rustle, rustle, thud

So....


I came back from doing my thing today and as always, promote my image in the neighborhood of being downright strange by beginning - 50 feet or so from the entrance to the cave - to call out to the mad kitten "pa peep! pa pa pa pa peep! Where is my pid pid?"


By this time I have usually reached the door and she comes sing-a-linging out from the bushes to great me.


This time,


I got to the door and no MK.


I pa peeped again and then...


there was this enormous rustling sound up in the tree above and I looked up in time to see her fat little self lose her balance and come falling down through the trees, branches all swaying madly as she tried to get a grip, and go thudding on the ground on the neighbor's side of the fence.


Her pride was hurt more than anything. Nothing that a good nap did not fix and she is back outside trying to master tree climbing again. I think I have mentioned how none of my animals has ever been all that coordinated - cats falling out of trees, dogs tripping down steps - sweet always, but graceful...no.


My life...there it is. In a little puddle of pudge with dirt and twigs stuck in its hair and making little trilling noises while trying to figure out how to get under a fence and back to home ad treatballs.


The Koran burning has been called off. Good. I will believe it when the day has come and gone and nothing has happened. Unfortunately...how to say this...the easiest way to turn a harmless soul into a viper is to give them a little bit of publicity. Imagine what happens when you are not that harmless to begin with.


I have been watching a series of videos that are quite interesting but, not for the faint of heart. They are from the Annenberg Media centers and are a series of interviews about death with people. In them there are things said that I think are true even outside end-of-life environments.


One elderly women said of her visitors that she knows what to expect and who needs her to attend to them rather then be able to attend to her by what they do when they visit.


"Some people," she says, "can't sit still, if there is something to do they are doing it. If the windows is open, they shut it. If the pillow is on one side, they move it to the other. They are always fluffing my hair and telling me how good I look. I don't look good, I am dying. I know this, maybe what they mean to say is I look good for someone who is dying but somehow I think they would faint if they tried to say those words.


People like that who can't sit still when they visit me are people who have no room in themselves for my pain because they are so uncomfortable with their own. People who come and can sit and be still and silent, they have made a peace with their own pain and have room for mine. They can...take some of it for me, for just a little bit, and that is good."


I am slowly returning to the City, I have a much clearer idea of the where and why fors and I am also looking again at the Song, thinking a few more rewrites before I go to planning the video. It is amazing how much you can learn in so little time and then, when you look back you see what has been with such a greater understanding. Not greater, but different.


And sometimes, that is all you need. Not a better understanding, just a different one.



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