days of frost, and ventures out with the sun. He is lying-in-the-sun cat. He is a brightspot against the green, and gold, and blue of the rocks. He leans against the brown trunks of trees, made browner still against his coat. He is mountain laurel, marigold, hydrangea cat. And now, he saunters forth, in this frosty, gray dawn to greet this day, of all days.

He is unafraid, and means to live all of his nine lives to the fullest. There are never too many days to soak in the sun, and toast his coat to marmalade, to peach preserves. There is always less time to hunt under the moon. There is always this grace: to stand against the auburn boards of the deck, in that particular spot of sunlight he calls his own, around the blue water. He stands against the night of winter and brings the sunlight in with him from his travels.