There she is, reacting to an animal sound while sitting underneath the car.
The shot’s a little fuzzy because it’s a telephoto image taken at dusk, but I like it. (I have to remember to carry that monopod when the light gets low, dang it. You can catch the beginning of a new FotoFeed series here, by the way.) That’s Callie the Wonder Cat, of course. My wife finally noticed that I call all our pets that and remarked that I could have been a daddy after all.
That’s a very loving thing to say. Not that we ever wanted to raise a family — I actually wanted the line to end, myself — she meant that I showed promise as a human. I certainly hope so, because it’s been a long strange trip, and I’d like to reach my destination before they kick me off the train.
Something is coming around again, though, wanting to be noticed. I think we got close to it the other night, when I was uncharacteristically brave about expressing certain regrets. There’s unfinished mourning, I think, about what we gave up to come out here. This seems especially relevant in light of crumbling edifices of global finance, of course. No sane person would have managed it the way I did, which says a lot — and yet, it couldn’t have happened any differently. That would have been someone else, not me, just as I now 10 years later don’t recognize that man at all.
Anyway, I let them fly, the thoughts and feelings, and she encouraged me to talk. By and by I drilled the point in too deeply, as is my wont, and suddenly her eyes welled up: “I don’t think I can take this,” she said, turning slightly away. I finished the sentence anyway, and there it was, the really ghastly pain: no one “lost it” (though perhaps we need to), but neither of us shot the messenger. It was a remarkable moment, the three of us together.
A few hours later, there was the barest sense of relief, just over the hill, and the next morning, everything clicked: suddenly there was creative electricity in the air, a hint of savage goodness on the way. The unseen weight was not entirely gone but seemed quite loosely connected, suggesting its attachment was ultimately a matter of choosing to eat the thing or not.
(You really are what you don’t eat, of course, not the other way around. This ain’t your father’s nutrition!)
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