Books, Cats and the Moon

This morning at the sound of my alarm I opened my sleep filled eyes and, head still resting on my pillow, looked out my window. I saw the moon, almost a crescent, way up above me barely visible threatening to get lost in the shadows of the rain-filled clouds wrapping themselves around it. It was so beautiful and alluring I longed to close my eyes again and drift with it through those clouds back into sleep and dreams…Alas, it was not meant to be.I got up and got ready for the day and perhaps tomorrow I'll see the moon again.

Last week I finished reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I wouldn't say that that I loved the book, but I am really glad that I read it. Over my life I have learned about the horrors of slavery in history classes, through documentaries, and historical fiction. But the words in this book rang out with a truth stronger then all of them combined, and I think it’s because they were written by someone who lived these times and who saw with her own eyes the atrocities that had become part of the daily fabric of this country in that time. She knew first hand people who experienced that hell and because of this has a force and passion behind her words that no one today would be able to match regardless of how much research and study they've done.

I am now reading “The Golem and the Jinni” by Helene Wecker. This book was nominated for the 2014 Maine Reader’s Choice award and when I noticed it displayed on my library bookshelf it looked too enticing to pass by. I’m a little over halfway through and I love it! While reading yesterday, the story brought me to the passage below - an idea that has me fascinated…

            “You came here last night and stood beneath my window, and you knew I wouldn’t be asleep in bed. How?”

            That brought him up short. He laughed in genuine surprise. “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t even consider it.” He thought for a long movement and finally said, “That night, when we met, you didn’t move like someone who should be home in bed. Perhaps that’s how I knew. Everyone else walks differently at night than during the day. Have you noticed?”

            “Yes!” she exclaimed. “As though they’re fighting off sleep, or running away from it, even if they’re wide awake.”

            “But not you,” he said. “You were lost, but you were walking as though the sun was high overhead.”

If anyone reads this – is this something you have seen before? I haven’t I’ve never even thought about it, but I’m now obsessed with discovering if it’s true with my own eyes!

And now at the most important part of this post. It was 8 years ago today that my mom, sisters and I walked into the warehouse at the AK Humane Society Adopt-a-Cat shelter and walked back out with a small black and white tabby we christened Princess Synge. If asked that day I would have sworn left, right and backwards that while cats were cool I was a dog person and nothing would ever change that. Of course I would have been wrong, because not even 3 months went by before she had me wrapped around her little paw and 100% a cat person through and through. One of my favorite quotes is “You are my cat, and I am your human”; I don’t know why (and I never will) Synge decided that out of everyone I was her human, but I am forever grateful. She has been a constant source of comfort through all the good and bad I’ve experienced over the years; my source of joy when I had a hard time finding any.

I know that being an only cat in Maine has been hard for her, that she’s been lonely, which is why I am so unbelievably pleased with how well Faelina has fit into our little family. Synge may not always like having her face and tail attacked every 5 minutes because the baby thinks it’s “FUN!” but every day I can see that she is happier and more content now that she has someone to share her time with when I’m gone.  She’s given me so much and I’m glad I was able to help her as well. 

I once read the words "My cat came out of nowhere and became my everything" and though Synge and Faelina do not make up my entire life I know that without them my days would be darker and my spirit less then whole.