3.18.2014

Human and Feline Condition



“To him, who still would gaze upon the glory of the summer sun, there comes, when that sun will from him part, a sullen hopelessness of heart.” - Edgar Allan Poe 

I used to read more. The other night I stood reviewing the shelves of our library consisting of classic Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Poe. They sat right next to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Philip Roth, and, my favorite, Jim Harrison. I sighed. I’d like to reread some of them as I’m sure my former self had no idea of the perspective I hold now. I’m sure they would read different for me today. Those authors were are all unique, yet all passionately articulate and poignantly eloquent on the varying degrees and perspectives of the human condition.
From this vantage point, today’s human condition and a broad view of modern life resembles much of what is disliked about the “happiest place on earth”. For a fairly steep price, one jumps on the “high school graduation – college – girlfriend/boyfriend – graduation – career – marriage – pets – parenthood – PTA meetings – 40 something – community volunteerism – career number two – kid graduations – aging parents – and stuff not yet conquered” ride where we blog, document, and record each meal, gathering, and event while screaming toward the ultimate exit, which sounds more and more like a long discussion about Sansabelt pants. Just a single day involves an alarm at dark thirty to work out, a glance through an online paper during a ten minute power breakfast, a flurry to make kid lunches, beat the rush to drop off said kids at school, careen into work, email, texts, errands or meetings at lunch, work, quick stop for some forgotten thing on the dash home, snail mail assessment, cooking, forced quality time at dinner with events of the day retold, clean-up, kid homework monitored, more email, media check, pet check, teeth brushed, goodnight kisses, alarms set, schedule for the next day reviewed, and … bed. And I’m sure I missed something. But, it is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for reals.
A couple of months ago, our waiflike cat became ill. She couldn’t move. We watched her struggle. We nursed her as best we could. My wife fit vet schedules into an already stupid schedule of her own. It threw a wrench into a barely tuned machine. On top of it all, it was mentally and emotionally draining. The good news is the petite cat is doing better now, albeit a bit wobbly. She might always be that way. We shall see.
But this weekend something typical happened, though often overlooked. Maybe it was the first real observed moments to feel like Spring. Perhaps it was a break after all the laundry, house cleaning, vacuuming, and grocery shopping. It could have been the exhaustion after all the mowing, weeding, fertilizing, planting, and fixing irrigation lines. But, our frail, dainty cat ventured outside for the first time in a long time. And, we stopped.
We stopped. We sat down on the sidewalk in the sun. We listened to birds and distant barks. We compared cloud formations and jet streams. We talked. We laughed. And, our hearts filled with joy as our little, feline companion did a “stop, drop, and roll,” something physically not possible the last couple of months.
Our Lucky kitty was – and is – a simple reminder that despite our personal, puffed-up significance and all our interminable scurrying around in this crazy jaunt of life, one’s wild ride doesn’t always head in the direction we planned. There is often great loss and unavoidable sorrow—and that sometimes there is a rare delight in acknowledging we are, more often than not, helpless in the face of it all.
I needed a reminder. That is why I desire a good book.

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