Journal entry
On cat hair, nostrils and bending time
It’s cooler this morning, and that’s a bloody relief, although the cat hair is bugging me and I’m cleaning again.
***
It’s 8.45 on a Saturday morning and no-one has messaged me, and my mind tells me that no one cares.
It’s a seismic leap, and one that is all too familiar.
***
There is, of course, an entirely different version of this story.
I’m sat in a beautiful garden, one that is lovingly tended to by a dear friend, drinking tea whilst the pond bubbles away in the background.
The cleaning was on behalf of my son, messy bugger that he is. It is also an expression of gratitude for the generosity of this sanctuary, for the person who tends it lovingly and allows me to enjoy it without demand.
***
That no-one has messaged me is hardly evidence of anything, given I have several unanswered in my inbox, friends reaching out, checking in, saying hi.
***
The mind is a trickster at times.
***
Closer to the truth is something like this.
I’m dog tired. Understandably so after an intense few months.
But unlike a dog who will dutifully sleep when tiredness commands, I have a strange quirk in my system. Tiredness creates stress. Stress creates a torrent of activity, much of it generated in the sinew and synapse of my own brain, one that sees me running ever faster to outfox the fatigue.
It’s fruitless, I know. I should have learned that by now. But old habits die hard.
It’s almost as if this part of me believes it can bend time. If I run fast enough, I’ll arrive back before where I started, before it all, before the things that accumulated into a bone-deep fatigue.
I can’t, of course. And I can laugh along with the part of me that believes this twisted logic. I kind of love her spirit, although it’s wearing thin.
***
The cat hair, incidentally, is especially abundant on account of my deep bonding, aka grooming, with a beloved family pet.
It is not her fault that her discarded fur manages to find its way up my nostrils.
It is insanely irritating.
***
My tea goes cold now and I’m tired of seeing in so many layers. It’s exhausting and also slightly comical.
Perhaps, secretly, she’s a comedian or a time traveller, this part of me that believes she can mould the shape of time and play tricks with truths.
Perhaps she’s a storyteller and the plot twists are just too beguiling.
Perhaps she’s a cat whose curiosity can’t help but take her close to the edge, paws reaching over, coat glossy in the morning sun, waiting for the precise moment to launch herself.
***
If only she didn’t molt.