Permanent Bond

Today as I walked by a shelf in the studio, I read the glue label marked, “Permanent Bond,” and my mind flashed back to when my niece gave birth. It was very important to her that she and her husband be left alone for a few days to bond with their child. My mother, who raised three girls without once hearing the b-word gave the sidelong look but said nothing.

Then my mind flashed back further. I had been called from the porch by the wild cat I had adopted two months before and sat with her as, like a ditto machine, she pumped out three small copies of herself. After these two most intimate hours of my life, how could I have given any of the kittens away? Of these four cats, two are now long dead, but the others have been with me for 11 years and I now have a name for the warm fullness I felt for the three tiny gray kittens.

These cats who leave small piles of organs in doorways—who insist on curling up on my hip or my shoulder as I lay reading, in spite of my allergic reaction to them—who meow insistently at  closed doors and shower cubicles. “Now, now, now, “ they insist. These cats who bring in baby rabbits, fleas, ticks, and the disembodied tails of salamanders to wriggle out of sight under the sofa—who bring me their infected cuts and  ears torn half-way off in cat fights—who, as kittens, could curl up three to a flower pot leaving the flower intact . These cats who know how to form a beautiful still life each time they come to rest—these cats to whom, I must admit, I have become bonded.

When I try to imagine where I will be in ten years, I see myself living somewhere wild, getting to know the local animals, getting wiser. I know that much of what I’ve learned about humans, I’ve discovered through living with animals. You have to be calm. Quiet. Let them come to you. Don’t grab and don’t make swift movements.

Some might call people with the temperament to calm animals boring. But if you look closely, you might see through to the quietness that fills out their beings. They have let the calmness take over. They have ceased fighting it.

I feel what might be this calmness, but wonder if it is instead numbness. And my mind works out the answer. Numbness is filled with emptiness whereas calmness is filled with small details. The line of blue bottles on the shelf. The red leaves at the very tip of the otherwise green plant. The curl of the cat’s head thrown forward onto i’s stomach. The outflung paw. The dear face of this most beautiful cat that I saw being born.

The MVB prompt today is Permanent