the dumpster kitten. In one moment an orphan. In the next, a part of a Hill Story. She was ready. Completely ready. As if she was born for it.
I didn't want to bring her. Most because of Tazmeena who is old and being in a cat carrier from N Mex to this point in California still 200 miles, 3 hours from a destination in the Unknown.
a quote ...Eudora Welty...via Maria Popova, Brainpickings
"Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life. Connections slowly emerge. Like distant landmarks you are approaching, cause and effect begin to align themselves, draw closer together. Experiences too indefinite of outline in themselves to be recognized for themselves connect and are identified as a larger shape"
She slept that first night in this truck on a towel. But with morning, first morning, she was brought out an let go. And as we walked this land for my first time, Tay's first time, Puppy ran along. Maybe 6 weeks old? Less? a tiny cat....small even for her short life, she ran along. Like a puppy. and so she is Puppy. Merced for where she was born. Hill for the world she chose. At that gas station parking lot, as i walked Tay on her 12 ft. lead, she jumped out...toward us. Tay sprang toward her. Puppy stood her ground. As Tay and I backed away, Puppy came forward, following. Ready.
in the 2 months since then she has claimed her world. Almost everywhere you look, Puppy is somehow there. I look out the window this morning, it's not yet light and there's Puppy walking around in the midst of the Goats. She has become arboreal. Sometimes following along not on the ground, but leaping from branch to branch through the trees. Now, when the door has been left open, she will be discovered on the back bed. Napping next to Tazmeena, backs touching. Tazmeena doesn't like her but has stopped Hissing. She follows the kids everywhere...parallel play with leaves and twigs. She is with me during the night when Tay alerts and i get out of bed to check on the Goats...she was with us that night when we captured Sunny Ray and hauled him back to the original buck yard. She stood with me afterward as i soaked in the intensity of that, she and Tay, just standing. I have only just recently begun touching her. Have pet her twice. Her purr is enormous. The kids carry her around and you can hear that purr from a distance.
Like i feel about Tay, Puppy is not a pet. She is an entity unto her own Self. A sentient being. Wild choosing Domesticity. She is unafraid of all the dogs, of all their mindless dog energy. Her brain has mapped this entire Hill and knows how to keep safe..where to run and she's faster than any of them. and Knowing, as in out of volition, she puts herself places like in that playpen when they are all here. It had been tipped over because of the rain, covered with a tarp. Right up next to the trailer, right in the middle of Things.
she has no tail. We can't tell if she was born that way or if it was from her beginnings in Merced.
