Furry

Last year, I had a travel alarm clock with a built in thermometer that I obsessed over to make sure the cave stayed warm. Then, in the spring, the battery died and it would seem to be an impossible thing for me to remember to get one AAA battery to fire it up again. Impossible, but not really necessary as well which is, I think, half the reason I have not gone out and done it. You see, I discovered that I have another thermometer in the house that is much more reliable, the Mad Kitten.

I can tell the comfort level of the house by how she is sleeping. If it is chilly, she curls up. If it is cold, she tucks all her paws under her body. If it is just right, she sprawls in a manner that borders on the pornographic. I have never met a cat who can make sleeping look like such a luxurious hobby.

It has been a long but good day. I had to finally pry myself out of the cave and go work at a café because I was constantly succumbing to MK’s charms and just not getting anything done. Six hours later, I am significantly caught up with my work and with the magic of deep breathing, my heart rate never broke 84. Until I was walking home and snapped my favorite pipe and had to go get a new one. It was slightly embarrassing to be shown the “idiot proof” pipes that the owner of the shop thinks will actually be able to last longer than a month with me. Maybe if I can keep my stress down I will be less prone to breaking things.

It’s a funny thing how life goes in waves. In the past week or so I have been surrounded with chance encounters with people all concerned about the same thing – ridding themselves of the old tapes that play in their head. They can’t hear them, but they know they are there, acting like poison on their mind, body and soul. Everyone has a different plan for how to overcome these hidden messages. There are charts, graphs, worksheets – you name it. But is may be as simple as recognizing when one of them is playing (and I imagine a wall with speakers in it when I say this) and choosing to go around the wall instead of over or through it.

Sometimes we can get caught up in trying to see exactly what the bricks are made of, or trying to hear the words clearly – but sometimes, what is there is so….ancient, so unimportant – really just a lingering ghost that the specifics are not important. Like the phrase, “I am not what I have been; I am what I choose to be.” Focus should be kept on becoming who you want to be, achieving the life you want to have and at some point the past must be relegated to a history book. You will never lose it, but the power it extends over your present life is greatly reduced.

It would be wrong-minded to dismiss the experiences of the past completely, or as the saying goes, you are doomed to repeat it. The things that happen to us change us, but they don’t always have to change us for the worse. Yet, continuously placing a great importance on what has been gives it a kind of supernatural power over your life in the present.

It is windy and pouring rain here. A friend just sent me a link to the new AbFab special that just aired. I am tired and a little written out from the madness of the day. Tomorrow I get to do it again. But it feels good to know that as well.

The Mad Kitten is sprawled. It is late December and she has taken over my good winter jackets again. Tomorrow I schedule the New Year’s eve show for Grace Independent and start writing it.

It feels so good to have both feet planted firmly on the ground and my head returning to the clouds.

Onward and upward.

c.2011. Cassandra Tribe. Alrights reserved.