Joining Unseen Friends

Looking without naming.

Dear friend,

I’m next door keeping the kittens company. Maisie is more curious than Souza, who has exited via the cat flap for a nosy around the neighborhood.

From where I’m sitting, I can see a picture of Pax, our neighbors' first cat. Maisie is physically quite similar in some ways. She’s tiny and very pretty, but her fur has very different markings. Maisie is blue-gray where Pax was more mackerel tabby. She keeps looking intently into space. Earlier today, it seemed pretty clear she was looking at something I couldn’t see. She looked a little bit spooked, so I called on the saints just in case, and she relaxed.

Strange.

Neither Souza nor Maisie has any connection to Pax.

We grew to love that cat, nursing her in her last months on the planet.

Souza hadn’t gone out after all; she’s just slunk down the stairs like a 1930s Hollywood diva. She’s come to see what’s going on, but isn’t too fussed about being stroked, and has now exited with a flick of her tail, triggering the security lights until they click off, so all we can see is ourselves reflected in the glass.

It’s not such a bad planet when you weigh it all up.

The weight of the media can get you down.
Personal relationships can be challenging.
There are plenty of legitimate causes for concern.

At the same time, there are almost infinite reasons to give thanks. Somewhere, someplace, there’s always a person offering appreciation.

You join in with unseen friends when you remember to pause and step out of the busyness.

The shared emotion strengthens the direction—towards peace and understanding.

At the back of all acts of appreciation is love.

The concert on Saturday—I didn’t update you on it—was astonishing. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt loved us, and his fellow musicians, and the audience loved them all back. It was so warm and intimate and playful. The interplay of the musicians, their humility, the improvisation, and connection.

If you get the chance, go see them.

I’ve no idea what Maisie was seeing. Cats are so fascinating like that.

Both of them are very unimpressed with my obsession with the keyboard.

Souza’s back from her prowl. She’s caught something.

I follow her as she scarpers upstairs, thinking it might be some poor unfortunate creature, but it’s a leaf. She has a little collection of them on the rug in the front office. Now she wants a tummy rub. She’s extraordinarily long, with a huge thick bushy tail, lets me fuss her for a while, has a little chew on my knuckles, and then I can hear my phone ringing downstairs.

It’s Chiara.

We’ve been having a nice day. She’s baking biscuits and making gnocchi, taking a pause. Earlier, just as the late afternoon light was fading into dusk, I took a walk around the neighborhood and looked at the colored lights that are appearing on people’s houses. Someone had hung a four-way extension out of their window to power three sets of fairy lights. They’d made a grid all over the front of the house, and I was glad for the color it brought as the sun sank someplace beyond a distant horizon. In the park, I practiced looking without commentary, and it was really nice to see things as they are, not the way my mind likes to project when it’s running on default mode.

We’re both back with cats.

We’re going to find something on Mubi to watch. Mubi lets you gift a film, so I’ll work out how to do it here if you like the sound of whatever we’ve watched.

Remember to breathe.

Till tomorrow,
Love,
Mikey