Better Failures

My cat has been diagnosed with kidney failure: she is condemned to die the death I have refused. The first time I heard this, I could not really believe it. It sank in slowly over the past couple of weeks. Every day I see my feline friend of fourteen years grow thin, then ever thinner. She usually curls at the foot of the stove and sleeps. There used to be a little space behind the stove, next to the water heater, a little crawl-in, just right for a small grey house cat to blend snugly into. This "fault" was fixed when the house was re-built after the fire. Now, the tired cat curls up next to the remembered space; I am not the only one who suffers from a palimpsest- double-vision wherein I cannot tell between memory and reality. The fatigue I see her give in to helplessly is the same from before I began dialysis. The bone-sickness, the lack of will to get up, the need for the endless nap: I remember those well. At the time, I had believed that I would not see the seasons turn or my child graduate from college. This was not a doubt or a passing melancholic thought or even a crushing disappointment. It was a fact; I didn't particularly like it, but it was undeniable. I see the same dawning in the cat's eyes.

She lays her head on my sternum to better feel my heart when I pick her up. She stays a moment while I try to make the same sounds I used to make to her when she was a frightened kitten. But she tolerates this for no longer than a moment and not very frequently.

I keep the food within her reach and slip some ice chips into her water: she laps it up greedily. I remember that unquenchable thirst as well.

Death will not be denied, it seems. There is to be no dialysis for my poor friend. With her, I feel that a part of me is dying. I try to live more when I am not with her, and I am with her for only a few minutes a day on weekdays, no more than an hour when I am home. Of late, however, cramps have kept me from walking without limping and my enlarged abdomen never lets me forget that I need to sit down as soon as possible. These, of course, are small discomforts compared to the dimming the cat is being subject to.

As though in sympathy with this dimming, I find myself unable to write.

This frightens me more than the prospect of an imminent ceasing to be ever did. After all, my child has graduated and there are enough people I would leave behind who would ensure that no disasters strike. I am not really needed in any integral way, and the sum of my life has not been so extraordinary that there can be any deep, unhealed mourning of things left undone.

But that is a physical death. The kind I see facing me is worse: it is a loss of self that goes beyond a physical death. I cannot let it overtake me; I cannot imagine the consequences that would follow! This inability is not as simple as lacking inspiration, or not knowing what to write; I am constantly spinning in my head. In a way, it feels almost organic rather than lack of time or material.

I had set out to learn to Read Literature so that I may be better equipped to tell the stories I must tell. Inevitably, I feel as though I have failed in this.

So this post goes out with the hope that these words will lead to others, that a few more stories get exorcised before I feel my own dimming, that this time, like Beckett suggests, I fail better than before, that I can notch these new failures on the wrinkles of my face.

For I do not like the dimming and every wrinkle is a battle scar won against it.

Open House

The rains are early this year, and ferocious. This spring-monsoon adds to my discombobulation, since I have felt stretched too thin these past weeks. I've added mileage to my life and car, neglecting parts of my life that have needed tending, juggling, settling, changing, cleaning, picking up and putting it all down in a different place. One of the most important parts that I've had to ignore is, of course, my writing: I've not written a single word in these past weeks, not a poem, not a story, nothing. I must confess I am feeling snarly, often tempted to spread a few hisses all around. Even as I write this, I know it is an indulgence, a sudden thunder storm that has forced me to settle on the sofa, to calm the cats.

Ever since I've moved back to my house, people have been asking me how I am settling down. Honestly, I don't know! My patient reader knows that I lost a cat in the fire and that the two surviving felines had to be well-nigh homeless for a few weeks. I am still reeling with the fallout from those two circumstances. So I don't know exactly how well I am settling down. I have been trying to reclaim my house from the cats inch by inch, with a great deal of help from the fragrance spitters and body sprays.

The fallout I referred to earlier is about some other stray or abandoned cats that my surviving cat seems to have befriended. Already, two of them have taken residence with us in the house and two more come at night to eat and visit. Sometimes, when I wander in during these visiting hours, I get a few causal hisses by way of greeting and warning. Sometimes, I have found "gifts" left by the visitors, namely dead birds, some even partially plucked. I wish I could tell the visitors to feel free to eat, but feel no obligation to leave behind gifts of any sort.

This has, of course, driven my cat food budget beyond the modest allowance granted to it, but that's not the worst. The worst has been the uneasy truce governing the space the cats share with me. We each have different views about how the space should be configured and inhabited. I have placed the fragrance spritzers at regular intervals around my spaces, which has kept the visitors and inhabitants away from my space, but also caused my older cat to feel ever more unwelcome and nervous. To remain fair, I have brought in some more cat furniture, to encourage the live-in cats to leave my perches alone and choose scratch-able, catnip infused, cat-friendly seats and perches.

I have spent weekends building cat shelters in my postage-stamp sized backyard, to give the old cat a place in my house, the old cat who is the only cat I can really call mine, in the sense that I had chosen her to live with me and who has, since, been driven out of my house by the other cats who have decided to cohabit with me. These shelters were meant to lure the old cat back, if not INSIDE the house then at least AROUND it, a safe place during thunderstorms.

However, both, the outside shelters as well as the cat furniture remain cat less and ignored. The old cat does come every time I call her because she has trained me to feed her, but she won't come in the house, nor will she stay. The live-in cats give my fragrance spritzed spaces a wide berth, but also ignore the perches I want them to use.  Of course, I love the cat snuggling between the back of my knees and the back-rest of the couch; after all, I HAVE been trained and conditioned well.

The first wave of thunderstorms has passed and I see three cats stretched out in their preferred spots around the room. I scarf through e-bay for inexpensive cat furniture and wonder how well I am settling down in the new house. I will have family and friends visiting the house over the Summer and I wonder how the visitors and live-in felines will react to this. Hopefully, I will be trained enough not to wonder at whatever awaits for us all this Summer!




 

And A Veil to Tether

One of my colleagues says that veils fascinate her and I confess I have had veils on my mind since the past few weeks, all they reveal and represent, the hues they lend the world. Indeed, the blank canvas of the sky laughs with colors of life when seen through a veil, whether it be a flowing scarf, a dancing kite, or a twinkling paper lantern. To paraphrase a thousand Hindi songs, the unruffled dupatta changes climes and brings on Spring.

Like any South Eastern native, I can tell you what the scarves I wear represent: they supposedly represent female modesty, but if the same scarf were tied on a man's forehead, it would proclaim his pride in the tradition that birthed him. Freedom sings in the flight a girl's scarf sketches as she swings from a grandfather of a tree. The audience of a Hindi film knows the scarf well. With bated breath, we watch as the villain considers the innocent girl's scarf through a veil of cigarette smoke, and gasp as he snatches the dupatta off the terrified girl; the camera focuses on the swinging, broken lamp smashed in the ensuing struggle and we all know that she is lost.

Most salwar suits come with a matching scarf or dupatta. The material for a dupatta must be special: it cannot be as heavy as the fabrics that actually cover and protect. In fact, it must be woven of texture light enough for the air to lift, which would require something heavier, like lace or a twice rolled hem to hold it against the wind and then it acquires a fall of graceful ripples. At the same time, the dupatta must match the heavier cloth it is constructed to compliment, with an edging, with contrasting hues, or most frequently, with the same print as the salwar suit. The function of the dupatta, it seems, is to serve as the dream of the salwar suit.

I have worn through a lot of salwar suits, whose stitching has given out, whose exhausted weave has unravelled, but whose matching dupattas retain their original form. I collect them, lightly worn fabrics of numinous use, whose sole purpose seems to be to recall the varied textures our world is made of. When I tried to quilt them, I could not imagine the finished quilt, and they resisted my needle and the stodgy quilting threads, preferring to ripping to submission. Occasionally, I give them to my daughter and she uses them to make a statement of her jeans-and-t-shirt.

As I get older, I find that I need the wrapping of my scarves to protect me, to keep me warm and alive. I have begun to prefer the sky veiled in clouds, and today, on a cool day immediately following the Winter solstice, I look forward to the kite flying in January, which will welcome the sun back. Nothing says Spring like unfurled colors of insubstantial material.

I am working and my lap is not free for the cat. He paws at the laptop and looks inquiringly at me. Of course, I obey and spread my scarf. He accepts this extension of me and it is enough to envelop him, tie him to me beyond language and species. I look at the content, sleeping cat and wish for my dupatta to extend beyond my organic self and chronological life, to envelop and warm my child so that her universe may unfurl around her in weaves of many colors and textures, enriching her life, tethering her to me as she soars and flies off, like an un-achored kite, across unimaginable skies.

Blasting Stars

It is the 4th of July again and this year, the fireworks are spooking me. I wish for a respite from the booms that seem to resound from just behind me, from just beneath my ground, and I am afraid I am rather too worn out and skittish for loud celebrations. I love the idea of people celebrating together an ideal that many centuries and generations fought and died for; I have nothing against patriotism (though I lean towards a more global citizenship) and many a ditty has caused warm fuzziness in my ribs. So no, it is not the celebration of the ideals this country stands for that annoys me.

I have been trying to lure my ghost cat to her dinner for the past couple of hours. But I am afraid she just might not come today! We are leaving town and I worry about her dinner for the next couple of days. I worry about my other cats. I worry that I am leaving my undone house for a family party. I worry that I might not finish the ten hour drive in less than twenty hours. The fireworks are not helping; it sounds as though each worry is compounded, exaggerated, hyperbolized (if such a word exists) and blasted around my head, so I can't tell if I am sitting down or standing up.

I wonder if this annoyance I feel is caused by my displacement, my age, or both. I also wonder at what exactly is being celebrated. The only circumstance that justifies such a celebration is a beloved person home from a war, all whole and all smiles, a circumstance that is not as common as I'd like. I have friends whose children, spouses, parents, and extended families are on active duty or veterans. For them, patriotism is not a firework, but an expensive extra limb they've deliberately grown and wear with equal proportions of pain and pride. I cannot imagine them exploding fireworks for extended evenings; I can only imagine them in lawn chairs, contemplating the exploding skies and colors, and I cannot imagine what they wonder about.

I do this every year on July 4th and New Years' Eve (unless I am traveling then): I try to ignore my annoyance at the loud blasts. They make me think of wars, though I've never really seen one. I imagine a war would have these loud explosions and one would never know if one will ever hear anything beyond the last boom. The idea frightens and saddens me and I wonder who on earth thought of emulating the crash and boom of cannons and gunfire as a means of celebration.

My neighbor's nephew's eyes dance in feverish excitement in anticipation of an evening filled with sparkles, booms, and crashes, as he looks uncomprehendingly at me and exclaims, "We are celebrating Freedom, of course! Oh, yes! And All Things American!"

 I am unable to find a response to this and can only offer a smile that turns into a grimace as the world suddenly explodes behind me, showering the horizon in colored stars that diffuse and burn out before they reach the earth.

The Journey Home 1: The Haunting

Courage, to me, feels like a four-lettered word, something one curses one's ill-wishers to have to possess and exhibit; we wish for our loved ones the unexciting, adventure-less mediocrity which keeps them safe, predictable and found. Ever since my house burned, I have been forced to wind myself tightly, to keep all parts of my self in a knot that cannot be undone by storms, strife, disease, fires, floods, or any other avatar of apocalypse. I have wanted to destroy all backups and other paraphernalia of  my essential hard drive, so no byte of me may be lost, no loose ends may break off, ricochet and end up orbiting strange realities.

This is my attempt to log the impossible Odyssey I have set upon. Since my house burned last Fall, I find myself at a loss, with extra hands and fingers that have forgotten what it is like to be me. I have stretched my arm out in front of me in this darkness, but cannot see it any longer, the darkness being so unrelenting. So I must resolve to lift up my foot and place it somewhere other than where it seems to have rooted, hopefully, somewhere forward, wherever and whatever that means.

I went back to India for ten days, and when there, as usual, I sought subconsciously to inhabit my home here. However, I found my memories haunted by what is not there any more, from the feline I lost to the fire, down to the bunch of safety pins that used to live on my bedside table. People ask me what I need, needing to help me, but I cannot answer and end up roaming dazed through the kind, generous world full of plenty, unable to own or recognize. I have been committing to nothing, refusing all need to own, even for a cup or a bottle, for fear of adding to the burden I must keep moving with. All beds I have tried to rest on have felt un-mine; they are either too high or too hard, the pillows seeking shapes that do not fit my neck or head.

I know, if I want to retain the core of who I am, that I cannot go on like this for long. So I have been making conscious efforts to exercise my lip-stretches, blink the darkness back, choose blindness to all that is not there anymore, which is the hardest, since all that is lost glares in sharp relief every time my glance falls on what I have salvaged, tried to replace, or accepted.

So I took a very frightening step this past weekend: I bought groceries to stock the fridge and larder in the house I am staying at present, hopefully until mine is ready. This chore of buying groceries, something I used to do with such familiarity, felt like exercising the awkward vowels of a forgotten language, not having indulged in it since the house burned. The act of stocking up on my child's lunch stuff, soups, breads for ledges un-mine felt like I was trying to cheat on extra, forbidden rations in a time of famine. The ultimate step was when I brought in turmeric, hing, and cumin, and lodged them on the kitchen counter, next to the salt shaker a generous friend has given us. This has changed the very topography of the counter, and I cannot decide if the familiar spices taunt me, seem forlorn, or make a statement. Now, I have to remind my fingers to navigate that counter again.

I begin and end each day with the sight of my burnt, hurting home. No one has begun work on it, even though I have signed promises, been cited by the city for owning an unsafe dwelling, and have taken residence behind it.

My familiar, the ash colored cat, refuses to abandon it and continues to live in her burnt home, haunted by all that was, all that can never be. Kind reader, if you should pass by the broken lock and barred door, where cold shadows await, where the ghost cat sits at her vigil, hang a prayer on the dried branches, that my world be verdant soon.