Cory Tamed Me
Cory wasn't there last evening. This morning as Gravitas and I stood at the Usual Place, discussing who might have eaten the food we'd left out, Cory emerged from under a car parked nearby and meowed at us. I was momentarily overjoyed. But as I extended my arm to offer the food we'd brought to him, he drew back, and as I continued to call his name, he ran across the street. I followed him across the street, and he jumped into the drain. I decided not to pursue him since it was quite obvious he didn't want to be touched. The food remained untouched each time I checked on it this morning.
Then this afternoon, on my way home from an outing with mumsie, we stopped by the Usual Place so I could see if the food had been eaten. It wasn't there anymore and the plate we'd left it on was upside down. I tried looking around to see whether the food had been eaten or if someone had merely kicked the plate. Before I knew it, Cory was there. "Cory!" I called. "Meow," he replied. But as I approached him, again he ran across the street.
When he saw that I was following him, he again jumped into the drain. I followed him along the drain and each time I called his name, he replied with a meow. When I stopped following him, he too stopped walking and sat down. He would meow when I spoke to him, but he wouldn't come to me.
I though maybe he was afraid that if he came back to us, we'd bundle him off to the vet to be poked and prodded.
Gravitas suggested that he'd reverted to a feral state.
Mumsie offered that he wants to be free.
Free to do what? To roam? To go hungry, to catch diseases, to get injured in fights, to steal food, to get cold and wet and dirty and become anaemic from flea bites?
But who can fully understand cats? That, apparently, is part of their appeal. The other three meows are happy to live in our little apartment. But Cory, I suppose, is different. He'd been free too long.
Eric pronounced that the moral of this story is to not take in any more strays. I replied, perhaps a little self-righteously, that it is my mission in life to take in strays.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
Everything has a price. Not every story has a happy ending. Joy and sorrow, love and loss is part of the package deal of living in a fallen world.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
It's like that chapter in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" where the fox pleads with the little prince to tame him. The little prince tames the fox and when the hour of his departure drew near -
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it had done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the colour of the wheat fields." And then he added: "... say good bye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."
...
"Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
-----
On a sunnier postscript, Saffron seems to be gaining (or is it regaining?) some use of his paralysed paw. He can stretch his toes a little now, and when he scratches with that leg, he sometimes hits the target. The vet said that it is sometimes possible for (he emphasised) Very Young kittens to regenerate nerves that have been damaged. We hope Saffron makes a full recovery - an extra fully-functioning paw should come in very handy indeed!
p.p.s. The bits in purple are from Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet"
Then this afternoon, on my way home from an outing with mumsie, we stopped by the Usual Place so I could see if the food had been eaten. It wasn't there anymore and the plate we'd left it on was upside down. I tried looking around to see whether the food had been eaten or if someone had merely kicked the plate. Before I knew it, Cory was there. "Cory!" I called. "Meow," he replied. But as I approached him, again he ran across the street.
When he saw that I was following him, he again jumped into the drain. I followed him along the drain and each time I called his name, he replied with a meow. When I stopped following him, he too stopped walking and sat down. He would meow when I spoke to him, but he wouldn't come to me.
I though maybe he was afraid that if he came back to us, we'd bundle him off to the vet to be poked and prodded.
Gravitas suggested that he'd reverted to a feral state.
Mumsie offered that he wants to be free.
Free to do what? To roam? To go hungry, to catch diseases, to get injured in fights, to steal food, to get cold and wet and dirty and become anaemic from flea bites?
But who can fully understand cats? That, apparently, is part of their appeal. The other three meows are happy to live in our little apartment. But Cory, I suppose, is different. He'd been free too long.
Eric pronounced that the moral of this story is to not take in any more strays. I replied, perhaps a little self-righteously, that it is my mission in life to take in strays.
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
Everything has a price. Not every story has a happy ending. Joy and sorrow, love and loss is part of the package deal of living in a fallen world.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
It's like that chapter in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" where the fox pleads with the little prince to tame him. The little prince tames the fox and when the hour of his departure drew near -
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it had done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the colour of the wheat fields." And then he added: "... say good bye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."
...
"Goodbye," he said.
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
-----
On a sunnier postscript, Saffron seems to be gaining (or is it regaining?) some use of his paralysed paw. He can stretch his toes a little now, and when he scratches with that leg, he sometimes hits the target. The vet said that it is sometimes possible for (he emphasised) Very Young kittens to regenerate nerves that have been damaged. We hope Saffron makes a full recovery - an extra fully-functioning paw should come in very handy indeed!
p.p.s. The bits in purple are from Khalil Gibran's "The Prophet"
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