Pieces of Peace

I am at peace with a kitten sleeping on my belly, and I think that may be the answer to all the problems I conjure up in my own head. By which I mean that I might be discovering a pattern – I was happiest and most joyful when I was taking care of Mano back in August and September. December and January have been fairly challenging up here in my mental and even physical space; I’ve been doing some hefty cognitive labour in just trying to figure out what to do next or about my relationships or how to make sense of my place in my life on this uncharted and unlived-before journey, and it’s been tiring. But here I am with a relaxed kitten on my lap and I am very much at peace.

This kitten has a dark grey coat and the most beautiful face, with a symmetrical white marking on his forehead that looks like an ‘M’. For this reason his name is Emmett (for now, knowing how susceptible we are to changing our stance on names). I picked him up after hearing him meowing in our driveway; he was practically hidden from anyone’s view if I hadn’t seen a little black kitten shaped movement in the corner of my eye in the guard room. I picked him up immediately and brought him upstairs. He was terrified, didn’t eat, cried through the evening and did not play.

But very soon he started to eat. I’m so grateful we had kitten formula at home. He was cold too, and shivering, and so we bundled him up. The first night was difficult; I woke up every hour from 3 AM to 8 AM to feed him and tend to his cries for his mother. Then I slept throughout the morning after asking mama to keep an eye on him for the next few hours.

The second night was better, he had eaten solid food and had a fuller belly, only waking me up once at 5 AM after which I scooped him up and made him sleep with me. At around 8, I felt a wetness near my leg. I had to wash my sheets.

Last night was similar, with me waking up at around 5 AM to a hungry and confused kitten. I scooped him up again and kept him quite literally under my armpit. He’s such a peaceful sleep companion. I could only hope he wouldn’t pee again – he didn’t. He knows where his litter is now.

Today, he’s been playing all morning long and has finally tired his tiny self out. He’s probably about 5 weeks old. Here’s hoping someone falls in love with him soon so that I can bring Mogli back into my room. She’s super suspicious lately and I miss her presence at night too, honestly.

But anyway… Today’s thought to carry forward is that peace = happy kitten.

As I wrote this post

Felines of our lives

I wrote recently about a kitten named Georgie who entered our lives and then made his departure within a few days of us having him under our care. He wasn’t the first kitten I’d lost this year, but I grew in four days attached enough to the skinny, headbutting kitten to really grieve his loss.

My last post mentioned the fact that we moved recently, just last week in fact. Ever since our first night, I’d hear an incessant kitten meowing from a place I could not trace; the sound was closest to the window in my art/work room. I guess I hoped and tried to believe that the kitten’s mother just took off for many hours at a time but was still around. Four days in, it seemed that this was not in fact the case and my father was informed of the kitten’s presence in our driveway, and that our neighbors were making some failed attempts at feeding it. I was in the middle of a nap when I heard this information,  supposedly too tired to move, but I sprung out of bed at that moment and ran downstairs to find this kitten that I now knew I didn’t have to search too far to find. I looked around the driveway and under the neighbor’s car for about a minute until out of nowhere a tiny ginger kitten with tiny ears and a wobbly gait came running to my feet. I took this as a sign from the universe, gathered his tinyness in my arms and brought him upstairs.

From a post-feeding morning photoshoot – 12 Aug 2020

After Georgie’s death, I pored over Hannah Shaw’s (popularly known as Kitten Lady) Youtube videos on kitten care to learn what I did not know before and what I could perhaps prevent next time, if there was a soon to be next time. Little did I know the next time would come sprinting to my very feets during our busiest week this year! Having just moved house meant we had an abundance of cardboard boxes for potential homes for the kitten, who appears to be about 3-4 weeks old. The two months I had to process the information from Kitten Lady’s videos were enough to make me feel confident about syringe-feeding, cleaning and stimulating the kitten to go to the loo, although I did do some refresher research of course. I think the most promising aspect of this little incident was landing upon a feisty, healthy looking kitten who I felt, and still feel, confident about raising to be a healthy, adoptable kitten. And I’m bent on taking beauty photographs of him to aid my cause.

I didn’t think he was old enough to know how to groom himself but it seems he is a genius.

My mother’s friend who is also our neighbor, tragically lost a kitten she herself was caring for just a few days ago. A day after taking in my kitten, she sent over her kitten food supplies (including more syringes and a baby bottle!) out of the goodness and pureness of her heart, and also because I suppose she didn’t need them anymore. I have also been making a concoction at home from a recipe I found on the internet as a kitten formula replacement, and it seems little kitten, who I shall call Peachfuzz (but his name may change by the end of the day, and then once more tomorrow), has the healthiest poops with this formula, which makes me happier than I’d have thought. I write this on day 4 of his entry into this house (read:my bathroom) with high hopes and happy heart.

It’s been a pretty nuts week, what with bringing my youngest and also most insecure, territory-marking, one-eyed cat Mogli into the new house first, following her cat fight injury. Following this we also began to care for a teenage looking cat on our roof who appears to have been born and not too long raised there – his name is Roofie, and his is a story for another time. Over the past few days we’ve been bringing back our other two cats, Minny and Fuzzy, and in the midst of all this little Peachfuzz found his way in. Our move has thus been marked by felines, which I hear has some auspicious connotations. We’d definitely appreciate restful nights without the howling or crying of cats recently traumatized…but I personally wouldn’t have things any other way. For the time being.