Knotty Knickers

Chop Chop

Girlfriends Go To Vet

Chaela, aka Tubba, is the fat and unhappy one. Her friend is Princess. She was none to pleased with the day's activity but suffered silently. Chaela made sure we knew that having her body poked and prodded was unacceptable. The vet and her assistant got away without major bodily damage. KK is 15.5 pounds currently (it's a better ratio of muscle to fat than it used to be) and I didn't think she would leave them unscathed.

Val, the vet, believes that Lucia died of stomach cancer. And told us a story that makes the fact that my beloved kitten is in my freezer waiting for me to figure out what is going on with shipping her to the pet taxidermy specialists in Colorado seem way less creepy and sick and sad than I was fearing it might be.

Misty View

Yesterday was a brilliant sunshiney day from the get go. I'm hoping that today clears as the hours pass. My plan is to make apple turnovers and have heaps of black rose petal tea. To seam up the Jacaranda sweater (Noro Kochoran and Cash Iroha yumminess), pick up and knit the edges of one of the vests I'm working up from the Jane Ellison Joy pattern booklet (Noro Taio for that - smushy goodness), keep at the wee little black yarn that Jennifer's birthday gloves are being created from (sorry, not Noro but two different yarns that are escaping my mind presently). Hard day, huh?

I will be vacuuming as well. Putting away laundry - though the fact that it got washed within three days of my return alone should be enough, it should be allowed to stay in the dryer until a more fitting Jesse-laundry date is come...like in a week. Darn, my mother just mentioned doing a load of towels. Guess I'll have to put my stuff away. After I get some tea in me, at least, which I'll be leaving you know to begin...

A Moment In Autumn

There. Now, if you haven't seen me for a while you won't walk or drive past me due to the hair colour switch. (Fingers crossed it is REALLY fire engine red on the next go.) And, since it's officially winter now, I thought it might do to get the autumn photos of Mr. Moo and I up. There are more (of course, I am me after all) but the colours didn't go. So, I'll probably do another round of late night make up craziness and post again once I'm settle home again.

Sigh - home. Me want. I fly back Tuesday - arrive at 4:15pm. Ugh. Thinking hot 'n' sour with the parents and then jetting back over the pass...but we'll see how the weather is. I may push it til Wednesday and see if YarnMama will let me crash on her couch and snuggle with her son.

Hitting the Wall

I did that today.  Do you know what it's made up of?  The last four years.  

From the December day in 2004 on which I ended my relationship to the Big Ex to now.  

All that focus; all that travel; all the intensity; all the consistent momentum; all the various losses and preparations for lasting goodbyes; all the processing; all the demised friendships; all the enthusiasm and shared experience of new friendships; all the tears and anger and confusion; the captivating journey of sharing Yoga; all the familial shifting of relationships and health; but mostly - my own ability to persevere.  I finished a hike with a broken arm and a 40+ pound pack - if that's what I can do physically, I can barely imagine what baggage I've been hauling around emotionally.  All the free flowing emotional expression notwithstanding.  

It's not bad.  I'm not broken or depressed.  I'm just enormously tired.  Epically exhausted.  Ready for winter's sleep cycle to join me under the down comforter and hold me very tightly.  I am Sleeping Beauty, wandering just a few more days here until I'm back at the castle and can locate the spinning wheel and put my fingertip to it.

Tomorrow there will be a fire practice.  Hell no I'm not doing a fire practice.  I will attempt a very earth based, fire-lit practice.  I gave myself permission and I was kindly mirrored by my teacher (which is sort of funny because of the story regarding why I like Shiva Rea so much) and so I'll be there in the morning and be really, really, super soft with myself.  It's sort of silly to say it while I'm here in LA, but I know it's snowed on Snoqualmie Pass this season already, and it won't be long until the Creamsicle Brothers and I are cozied up on the chaise by the fireplace watching snow fall - I think I need to begin to treat myself as delicately as a snowflake floating to the ground.  And, while I'm more than happy to practice physically close to the earth, my entire constitution is fire and air based and to take that practice into my psychology and mental/emotional patterning...that will indeed be a difficult and challenging practice.

More About Santa Lucia

My mother brought Lucia home from the Super 1 food market on the other side of town.  She was the last of a litter a little girl was giving away and my mother was quizzed and given a lot of detailed instruction about kitten care.  I think the turning point of my mother being givien the kitten was when she explained that she was going to give it to her little girl (never mind that I was 16 then).  She was put in, of all things, a big paper bag from the store and drovin home, brave thing, in a red convertible MG.

Up in my room, I paid no attention to my mom returning.  She brought the bag upstairs and said she'd gotten me something and when I opened it I found a tiny pouf of grey and white with green eyes and pink nose and pads that fit in my hand with lots of space.  Chichi always had wee ears and was one of the few kittens in my life I didn't need to lock out of my room at night.  

We got off smashingly from the beginning.  It was the beginning of school and I remember worrying that she'd bond to my mother, but while they were close, I was always Lucia's person.  I trained her to come to me at night when she was outside by trilling and tapping my nails on a saucer of milk.  Even this past summer, whenever I sat down to have my tea, if she was near she'd look around for her saucer - tea for me, cream for her was a ritual we enacted in many homes.  It went over much better than my reading Beatrix Potter to her.  She wasn't a fan.  Not even of Miss Moppet.  

The first time she ever hissed it was in response to my spraying perfume.  She was still really tiny and I laughed at the very loud, vicious sound and the giant leap and turn she did along with it.  Most of her life she spent smelling of Dior's Dolce Vita, even after it was no longer my daily fragrance.  

I called her meecha because it was kitten in Italian and I named her after Lucy Honeychurch in A Room With A View.  

She was a great hunter and in Mill Creek and Ellensburg even killed bunnies.  I'd trained her in Lake City to drop them outside before coming in but she was really happy to bring them right to me in bed in Ellensburg.  And if she wasn't fed her wet food when she was hungry she'd just go out and get some warm live food of her own.  

My woolly sweaters were some of her favourite blankets and anytime I was leaving I would put one out for her.  When I drove off this last time I fed her wet food, packed the car, and then went back to find her on the bed and I tucked my NZ alpaca sweater around her.  She never pulled them apart with her great piano playing, but she wasn't so careful with my skin!

And she was a catnip freak.  Loved the stuff. 

I couldn't practice at all yesterday.  Just laid on my mat and cried.  It comes and goes, but I do know I didn't cry in public like this when I left my marriage.  The pain of this is distinct.  There is no confusion of what is happening or why, just primal grief in the face of Nature's workings.  Thank you to everyone who's called or texted or written - it does help.  I know you are all glad that I'm surrounded by friends here at the training who are holding space for me, but it is nice to know that other people who knew my cat and saw our relationship are also sad for her and I both.  

 

Note to all - today is All Saint's Day.

Grieving Lucia

My little pink nosed bunny girl is gone.  Sounds like it was kidney failure - quick, and I hope as painless as possible.  6:50am this morning.  My mother was holding her like she had been through the night.  Anthemis was cuddled up to her (or on top of her more likely).  

It was just chance that I was awake early and decided not to put off calling home.  I only got back into reception yesterday afternoon after all.

When I left for NZ and AU my mother and I had an honest discussion about what would happen if one of my kitten mittens got hurt or died - would she tell me etc.  Her line was that if I was someplace relatively stable, which is to say - had a supportive group around me, she would.  If I sounded ungrounded, she probably wouldn't.  Well - I'm back in LA and staying with Claudia again, that wonderful spunky spark of a Northern neighbor from Vancouver BC, and a couple other girls, and I have a myriad of kind, loving, sweet faces from the previous trip here who are again sharing the experience, so if ever there was a good place away from home for me to be when I received such heartbreaking news, this is it.

I sobbed through class.  I don't expect to do much in the physical practices besides that for a while, honestly.  Chichi was my baby in every way except species.  IV-1 once asked, when she was maybe four, 'chichi is your baby - she came out of your tummy?' and when I explained that no, I didn't grow my grey and white fluffernutter myself but she was still my baby, she solemnly nodded her head and I knew she got it.  That same sweet cousin, now 14, is going to light a candle tomorrow at church for my kitten and I.

Which reminds me - it is All Soul's Day.  And the first day of Winter.  Figures that my witchy little cat would go now.  And that her independent soul would do it when she saw best for the both of us.  I'm just amazingly grateful that she didn't go off someplace on the property alone like so many of our dear animals have over the years.

When I talked with my mother I knew just what blanket I wanted her wrapped in (light green chenille from Kaikoura) and that the morbid agreement Chia and I had about my keeping her skull was still in good standing.  My dad is on that.  And on the fact that - if you gross out, now would be the time to stop reading - I want my darling's fur.  My mom told me that her fur is still as soft and fluffy as ever and I knew that it too is mine to keep.  

Apparently Thai got into the box my mother put her in and went to sleep.  He and Anthemis may have tortured her often, but while they've been in the country more respect has been shown, and I know that the two boys were keenly aware of how joined Lucia and I were.  In fact, now I'm most concerned for Anthemis.  He's a sensitive little guy.  I'm sure he'll stay close to his brother and Nana, and I worry that he'll be a neurotic mess until I get home.  

I know too that once I'm home, much as I love everyone, it won't be the open space to visit that I was thinking I'll be returning to.  I'm going to want to stay on the ranch and be with Mr. Moo and Thai Guy. 

Now more than ever I wonder how I'll fare leaving in February.  I've been worried about this naturally, but now it is incredibly raw.  We have a writing assignment for class tomorrow and one of the questions is how is our heart right now - well, mine feels like the tide will not come back in for ages.  Dry and barren and empty.  I hear my eyes are shot and looking done in.  I'm carrying around a green patterned box of tissue with me...

And I bought a lovely smelling green candle, for my dear little friend had green eyes.  Not sure how I'll honour her in ritual, but a flame seems appropriate.  I'm not even sure when I'll do anything.  For now I'm just remembering her.  Because she was a major factor in my life's planning as a young adult.  I almost feel as if now I'm getting my bearings and finding steady ground underneath me and trusting myself more she felt it was time to go and let me start making the decisions on my own.  Which is petrifying.  Though, yes, of course, I know she's always as close as my own heart - in this moment I feel only aching loss.