Here I sit. I’m in my favorite spot, enjoying my coffee. Outside my windows the sky is that soft, winter grey completely obscuring any blue sky and blocking the sunlight. The feral cats have been appearing and disappearing as they try to eat. I’m not sure what is out there frightening them, it may be that big, monster of a yellow cat that thinks this is its snack bar. That particular cat is a bully so I really don’t care for it to be hanging about. Mom has already made her morning call and our conversation covered the entire gamut of possibilities.
What, does all of that blather have to do with emotions?
Here I sit, comfortable, in peace. My mind is calm and at ease. As I ponder how I want this write to progress, my thoughts bring me a focus on that single word. Emotion. A feeling, a sensation. A mental and physical experience. Have we considered the extent of emotion in our life? Consider an old fashioned patchwork quilt. Many, many pieces and squares, stitched together to form one large quilt. A variety of colors gathered to form one design or pattern. Such is emotion.
I’ve already mentioned the comfort I am feeling sitting here, the peace. But even should I sit here for an extended time period, that doesn’t mean that same peace is the only emotion I will feel. The very contemplation of life around me brings emotions.
That grey, overcast sky, can create a feeling of sadness as I long for Spring and warm clear skies. When I look out and see the barren trees, limbs stretching upward as if reaching for those clouds. The frustration that even as I understand the importance of seasons, that this one, even in the mildness of our area, lasts so long. Personally, I am thankful for the lack of, or small amounts of frozen stuff that we get here. The cold, for me a mind numbing, unpleasant experience for the most part. Oh the big kid in me loves to watch it falling. The photographer loves to capture special scenes, but the scrooge in me wants it to go away quickly.
Watching the cats, even though they are still fairly young, I see in them examples of emotion.
Caution, wariness, always aware of what is going on around them.
Fear, that makes them run at the slightest sign of danger.
Curiosity, as they watch me through the window or see something unusual on the ground near them.
Comfort and contentment as they stretch out on the steps and rest.
Me? I get a joy at watching them as they grow, and a frustration that they cannot understand that my desire to get near them is not to harm but to create in them a trust in humans in the hopes of finding them a good home. One in which they will be taken care of and not need fear ever again.
Then there is that bully of a yellow cat. I have no idea where this cat came from. He is much larger than the feral cats hanging out in mine and my folk’s back yards. He is also mean. I watched him strut up on my back steps and shove literally, the three mousekateers aside. I’ve seen been trying to keep it ran off. I won’t hurt it, I don’t have it in me to hurt it, but I will chase it away. Its too big and too healthy to be a stray. For all the good emotions that the young cats bring out, this thing brings out the opposite.
Often I see comments and memes and other various mentions that we never know how much we love, need, are blessed with, our parents until they are gone. Trust me, I know. Mine are still with us and I appreciate every single day of that. Even when dad calls up here needing something. Even when I take mom somewhere she needs to go and she talks the entire time about things going on. Even when she questions me as if I were sixteen and not sixty-three. I am thankful.
Back when my brothers and I were kids, across the road from our house were trees, not apartments. Pine trees, but still trees waiting to be climbed. When you got to the point where you were as high as you could go, and would look out across the landscape, you felt free. The blood of adventurers flowed within your veins. The breeze, the sunlight, the awe, felt made the climb and the pine sap worth it.
Four years ago, we rescued an abandoned mom cat and her kittens. We brought them into the house so they would be safe, warm and fully adapted to humans by the time they were old enough to find forever homes. A house full of growing, exploring kittens is nothing less than hilarious-and painful at times what with those claws.
My late husband and I were together over thirty years before he died. While the relationship wasn’t perfect it was real. The feeling of being held close, the togetherness that is sharing everything. The moments of quiet, simply being in the same place at the same time. The times when one needs something and the other goes completely out of their way to make it happen. When you sacrifice what you want, for their desires.
And then, there is the fact that yesterday I made brownies. Not ordinary brownies, but brownies with peanut butter cookie baked in. Hot, straight out of the oven, bad for the health but good for the soul brownies.
So many feelings. So many emotions. So many squares to the quilt of life.
Words from The Dirt Road 