What is Love
1- I wasn’t sure about Shilah when we brought her home. She is, still, half-blind, with mottled and cataract-covered eyes. Milky and blue, except where it is black. Her fur is calico and she is tiny and she is a proud little thing. If she does not like a thing, she will hiss. Swipe and bite too, but always she will hiss. Her near-blank eyes make it terrifying.
We had her almost month and as cute as she was (is), I still wasn’t sure. One morning, a Saturday, I woke up. No- I was awakened. I was awakened because my feet, apparently, we’re dirty and they needed to be cleaned. Shilah decided this and to work she went.
A caretaker.
2- When Audra is upset, Kinsey will come. In those days that are the early days of a relationship, when fights are loud, he’d pace in front of her, watching me. He’d cry and nuzzle when she’d yell at the TV during debates or when she’d cry at the memory of something sad.
When I was in NY and she was in VA (one year ago, now), he’d curl up on my arm while I typed. He comes when we need that something that is wordless, but the best we have is ‘love’ or ‘longing’.
A protector.
3- Jack is a shadow. We have had him three and a half years now, and he has just started to bound with Audra, by sleeping in her clothes.
When I sit in meditation or sit with a book or sit with a bowl of cereal, there he is. It is Zen tradition for cats to cause this problem; zazen is no match for snuggling, as it has ever been. He will curl in close, between my back and my chair or my face and the page. He will wait for the spoon to leave the bowl, and then beg, with rubs and purrs, for what is led behind. He reverse-follows me from room to room, looking behind to ensure I am still there.
A companion.
4- Zoe’s story with us starts sad. She is happy now, though. Sweet, yet wild, she loves people, human-type people. She is orange-gold; a ginger. I’m looking down, right now, and she is trying, yet again, to be the alpha cat. This is done by dominating the current alpha, Kinsey, who is twice her size.
It was a failed attempt. Shell try again later, fruitlessly, get frustrated and pick another fight, winning over Jack and losing to Shilah. At night and in the morning, she is with us. She will bite my fingers, in order to make them wiggle back, so she can bite them more.
A playmate.
5- The phrase “birth and death” translates funny, from Zen. It less regards the actual birthing and dying of a person, as it points to the attaching a cruel value to life. It regards how we fix ourselves to the meanings of moments and refuse to move from those meanings. The moment is lost because we were too busy holding on to, at best, an idea.
An hour with Audra is a life with Audra. Every emotion is spanned within those sixty minutes. Passion, rage, kindness, compassion, pure inquisitiveness, and a sense of puzzling all live and die. But, once the moment and feeling is gone, it is only and just a memory, no real thing clutch to her heart. When there is no more thing to be upset at, she is done being upset. And so, each moment starts with and for joy.
At first, I was awed by this, in her. Then I was between floored and terrified. Then (which is really ‘Now’) I see it for what it is, and I’m still awed by this, but I understand it. It does nothing but make sense and I do nothing but learn from it.
An anchor and a mirror, and everything else in between, inside, outside, and beyond all that.
