post thanksgiving feels

Maud's favorite place in the apartment is against the living room window. Most mornings she'll wake up before I do, and gets the coffee started.  I normally start to stir at the sound of the blinds being pawed back just enough to make space for her to crawl through, where she lays on the sill, sips her coffee and stares out into the alley.

We have separate routines, and I don't ever bother her to join me for breakfast. I can tell she's deep in thought, sending her solidarity to the folks at Standing Rock, and contemplating the deeper challenges of the modern era. I imagine she says a small prayer for mom and dad to be happy, and wonders how her brothers and sisters are doing, out there somewhere in the wild.

Maud is balanced, and while she has her hesitations about certain things, as well as her limits on uninvited affection, she is warm and playful, and is constantly looking for ways to contribute, even where she hasn't figured out how.

When I first thought about adopting a cat, I had all these fears, as if taking care of an animal was going to somehow take away from all the other things I intended to do. The hypothetical world had me by the balls. But over the past six months, I've realized that having her around to take care of, and letting her take care of me, was what I'd really needed all along. Thinking it over - I'll take reality, my tiny framed, cheery, skeptical, and contemplative ball of fur, the litter box, the canned tuna, and the mid-night hairballs on the hallway rug; all day, all night, period.