This is the first abstract painting I’ve done that I really like. When I was young, I loved Impressionism, which showed the world distorted by reality. Then I started painting dreams, landscapes, and still life – but I was always painting real people and objects. As I did this, I found I understood abstraction as the ultimate artwork that underpins realistic painting since there is always the need to consider the placement of objects, the texture of brush strokes.
When I took my cat, Buddy, to the vet for his annual check-up I found out he had kidney disease. He wasn’t showing any signs of this, aside from barfing a lot, which I thought is normal for cats. The vet recommended daily medicine and a special cat food formulated for cats with kidney disease. Great, no problem. We just mix the medicine in with the new food. Buddy had other ideas.
Well, he tried the food once and then decided the servants were remiss. As a day, then two, then three went by, I became disturbed by his refusal to eat. I called the vet and she said to administer the medicine directly into his mouth. I held Buddy down while my husband lifted his lip and pushed down the plunger. This was not popular. Buddy ran and hid under the kitchen table, looking highly offended. We tried mixing the kidney food with his regular food and giving him treats whenever he got medicine. He picks at his food and still hates the medicine.
Since his disease is accompanied by eventual weight loss, I am deeply concerned. I decide I’ll provide him with natural food. He loves hunting crickets in the basement and periodically I pick up cricket legs or bodies off the living room floor. Insects are great protein! So I go to the pet store and pick up a box of crickets. It’s food. It’s entertainment. I put the crickets in a large cardboard box. After all, how high can they really jump? I show Buddy the box. He is enthusiastic. So are the crickets. The crickets have a jumping contest urged on by a desire to run for their lives, sort of like running the bulls in Spain. They spread themselves throughout the house. I will be finding them for a long time to come. And finding their body parts. That could have worked better.
Okay, what else do cats like? Birds! We have lots of pigeons in the city. I get a fishing net from the boating store. I cast bread on my door stoop and sidewalk. The pigeons come like sheep to a shepherd. I pull the net strings quickly and although most get away I am left with 6 plump pigeons. I carry them triumphantly inside. Buddy is excited. I pluck one from the net and put the rest away in a cage. Buddy chases the bird all over the house. The bird is not happy. It shits a lot. All over the house. Buddy goes to sleep. The bird calms down, tucks its head under its wing and rests on my living room lamp next to the couch. I take a break and watch TV. Suddenly Buddy is crouching on the other side of the couch. With one great leap he tackles the bird which is now screaming in my ears. Buddy holds on. Who knew birds had so much red blood. Feathers scatter everywhere. Buddy is in heaven. He knows he is a true hunter. I know I must find another way to feed him.
What else do cats eat, I ponder. Google knows everything and tells me they eat mice. Of course. But here in Baltimore we don’t have mice. The rats have all eaten them. Just ask our president. Now, rats should be pretty easy to catch. Just leave out some nice smelly garbage. I wait for night, I put out the garbage. A flashlight assists my endeavors.I am equipped with a stun gun from a hunter friend. Here they come, a whole family. Mom is the size of a small tank. I figure I’ll take out the adolescents. No one really likes adolescents anyway. Having been in girl scouts finally comes in handy – I shoot quickly and accurately. Bingo! Three down and now I can put my garbage back in the can. I carry the rats by their tails and place them on the living room floor. Buddy comes to sniff them. He paws one of them a little. Then it wakes up and gives an ear piercing shriek. Staring with its little beady eyes the rat stands up. Buddy backs down. You cannot intimidate a Baltimore rat. The rat gives chase and Buddy runs frantically, jumping onto bookshelves and counters. The rat shimmies up the T.V. cord. Bleh! I aim and shoot the stun gun. The other rats wake up and charge down to the basement. When I go down, they are eating Buddy’s cat food. As they are fixated on the food, I chase them down with the stun gun. They escape through a hole in the side of my house. Darn, I didn’t know about the hole but now I have to fix it. Clearly, rats are not on Buddy’s list as a gourmet item.
Maybe YouTube will have ideas on what to feed Buddy. Youtube has plenty of kitty videos chowing down on everything from a chicken leg to a banana served with chopsticks. But I’m still pretty clueless about what might be a natural diet. What about larger cats, I wonder. I look up lions. They are enjoying hunting and killing a zebra. I’m sure the Baltimore zoo has a zebra.
Retirement is wonderful! I recommend for everybody. I abruptly retired from a stressful job as a speech-language pathologist in public schools because we were ordered to return to in-person schooling when vaccines weren’t available. I was 62 years old at the time and had asthma. Although I planned to work until 65 years of age, it seemed silly to risk death just as I was reaching retirement age. I had no idea of what I would do next.
At first I just enjoyed laying in bed, sometimes until noon, idly reading and journaling in a notebook. Then I realized I wanted to learn how to write better. I enrolled in a Masters program for Creative Writing at Towson University. It was fabulous! Not only did I improve my writing, but I found a community of writers. I was intellectually stimulated and met new friends. Many of them are younger than me with different perspectives and wisdom.
After graduating I continue to write poetry and short stories. I’m a journalist for the Peninsula Post, a local newspaper. I also draw cartoons, paint, and play guitar. It is amazing to have tons of time to create and socialize. I have energy for exercising and cooking healthy meals. Along with the time when I was raising my sons, retirement is the best period of my life.
I wander around my community appreciating all the personal touches my neighbors have done to their houses. Forsythia and crocuses are in bloom in pots outside the row houses. Tulips are making their large-leaf appearances. Daffodils abound.
This afternoon I talked with an environmental activist involved in a community garden, neighborhood events in Fort McHenry, a national park up the street. It is wonderful to find good people making the world a better place. I feel blessed.
During this time of chaos and turmoil, I find peace in the rough bark of trees, the dancing scurry of squirrels, the opera of birds, the sun on my face, the canvas of dark night and sparkling stars.
This site is supposed to be about writing, art, and creativity. But I’m so disturbed by current events my creativity is seeping through the cracks of my distress to scream alarms at the people of my nation.
It’s nearly midnight and I’ve already called all the relatives I have in the West a day or two ago because I couldn’t go to sleep on previous nights. I can’t sleep because my country’s politics seem so extreme, so crazy, so like Hitler’s Germany which my Jewish mother fled from in 1938. Now I know what an existential threat is – it feels like the nuclear war will explode any second now, I’m going to step on an ordnance planted on my native soil, someone will suddenly lift a gun to their shoulder and shoot me.
But it is necessary to be optimistic even now. The seeds of destruction of the United States were planted before our independence, with genocide of Native Americans, with slavery of Africans transplanted to this ground, with the oppression of working class and poor people, squashed by the Calvinist ethic that if you are poor, you deserve your fate. At 66 years of age, I am closer to the end of my life than my beginning, and yet I’ve never seen anything like this in my country. Okay, I have. Racism, class discrimination, oppression of women, and approximately 1/4 of our children living below the poverty line, not knowing where they will sleep or if they will eat today.
I am not Charles Dickens, nor John Steinbeck, not even Studs Terkel. The people of the United States either have to resist the rise of an autocratic dictator or we will be crushed.
Hope lies in our independent spirit, our distaste for authority. Getting Americans to rise up may be like herding cats but if we join hands we can maybe find our way to a true fair and equal democracy. If we dream it, it can happen!
#Resist
Today I drew Cybele, the ancient Anatolian goddess of fecundity, of motherhood, of protection. In my mind she is linked with Kali, the Indian goddess of destruction. I seek to channel them, to worship them, to lead to the warmth of the woods and a sunny tomorrow.
gaia mouse 