New day in isolation...

This morning I awoke, walked onto the verandah just as the first drop fell- rain- sweet relief after cooking for days isolated to one less-hot room. It felt kinda fateful to find such timing. I felt happy, sweet relief after a 100-calibre nightmare night alone in the arena of my demons (which assume full power on Saturdays, Christmas completely alone and in the black of night in those infinite unsleepable hours. Sometimes trying to go to sleep is like lying my brain down in a nest of barbed wire and the heavier the thoughts in that brain, the harder the barbs cut in.

So- having achieved happiness from the feelig of the rain within the few minutes of the day was so serendipitous that I was left wide open to...a rich, coagulating howl of my cat calling to me. Like lovers lost in the dark until he appeared at the door. Thinking he was coming to me because of the rain, I looked eagerly, but stopped short. He had in his mouth a headless baby rabbit.

OK- I know in Oz and especially on a farm, rabbits are a pest- but that doesn't stop each one from deserving humane (!) treatment. After all it was because of spoil, cruel English shmucks who brought them over for hunting practise and even to cure those homesick blues!!!!! What a shame we can't reverse time and give these people the punishment. Who knows- maybe they reincarnated appropriately and found themselves looking at terror from the other end of the stick!

I used to have 2 pet rabbits before I knew better. There's a certain vulnerability in making pets of rabbits- heartless people who joke about killing and eating your pets and worse- the danger of predators who may attack in the night. When I was a rabbit person, I was not a cat person. My instincts became so attuned that I would awake to the sense of a cat in my yard. Cats were the enemy. I was a vegan so I felt universes away; despite a life-long love of animals, including cats in a big way.

Half a year after my rabbits died of myxo, I was given my cat as a suprise. I became a cat person and fell for my cat in a huge way...but it was in Leura, The Blue Mountains, that Jimi, my cat, developed a taste for possums. I carried him, empty-handed on the 3-hr public transport trip to Sydney Airport, handed my armfull to the man, turned and walked away, my last sight being those two sad, scared eyes looking up at me from the scales. My best friend had just become luggage. He was sent home to my parents, where he now lives like a king, but we have never been as close.

It's maybe hard to picture this 'love-affair' with a cat, but if you knew him, you'd know. He's one hell of a charismatic cat...just as long as he keeps the gifts to a minimum. The last time he really dumped one on me like that was when my aunt died, I stayed up, upset. When I finally fell asleep, I awoke to a dead rat beside my head. I guess it was his way of giving me something because I was sad...guess that's why cats don't work for Hallmark...!