I’m aware it’s wicked predictable that I’m obsessed with the weather, me hailing from Massachusetts and all (pun intended, always). But still: I don’t get the people who weren’t wasted by this last spate of swampy days; who aren’t deeply relieved by the cooler temperatures of today. When it grows as muggy as it did over the weekend I turn into a dirty, hot, wet towel who simply cannot think–let alone answer emails, be clever at dinner, or, yoiks, don grownup-lady clothes and lipstick. There’s a reason we always talk about the weather, and it’s not that we have nothing else (polite) to discuss. It’s because weather matters even more than we controlling humans care to admit. A cigar may never be a cigar but what we really talk about when we talk about the weather is, in fact, weather.
I consider nothing more luxuriant than waking naturally, unprompted by an alarm, fixing a cup of strong coffee with cream, and then settling back into bed amidst a drift of peonies, pillows, sheets, unread books. A mild wind fluttering through the curtain, a kitten poised at the open window’s sill. And silence. Voluptuous, soft silence. Yes, yes, another effusive post that could be chalked up to much ado about nothing. But I never forego the power in appreciating small pleasures. It allows you to find happiness pretty much everywhere.
One of the great satisfactions of rescuing a stray kitten, as I did five years ago this week, is that her affection is so hard-won that she opens my heart a little wider each time she creeps into my lap, or the crook of my arm as I am reading, or beneath my palm so that I may scratch her ears just-so, just-so. I know how much it takes for Grace to push past her fears to offer me her belly–lord knows what happened on the semi-mean streets of Brooklyn in the six weeks of her life before she showed up on the stoop of my heart–and I know how much I’ve had to quiet myself to become the gentle being to whom she dares offers herself. With each animal-human relationship comes great lessons and greater pleasures if we allow ourselves to receive them. I’ll say it one more time: I’m so happy to be a cat lady.
I’m aware it’s wicked predictable that I’m obsessed with the weather, me hailing from Massachusetts and all (pun intended, always). But still: I don’t get the people who weren’t wasted by this last spate of swampy days; who aren’t deeply relieved by the cooler temperatures of today. When it grows as muggy as it did over the weekend I turn into a dirty, hot, wet towel who simply cannot think–let alone answer emails, be clever at dinner, or, yoiks, don grownup-lady clothes and lipstick. There’s a reason we always talk about the weather, and it’s not that we have nothing else (polite) to discuss. It’s because weather matters even more than we controlling humans care to admit. A cigar may never be a cigar but what we really talk about when we talk about the weather is, in fact, weather.
I consider nothing more luxuriant than waking naturally, unprompted by an alarm, fixing a cup of strong coffee with cream, and then settling back into bed amidst a drift of peonies, pillows, sheets, unread books. A mild wind fluttering through the curtain, a kitten poised at the open window’s sill. And silence. Voluptuous, soft silence. Yes, yes, another effusive post that could be chalked up to much ado about nothing. But I never forego the power in appreciating small pleasures. It allows you to find happiness pretty much everywhere.
One of the great satisfactions of rescuing a stray kitten, as I did five years ago this week, is that her affection is so hard-won that she opens my heart a little wider each time she creeps into my lap, or the crook of my arm as I am reading, or beneath my palm so that I may scratch her ears just-so, just-so. I know how much it takes for Grace to push past her fears to offer me her belly–lord knows what happened on the semi-mean streets of Brooklyn in the six weeks of her life before she showed up on the stoop of my heart–and I know how much I’ve had to quiet myself to become the gentle being to whom she dares offers herself. With each animal-human relationship comes great lessons and greater pleasures if we allow ourselves to receive them. I’ll say it one more time: I’m so happy to be a cat lady.