August 27: Tuxedo Cat Love

I don't think I've ever written about my cat, Mittens. I had a dream about her last night. I think it's because we have Naomi (aka Baby Nay Nay) now and I constantly tell Aria that life is better with a tuxedo cat in the house. She loves to hear my childhood stories with Mittens.

Mittens was the quintessential Sylvester cat with white puss and paws and black everything else. I got her when I was 3 or 4 in my Uncle Ray's barn. I can still remember picking her up for the first time. She felt like love.

She lived until I was 19. She was a constant source of comfort in an otherwise tumultuous childhood home.

My parents were still married when I got Mittens. We lived in a farm house back then. Every Saturday I'd wake up when there were still colored bars on the TV to await the start of cartoons. I held Mittens in my lap and insisted she watch with me. I have tiny scars on my wrists from my persistence in holding her with me for hours on end in an upright position. 

I remember my parents telling us they were getting divorced. I was 5. I didn't know anyone who had divorced parents. I was ground zero for divorce in my world. I remember asking what that was, and my mom explaining that we'd be moving. I remember getting excited about change - about where we'd live and what it'd be like. I also remember my dad was very sad, and I could not understand why. I didn't realize he wasn't coming, too.

My mom, sister and I moved to a little apartment in McGregor mid-divorce while things transitioned. Our bedroom was only big enough to host a twin bed, so my sister and I would rotated between the bed and a sleeping bag on the floor. We had a babysitter now (I hadn't had a babysitter before) who made fried egg sandwiches (which I hated). 

We no longer had my dad. Visceral memories of running into his arms at full throttle when he got home from work, all handsome and respectable in his National Guard uniform. Being twirled around or having a piggy back ride or just snuggled in his arms while he watched football. Hiding his cigarettes so he'd live forever. Crawling into bed with him and feeling more special than all the words I know could convey as he hugged me. Being a daddy's girl in every sense. 

Once you don't live with someone, you can have snippets of joy with them. But it's not the same. It was never the same again. All that warmth and open-hearted trust (my safety in loving, in essence), left once we moved out. It shattered some things within me.

The apartment memories are haunted with this loss for me. But Mittens was there. And had kittens there. So I had plenty of things to hold and love. Tiny little fluffs of fur to patch up my wounds.

My mom married Oliver, the minister, a few months later. We moved to Cedar Falls for him to complete seminary (he switched from the UCC to the Methodist church). We lived in a tiny one bedroom shack (it was not really a house) next to Oliver's parents' home. We walked to school (I was in 1st grade) every day. There was a boy who chased me on the playground to see my underwear. 

I cried. A lot. But felt like I had to hide my tears and so learned how to be secretive. How to cry on a schedule. As though sadness were an emotion we could turn on and off like a water tap. As though it was something to be ashamed of feeling. 

We moved six months later to Pomeroy, where Oliver was assigned to 3 churches. I was mid-way through 1st grade. We stayed in Pomeroy until I was 15. There are a world of memories there, both good and bad. Mittens had dozens of kittens in that home. Because she was my cat, I got to name the kittens. They brought me boundless joy every single time. 

She slept with me. If I sat down, she found her way to my lap and purred up a storm. She had this beautiful habit of finding me when I was silently sobbing (remember - I had shame in sorrow and grieved alone). She'd nestle in my lap and let me bury my head in her fur to muffle any sound I might make. She was a nurturer to me, and that was in low supply during my youth. I guess if the Darling children had a nanny who was a dog in Peter Pan, I had a cat nanny in my own life's script.

We moved to Belle Plaine when I was 15. Mittens came along. Belle Plaine was all about my high school years. I think I was far more interested in boys and friends than cats then. I followed the pattern of the teenage girl without a father figure looking externally for love and acceptance. For worth. From this vantage point, I sure wish I'd continue to allow that cat to nurture me. It would have saved some heartache and poor choices.

I left for Cornell College with eyes facing forward. I wanted wings. Great big fly-above-the-clouds wings that would carry me far, far away. I wasn't worried about leaving my kitty. I'd had her forever, and maybe that caused me to take her for granted. Maybe those forward-facing eyes were more worried about scanning the horizon for next boy I'd love rather than looking back and allowing remembrances of love in any form from a scarred past. 

My mom had Mittens put to sleep during my freshman year at Cornell. I wasn't told, and didn't know until I came home for a visit and couldn't find her. 

I can remember the first time I looked upon Mittens in a barn. I cannot for all the world remember the last time I saw her. 

Air Supply - All Out of Love

I spun this song time and again on my record player, crying over missing my dad. I can feel Mittens in my arms when I hear it. She was such a blessing to me.

August 26: Everything and Nothing

Today was deep thoughts on what it means to truly love, little thoughts on canning versus jarring tomatoes, and everything in-between. 

Mazzy Star - Fade Into You

August 24: Quilts

I am a thinker. I can take a subject like relationships and twist them round and round like a Rubik's cube...that sometimes comes out jumbled and needs to be tossed aside.

Today, I was thinking about our lives and how many others we touch in the span of a lifetime. 

The majority of the people in our world are optional. We have a limited time in our youth and then we can leave home and childhood behind. College is 4 years. We can change jobs. Heck, you can even vary where you buy groceries if you don't want the check-out clerk to judge your wine and frozen pizza purchases.

Our family....it's permanent. Even if you leave your childhood home and never look back. Your family has a hold on you in ways no one else ever will. They teach us our value. They affirm we are worth loving. They grace us with invincibility or fragility from others perceptions and judgments of us. They create our foundation. 

I see people carry out painful stories from their childhoods again and again through adulthood. It's powerful what we are told and shown from the womb forward. It's itnerlaced into our daily bread living even when we aren't aware of its power over us.

Interlacing made me think about quilts. How my life is such a patchwork quilt. We have all these little snippets that are the sum of our experiences.

Some are stunning, and truly we'd be blessed if we had a tangible reminder of them. Others make us grieve again and again whenever we bring them to the present via memory.

Hiding under an old bush and staring up at Orion wishing I could be elsewhere. That one moment in the Shenandoah mountains when the sun broke over the ridge and I felt God. Walking onto the stage at King Chapel at Cornell and singing to receive a scholarship (and nailing it!). The vivid red roses in my wedding bouquet and feeling more beautiful than I knew was possible as an entire chapel filled with loved ones turned to greet me with love. A hug that felt like a home every time I stepped into it. Holding Aria in my arms for the first time. Saying goodbye to my grandpa in hospice. 

A million fragments of bliss and beauty and sorrow. My life is snippets. Tiny patches in a glorious quilt.

Coldplay - The Scientist

August 21: Empathy

Watched Divergent with Ms. A. She had tears of rage streaming down her cheeks at various points. I think she'd wrap the world in a protective barrier if she could. 

She feels things so deeply. It's stunning to witness.

Iron & Wine - Naked As We Came

August 20: Tall Girl

Aria started 5th grade today. I was remembering my own 5th grade experience. It was the first year I was taller than my teacher. 

Aria thrives on being the tallest in her class. I used to hate it. I hunched my shoulders, refused heels well into my 20s, and felt huge rather than elegant in my height. 

When people meet Aria, the first thing they comment upon is her height. She's 10 years old and 5'5". I always add, "and she loves playing piano" or "and she has a cat named Pixie she adopted" or "and she's also really into art." to their "You are SO tall" declaration!

We can't choose our height, and so it's just an attribute, not something special that we've accomplished. It's not different than telling a girl she's pretty versus that she's great at math. We want to validate that which we value most and want to build within another. 

I love for Aria to be validated in things she chooses. I wish I could have told my little 5th grade self some of the tremendous traits I possessed but didn't have championed. 

I wonder if I would have stood taller for it.

Colbie Caillat - Try

August 19: 3 B's

Today was filled with 3 B's:

Berries:

Butterflies:

Bliss (I know this looks like a giant gnome but it was a bliss-filled garden that just happened to have a giant gnome):

Thought we'd end it with some blissful music, too!

Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl

August 18: A + B = C

Aria and I were having one of those rambling talks that might start with a mundane topic and then scampers into something frivolous only to become deep and insightful. She’s a great conversationalist.

This weekend we were talking about teens in general, and in particular burgeoning hormones in teens. That led to discussions of relationships and marriage. For many kids, marriage is probably a foregone conclusion in many ways. They have married parents. Maybe with step-parents, but most people are partnered. Or are looking to be partnered. Our society is geared toward partnerships. We celebrate romance. We glamorize it even. We don’t view “single” as a desired end state. It is unfinished. Messy.

In Aria’s world, it’s been just her and me since she was 4, when I got divorced. And even before that, her dad traveled for a living so it’s been us forever. Men are not a foregone conclusion to her. In fact, due to struggles in that arena, men seem rather messy to her. Unnecessary to happiness. We’re happy all alone, after all. She sees no reason to change that.

Which led in our discussion to parthenogenesis.

If you haven’t geeked out on this particular form of science, parthenogenesis happens when an unfertilized egg can produce offspring. Or in essence, no mate is required to have babies. The word literally means “virgin creation” in Greek.

Komodo dragons have been known to reproduce in this way. New Mexico’s whiptail can do it also. Sharks. Even honey bees.

Aria is rather fiercely proud of her independence. In fact, if I had a concern for her, it’s that she needs more safe men in her world to teach her the value of male role models, of potential partners, that there are good guys out there. In many ways, her love of her world and having no desire to change it is a compliment. A victory. A confirmation to me that I’m doing well with her. We are complete as is.

But I’d be lying if I told you I don’t worry about it sometimes. I’d love to provide a sketch of what’s possible for her. (And for me.).

Back to parthenogenesis. I would have expected Aria to be a champion of parthenogenesis. It affirms everything she knows about independent, strong women to be able to have a baby all alone. Nary even a sperm donor in site. Completely alone.

Nope. Aria was saying how we people need each other. That whether you believe in God or simply evolution of our species, we were built to be together. It’s required to have both a male and female to reproduce. And didn’t I think nature was trying to tell us something? “Don’t swim upstream, mom. Just float. We need each other, like it or not.”

It sounds really basic. I mean, we all know A + B = C. We learn it when we are young. For me, it was in 5^th grade when the boys were escorted from the room and the girls learned about menstruation, about how body parts fit together to create babies, about s-e-x. We entered the classroom as girls and exited “in the know.” It was a big deal.

What it’s taken a lifetime for me to learn (and I continue to evolve through this learning) is that we need each other. As independent and self-sufficient as we are, we ultimately need each other if we are to survive as a species.

Simple and profound at once. 

Rusted Root - Send Me On My Way