He Who Will Not Be Touched

/ still a dreamer

It’s tough looking after a feral cat. And by that I mean beyond making sure he always has enough food and fresh water, and de-worming him at the end of summer,  there’s not much more you can do for a cat that has never been touched. He will run in terror if you approach him or even make too loud a noise. I call him Little Fee. (He appeared in Summer 2009, and I initially thought he was a female, and named him Fiona.)

I continue to be amazed at how this little guy – so small, he must have been the runt of his litter – tugs at my heartstrings. He will run at the drop of a hat, but lately he has been a little more brave. He seems to know that he has some small sense of entitlement on my back porch. If  he is already eating at the back door, he will continue eating his fill and ignore the cat from next door that normally threatens and chases him away. He even dares to look him in the eye, then continue eating.

“She loves me,” I imagine him saying. “I belong here, too.”

But once done, he slinks away submissively in slow motion so as not to challenge the next door cat who also spends time with me and on my porch.

Imagine my surprise when I went into the kitchen for coffee late this morning and saw none other than Little Fee sound asleep on one of the back porch chairs, (see photo above), looking for all the world like he lived here and was just napping. I say surprise because I have never once seen this cat sound asleep on a chair on my porch – he seemingly just discovered it as an actual possibility. I took the photo through the closed back door and storm screen. If I’d opened it, the moment would have been lost, and since my intention is not for a gallery shot so much as a moment, it’s as unfocused and grainy as it is.

Little Fee … who would think one could be so in love with a creature that cannot – will not – be touched?

Some Authors Just Never Get Old

/ still a dreamer

Sometimes it seems like it will take forever to finish a book. No comment on the book itself, just a million distractions, some good, some bad. But how wonderful is it when you are reading an author you love to read and can finally come back to and re-immerse yourself in the story.

I am always amazed when people tell me they don’t like to read. I can’t figure out how that happens. I was most fortunate to be reading at a very early age, perhaps because I was being read to at a very early age. Whether my mother, grandmother or father – or actually even my grandfather sometimes reading us the Sunday comics! – it does seem that there was always someone engaging us in the magic of reading. For this, I am deeply grateful.

I am also deeply grateful that there are so many wonderful authors writing. One whom I’ve loved to read, though I have admittedly only read 3 of her novels thus far, is Barbara Kingsolver. When I first read The Poisonwood Bible, I was blown away. The storyline, the characters, the premise, the setting, but most of all, just how she wrote. So recently, I read The Bean Trees and reread Pigs in Heaven, more wonderful than I remember it.

I am sad to end one of Kingsolver’s books, though I have another one from that annual book sale awaiting me on the shelf, but I got the chance to peruse the many novels I’d chosen from the sale, and am starting The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. Having shelves of books awaiting to be read is, indeed, an embarrassment of riches.

The Delaware River – Post Hurricane Irene

/ still a dreamer

There’s not much I could possibly say about Hurricane Irene that hasn’t been said 50 ways from Sunday, but I can post a couple photos of what the Delaware River looks like post-Hurricane. I went out this morning to take a look – fast-moving, brown, and carrying all manner of tree and other debris. This is already post-crest stage, but the Delaware is so high as to have inundated trees, docks and some buildings across the way in PA. I had taken some photos awhile back, thinking it was high then – which it was – but what could be seen on the PA side in March 2008  – not even visible.

The Delaware in March 2008

The Delaware August 29, 2011

And a different view taken from the nearby bridge to PA, looking northwest, taken in February 2009

And although in a different season, it can be seen that after Hurricane Irene, the bases of all trees are totally submerged. Those of us who live so close to the Delaware River continue to be thankful that the lay of the land is such that she has never, since 1955, approached our homes.

Reading Feeds Writing (still)

/ still a dreamer

One of the things I love talking about with friends is what books we are reading and what we are writing. The two topics are often in the same conversation.

One friend is working very hard on her middle grade novel. I am generally working on picture books; however, a middle grade novel is slowly writing itself in my head. I’m asked if I’m not writing this down. I am not. But little by little I am getting to know my characters and I have a fair idea of where they’ve come from, what is shaping their dilemmas and where they are going. When the time is right, and when I know them better, I will begin the writing process.

Meanwhile, I read.  In talking with my friend, we discussed the 3 books I have just finished. She had not read two, but was interested in doing so for the reasons I’ll describe. She was reading, but lost interest in and abandoned, the third.

The first is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I had seen the movie – it was light, probably a “chick flick” – but I liked it.
Advantage to Writer? Observing and understanding realistic  dialogue and relationships between teenage girls.

The second is The Divide by Nicholas Evans, probably best known as the author of The Horse Whisperer. I also read The Loop by him. What a way Evans has of engaging you in a story, building up suspense, then taking a sharp turn away to another character, leaving you wanting more. I only hope, whenever I write my novel, that I can hold a reader’s interest like he does.
Advantage to Writer? Learning how to pace a novel for maximum effect.

The third, (and unfinished by my friend), is The Lovely Bones by Alice Siebold. This was a daring first novel, told from the first person POV of a 12 year old girl who is raped and murdered, and is now in heaven. This could have been really strange, quirky or sappy. It was none of these, and it had my attention through to the end.
Advantage to Writer? Learning to trust in your own unique story ideas, that writing from the deepest and most real place within is where the best stories will always come from.

I trust that all I’m learning is soaking into my unconscious and always making me a better writer. And so the enjoyment of wonderful books continues. What is your reading bringing to you?

Re-Finding Ourselves

/ still a dreamer

I woke up this morning not feeling fully awake – I remember waking at 12:40, then 1 something, then 5:40 with a jolt – a disturbing noise that may have only been in my dream. When I finally got up at 6:30, I hardly felt rested.

In the kitchen, I found that one of my cats, who has recently returned to dragging food out of the bowl with his paw, had dragged the entire bowl to the center of the kitchen floor which was now littered with many small pieces of half-eaten food. Are they trying to attract mice?

With coffee in me, I was thinking of work, how much I had to do right now, and how much time I was spending in my office. The open doors and windows brought in a breeze and drew me out to the porch, where I sat down and realized what an absolutely gorgeous morning it was.

I watched a little spider on one of the yews valiantly mending her web as fast as the breeze would blow a bit of it away. Sunlight glistened on web strands of larger spiders, and as the breeze would move them, it seemed as a scintilla of light traveled a diagonal from the porch rail to the roof.

I heard birds I didn’t recognize – I heard what sounded like the high pitch of a seagull, but I’ve never once seen a seagull in this area. Perhaps it was a late-summer baby clamoring for food, or maybe one of the numerous catbirds had mastered a new voice.

Sitting there, peaceful at last, I wanted to stay … to delay the inevitable, and just enjoy a cool summer morning and do nothing. I am always amazed at the healing power of even a few moments spent appreciating nature, if only from my porch. We can usually re-find ourselves by taking a little time away from our many demands and just being with the simple wonders of the natural world.

And then I saw him. It was a seagull, indeed, circling in the sky. I wondered if he had lost his flock and was calling out to be found. His cry had such a desperate air to it, and he flew in wider and wider circles, but still in view. I hoped someone would come looking for this seemingly lost soul. I returned inside, having found myself, and hoping that he, too, would soon find himself where he needed to be.