Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

I need to express my emotions.

But you go first.

How do you feel right now? Right this minute?

Tired and slightly drunk. I had some wine left over from my uncle and aunt visiting last night. This is unusual. They drink as much as I do (sheesh!), but I am using it up.

I have a lovely cat on my lap. Her name is Mitzi. She is quite beautiful, a longhaired gray and white with gorgeous eyes. She used to hate my guts. I got her with her brother and sister, totally feral. They'd all recently been neutered and given their shots, but the guy who'd taken care of it was deathly allergic to cats, so he left them sitting in their own urine and feces, in traps. It took a loonnng time to get this cat to like me. One evening, she just got an epiphany. I was petting her, diligently, and the lights went on. She LOOKED at me like I was a space alien! Her whole body unstiffened, slightly. After that, it was steady progress. She waited for me in her corner every evening. Now, she truly believes I'm her mommy. She comes to me several times a day, meowing, loving me, wanting to be stroked. I can't get rid of her. I am wondering how I got this lucky with a cat. She trusts me, she adores me. I worked for her trust and ultimately I got it.

If you ask what my emotions are ... I am feeling grateful for Mitzi's love and trust. At the same time, I am a little sad because I am wondering what I have to do to win the trust of my fellow human beings. I worked with this cat. Every day. I kept wishing, hoping, believing. I tried everything. One day, she just opened up. It was like a miracle and it happened all at once. Do you do the same things with people? Do you do it differently? I've lived over 44 years and I still don't know the answer. I still feel alienated and shut out, even with those people who I feel closest to. I don't know the secret.

I guess if you ask how I'm feeling, I'm feeling alone.

my sweet doreen,

you know that I don't live by my emotions. (except when it come to you)

I live by my thoughts.

Sometimes my thoughts affect my emotions. Less frequently my emotions affect my thoughts.

Or maybe I'm a sociopathic artist who can't admit his emotions.

This is all so emotional that I can't find my thoughts.

Pardon me, I"m having an Oprah moment.

Cat-

I had a friend named Ronda. Ronda was a cat lady. She had 15 cats and they all lived in her 2-bedroom apartment with her, jumping up on counters and sofas and tables and the tops of cabinets below the ceiling. She would call me crying when they got leukemia, each dying one by one. I loved Ronda. I'd ask her why she let the cats run rampant in her apartment like that. She had no control over them. They owned her. "Cats are people, too," she told me. I told her I didn't let friends of mine eat off of my countertops out of bowls and she laughed. She had a good laugh even though her philosophy of life was, "Nobody asked me if I wanted to be born."

Ronda had skin like a porcelain doll. Her eyes were the softest baby blue with veins of grey. She was a gentle young lady complete with arrogance and wonder. She was confused by thunderstorms and amused by the delay of her understanding when she got lied to and used. I have searched for Ronda without any luck many times on the internet. I haven't seen her in 20 years. I want to see her again and find out if she ever got the courage to go out into the sun. She didn't want to ruin her skin by such a venture. She'd cry over spilled milk she tripped on because there were too many cat bowls on the kitchen floor. She loved them all more than she loved herself.

Why am I telling you this story? Because I miss Ronda, I guess. And because when you said, "I got lucky with this cat" and explained how you stroked her and eventually responded and explained how she trusts you and adores you now and how you wish you could know how win the trust of human beings, well, it reminded me of Ronda and how much I miss her because so many human beings loved Ronda but she kept trying to win their trust without recognizing that it was already there.

This is about Ronda and my memory of her. Things you said reminded me of it. It doesn't have to do with you but I said I wanted to express my emotions and thank you for the inspiration because here I am expressing them.

Yes, you do the same things with people. No, there is no need to do it differently.

But, just as with animals, with people we get mixed results. Sometimes they respond immediately. More often, they are cautious. They can pull back, leery, with suspecting eyes and retreat without opening up. They are scared their fur isn't soft enough or their claws not as sharp. Maybe. I don't know. I've never had instincts in me so protective. No. That's a lie. I'm lying to myself when I say that.

How do I feel tonight? I posed the question and I'll answer it. If I didn't, I'd be a coward. And a fool.

I have damaged my eye by wearing a contact lens too long. My iris is scraped and swollen. I can't see out of one eye and the pain makes me wince but I am happy to have this inconvenience. The eye doctor dilated my pupil today and dropped anti-biotic fluids in it. Temporary relief made me understand that pain comes back when we are not cured.

Today, I talked about war and expressed my ideology. I confronted a critic who meant well but had little knowledge. I tweaked pixels and hues and colors and placement of letters, then finally put it to bed. I tucked my daughter beneath a love sheet and a quilt. She apologized. "Mommy, I love you. I'm so sorry", she said. I asked her why. She said she was late and she knew I expected her. I told her guilt wasn't necessary. Guilt, I said, wasn't made from love. I gave her a hug and left the room to dig myself out of a dug out.

Nobody needs to feel alienated. I do, though. I understand it when you do, too.

I feel like I need to write my heart. I feel like I need to be a part of my fingers and my tone and the metronome of the rhythm of my soul and to let the dance of the words take hold of my being, to improvise my spirit without worry of judgement or repurcussion or anyone analyzing my syntax or cadence. I feel the need to find a place to be me, accepted on another person's knee with a stroke of a palm and a miracle of a song sung in unison.

It was amazing, really. For years I was dead. One day someone reached out to touch me and I breathed again because I believed a touch could be true. It was a battle. How could I believe I could retrieve the very alleviation from pain by the gain of a companion who I was certain would let me down? I was Pandora, after all. A cat with a box.

I've gone off on a rant, a rampage, a totally obscure tangent. I suppose. I don't know. I have wisdom to share but my iris is scraped or my cornea and since I can only see through one, I 'll take this opportunity to say that I was probably blind anyway before I began to talk. I don't wear a disguise.

Eyes are like that. They can only envision the tones of music. My right eye has been sliced by a fingernail trying to get the lens out, I suppose. Or some other unproposed reason. I don't know. All I know is I can only see when it's not too painful for me. I can only see when it doesn't hurt..

These are my feelings tonight. Nobody needs to feel alone. I have no idea what I wrote. I will read it when tomorrow's metronome begins.

All I want to do is sit on someone's lap and be stroked.

....numb....."

Doreen, that was a wonderful reply, full of empathy and wisdom and poetry. Thank you so much.

I'm going to print it out and save it.

I was in a mood, so you asked your question at the right time and I decided to just take it up. I am so glad I did now because I never expected to get such a beautiful response. We probably do need to talk about our feelings more, and perhaps talk a little less about what we think. Sharing mental space with each other is very stimulating, but I sometimes feel that I am not speaking to persons on the internet but disembodied cerebral cortexes. You were right to bring this subject up. I'd like to hear from more people.

I am sorry to hear about your eye. It sounds terribly painful and annoying. You certainly are not letting it slow you down, as you describe posting to October Earth, caring for your daughter, responding to a critic and generally going about your daily activities. That is amazing, Doreen, you must be a very strong person.

Thank you again for your empathetic commentary and your description of your friend. I also had a friend who experienced Fe Leuk in her multicat household. Fortunately, it was one litter and she isolated them in her bathroom, but she was terrified that it would spread throughout her whole colony. She was lucky and it didn't. She tried so hard to save the kittens, though, and she cried and cried when they all died, one by one. When you rescue, you take certain risks. Karen was an inexhaustible person, rail-thin and constantly in motion. I think she only rarely got a full night's sleep. Most of her nights were spent nursing sick and motherless kittens in her bathrooms.

My cat household is quite stable. Constance (the one I told you about earlier) went into a coma of some kind last week and had to be put to sleep. I am guessing, but she probably had a cyst on her liver and it burst, spreading the poison throughout her system. Poor kitty, and she was doing so well. Her disease wasn't contagious, and the rest of my cats have repeatedly tested negative for all the biggies, like FIV, FELV and so on. They stay indoors, and yes, they DO eat on the floor but I let them go anywhere they like in the house.

And, yes, you are are right. Cats and people do not always come around, even with patience. I have two hard-core ferals that never tamed down.