Territory

Twelve years ago, one of our cats contracted cancer. During the course of her treatment, we took her to a specialist for various tests and therapies. Some days, we dropped her off at the clinic in the morning and returned to pick her up again later that afternoon. Other days she had to stay the night.

When we arrived at the clinic one evening to bring her home, a vet tech greeted us and said he would bring her right out, then disappeared through a door into the back. Five minutes went by, then ten. The clinic was always busy, so at first we didn't think much about it. After fifteen minutes we began to wonder. About that time, the same tech came out and asked me if I would come with him. "We're having trouble coaxing her out." I followed, wondering how that could be. This wasn't the first time she'd had to stay with them. Over the progression of her illness, we'd had to leave her more than once. On those occasions we had visited her each evening, much to her enjoyment and relief. She seemed to derive a great deal of reassurance from our presence even if she only sat on one of our laps while we petted her for an hour or two and read our books. During those visits, the techs had never had any trouble bringing her out.

For those who don't know, this cat's name was Felicia. I gave her that name after she didn't stop purring for the first two days she was with us, even while she slept. We took her in as a foundling, a stray kitten with four burned paws and infected bite wounds on her belly and tail crying on our doorstep. Once inside, she seemed happy and grateful to have found a sanctuary from the trials of her first three months of life.

Her arrival for me was one of those magical moments of synchronicity that we cherish for a lifetime. Days before she found us, I had been thinking of all the things I would want in a cat if I ever had one. Her disposition perfectly matched my desires, as though someone had gone down a list and checked off each item one by one. Affectionate, check. Curious, check. Playful, check. Tolerant, check. Smart, definite check. Female, check. They even threw in tactics for free, a skill she needed nearly constantly in her first few weeks with us as she defended herself and her territory against Karen's socially-challenged, resident cat. The only thing I hadn't thought about was her coloration. She was a black and tan tortoiseshell calico, a muddled mix of color I still find striking, though perhaps I may be biased. Indeed, love is often blind, or at least needs a strong, vision-correcting prescription.

Very quickly, Felicia became like a familiar to me, greeting me every morning, rubbing my leg goodbye before I left for work. She met me at the door when I returned each evening and always came to say good night before I went to sleep. She would follow me from room to room for days after I returned home from a business trip as if trying to make sure I wasn't going to abandon her again. She would come to find me anytime I made a greeting noise, a kind of high-pitched, reverse whistle. When Karen and I argued, she would sit between us, looking from one of us to the other, purring, taking neither side. She got along with all her feline companions, even the ones who didn't get along with each other. She was cautious around strangers but warmed to most people. She was never trouble at the vet. In short, she was the sweetest cat I could ever ask to share my life with.

So when I went back to the bank of cages where the clinic kept their patients while they waited to be retrieved, I was surprised to see three vet techs standing in front of an open door, all with very concerned looks on their faces. "We can't get her out," one of them said. They watched horror as I approached the cage and peered inside. Felicia was huddled as far back as she could get, crouching defensively, ready to strike out at anything or anyone who came near. Without thinking, I made my greeting call, stuck my hand inside and let her sniff it, then scooped her out without a struggle. No problem. I didn't need a leash or a carrier, I just held her in my arms as she purred. She still had the catheter strapped to her front leg from treatment, a kind of temporary kitten chemo port.

When I turned back, the techs were aghast and amazed. One of them said, "I've done this for years, and I NEVER would have stuck my hand in that cage." Talking to them, I found out she had been hissing and spitting and clawing each time they approached her cage, like she was wild or rabid. They had tried calming her, then coaxing her, and then had broken out the heavy leather gloves. They were about to resort to a neck loop when they called me in. She was completely unwilling to emerge. She was guarding her food and water bowls possessively, defending them from atop the padded sleeping mat inside her cage like Custer on his final hill. That steel enclosure had become her territory, her new home, even if cramped, cold and uncomfortable, her place of greater safety in a suddenly confusing and uncertain world.

In college, I took a course on the Holocaust. Reading the accounts of survivors, it struck me that no matter how long people endured sub-human conditions, they tended to cling to two things. The first was the people that they knew, their family, their friends, even relative strangers they recognized from their village or town. The other was the scant possessions they retained. With people they knew they shared what they had to the extent that they could, at times even when it might endanger their own survival. But if a stranger tried to take something from them, a rag, a cup, a spoon, even a space on a bunk could become worth a life or death struggle. When the camps were liberated, a few people refused to leave the setting with which they had become so intimately familiar over years of tortured existence, choosing an impoverished present over a completely unknown future. That I live in a world where such things still happen tears my heart apart.

But humans, like all mammals, like all members of the animal kingdom, fight to survive no matter how desperate their situation becomes. Survival situations change us all in unpredictable ways. Sometimes we struggle against events we perceive as threatening simply because they are unknown. There are days I have to strive to remember that when strangers act in a particular or peculiar way, as I am sure some people try to remember with me, even some who know me, or at least think that they might.

There are few instincts greater than that of defending a territory we consider to be our own. Perhaps only the imperatives to find food and water and a mate are more strongly embedded in our psyche. And there are few more touching moments than realizing that someone trusts you enough to abandon a defensible position and expose themselves to danger because they know you will keep them safe. It's a solemn trust that can be difficult to uphold, and one that I treasure being granted if only once a dozen years ago.

I hope you have someone with whom you share such a bond at least once in your life. If you are so privileged, remember to cling to them as you see each other through these increasingly unsettled times. As you do, remember to purr, to comfort one another, to remind each other that no matter what the territory in which you find yourselves that everything will be all right as long as you share that trust.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Pain

When I was seventeen, I broke my patella. The details of how aren't really important to the story. But when you see a TV or film drama about a mob enforcer breaking someone's kneecap, believe that it isn't just an overly trite cliché. I've been told the pain ranks up there with childbirth and kidney stones (neither of which I'd know about), or gallstones and shingles (both of which I would). I'd rather have either of those latter two again than break another knee. These days, when I'm asked to rank my pain on a scale of 1 to 10, I have a very solid marker for what a 10 feels like. Shock and opiate-based medications can only ease so much.

What I remember most was waking up after surgery. Then, as today, the nurses wake you up, have you roll to one side and cough to make sure you actually come out from under the anesthesia, and to prevent the onset of pneumonia. Twenty-five years ago, they used much more potent anesthesia than they used today, so it was a much greater concern. I'm not sure how long I was under, but I know it takes time to wire a kneecap back together. Not even with titanium like they would use today, just good, old-fashioned, American stainless steel.

The first time the nurses roused me, I only remember feeling as though I didn't want to wake up. These Nightingales were professionals, and quite persistent, much to my annoyance. I remember following the voice of an angel out of a safe, black cave into a distant world of demonic torment. It only lasted an instant. Little did I know, that was only a trailer of the next several hours of my life.

By the second time I awoke, the anesthesia had partly worn off. This time I surfaced into a world of bright, harsh agony. I couldn't, wouldn't open my eyes. I only remember excruciating pain, being rolled onto one side and then a quick pin-prick in my hip that sent me blissfully back into a numb and darkened world.

It's the third time waking I remember most. By then, anesthesia was only memory, a distant dream beyond my comprehension. My world consisted of only a handful of sensations. The first and foremost was pain. White-hot, overwhelming pain. Pain that makes you shake like icy water just before you go into hypothermia. Sweating pain like the contraction of a bile duct trying to free a gallstone lodged within. Persistent, unending pain, like the shingles virus scraping sandpaper along the exposed nerves of your temple. Pain that cuts through the soothing darkness enveloping you like a hot wire knife through Styrofoam. Pain so overwhelming, you can't isolate its source. Pain that blocks out your senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste, all off-line.

Miraculously, my sense of touch survived. How do I know? Because through the waves of nauseating suffering, I felt a hand clasping mine. It was the only sensation I remember other than the darkness I wished would claim me. So much emotion was translated through that hand. I remember empathy. I remember warmth. I remember compassion. I remember it sharing strength. I remember it communicating caring. I remember clutching that hand like a lifeline. I remember it returning a gentle squeeze of reassurance each time mine went slack, a reminder it hadn't abandoned me. I never saw whose hand kept me from drowning in that tortuous sea of pain. My eyes remained firmly shut until two more stabs of codeine let me to slip quietly beneath the waves again.

Only later did I learn that hand belonged not to my mother as I think I expected, but to my girlfriend at the time. We didn't work out as a couple which was probably for the best. I would guess she doesn't think about that moment much, at least not as often as I do or even in the same way. She might not remember at all. I expect she probably wouldn't unless reminded.

I like to think that I was strong enough to have returned to this world even without her hand to keep me from being completely alone and awash. I'm sure I would have. My injury was not life-threatening. I know people who have been through worse. But there was so much comfort in her hand clinging to me, guiding me, helping me up again. It was a kindness I never had the opportunity to repay, a blessing I am unlikely to forget.

I am told that kittens are born deaf and blind, with only a limited sense of smell. For the first few days of their lives, theirs is a world exclusively of touch. As it may be for their last, depending on the cat. We sometimes pity them in their decline, thinking how poor their world must have become. I think that world may be a richer than we imagine, one that for them brings back fond memories of the reassuring warmth of their siblings, the comforting nuzzle of a friend's nose, and the loving caress of their mother's tongue.

When I started this message, I had hoped to relate it to the support I intended to give an old friend who was facing surgery. I had wanted to extend him the same lifeline my girlfriend gave me, a hand to anchor him in this world so that I might, perhaps selfishly, continue to enjoy his company. I found out later that my friend can't have that surgery, so our days together may be fewer than I'd hoped. I'll just have to see him through another way. That's what friends do.

But the point of this message remains the same. At the risk of sounding bromidic or banal, sometimes it is the actions we least remember that have the longest impacts on those around us, good or bad. Sometimes we need to remember our earliest days, and hold each other's hand through the trials this life offers with seemingly endless variation. And when you need it most, I hope you have a hand to guide you through the worst of your pain.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Vernal Equinox 2008

A green haze envelops otherwise bare branches like sea fog clinging to the high-rises across the causeway, obscuring all but their outlines against a leaden sky. Clouds of pollen explode with each gust of wind, staining all it touches a stone-ground mustard. Older oaks shed piles brown and ropey flowers in favor of the bright green garments of their rebirth. Red maples bank their scarlet flames in favor of a cooler, coppery patina as the next generation of leaves unfold. Pine needles emerge in deep green clusters arranged like the fine brushstrokes of fur across a cat's face.

Puffs of dandelion ride the wind to fertile lodgings far from their ancestral homes. Tiny wasps dip and weave as they seek shelter from the storms of air between plentiful snacks of nectar. Crows battle headwinds to a standstill before turning their wings and returning to the destination of their departure.

As the wind quiets, cardinals share kisses in the naked myrtle after he offers her delicacies of seed. Blue swarms of jays with sunflower prizes flutter and hop among the dun bones of skeletal oaks. Squirrels climb and cling to the bare, tan trunk that supports the ceramic pool from which they drink while contorted like yoga masters setting a careful watch for the tiny panther that prowls their domain. Chattering a warning to brethren who scramble to safety, they scold their adversary as if victorious in a child's game of hide and seek. Their taunts turn to mourning the day he wins a round, a limp trophy swaying in his jaws as he retreats to the kingdom from which he came.

Below the drama, one lame dove with a club foot bobs across the yard, pecking up scraps cast down by her rivals, reminding me that spring sustains even the damaged among us as we struggle to overcome our limitations, sometimes flying where we cannot run.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Dreams

Last night I had a dream. Even within it, I struggled to find words to describe the vision I had seen.

I find myself in a dark and brooding old-growth forest. Not the bright, yellow-green of deciduous trees in spring, but the deeper blue- or black-green of the spruces, firs and pines of winter. Caught in their spell, I hear the whisper of a thousand voices, a thousand ghosts trapped in their needles and freed by the wind, the ghosts of a thousand trees that feed their young. Gray-dun birds of prey perch in their branches waiting silently to ride the voices and descend on any unsuspecting prey that scurries across the glade.

Beside the lea lies a fieldstone lodge with large, clear windows that reflect the dark sky. A patio of flagstones abuts the field shadowed by ancient sentinels. Who lives within the lodge? Are the raptors their familiars? Do they tend the trees and perfect green? No one is in sight but the place feels welcoming and well-kept. The stones and trees are suffused with peace. The peace you feel on a remote holiday you wish would never end. The peace you feel before you die.

Or wake to clutch a memory and struggle to recapture a perfect, fleeting moment. Like dappled water dancing on the ceiling of a lakeside pavilion. Or the broken reflection of the marshes beside the road that chase you home as you drive. Or two butterflies that spiral up and around each other in a double-helix toward the sky. Or a twilight contrail that transforms itself into a slow-motion meteor as it falls away from the sun. Or the shroud of fog fenced in by the quiet graves of a primitive Baptist cemetery while the rest of the terrain is clear.

All of which makes me wonder, which dreams are real and which are an illusion?


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Three Muses

I share my days with three muses, capricious as cats, who sometimes focus my attention.

First, there is Samara, the youngest. Like any good muse, she responds to many names, depending on her mood. Mar-za-pan, Mar-zilla, Mara-licious. I think we'll call her mini-Mara.

She trills and bobs her head when I hold her gaze. She walks to me to see me after tumbling out of a bag of yarn. Or lies with all four feet in the air, belly exposed, prnt'ing and barely cracking an eye when I poke her. She is always happy to see me, though like a shy faerie, she hides herself from strangers. Some days she runs just to be alive.

Most mornings, she is the one who wakes me to share a vision she can't contain. The fire light of dawn, the molten copper of morning, faeries in the grass, fog like snow upon the lawn were all her gifts. She doesn't care that I have a headache, she needs to inspire. To her, the world is a fresh, new toy to play with and to share.

Then there's the elder statesman, Smoke, the dark prince, the demon, the sorcerer and enchanter. The oldest, if diminutive, lion of this pride, he roars for his dinner in the evening. He remains curious between long, contemplative naps, the friendly one, the one who casts a spell charming everyone he meets. Mournful for the many friends he's lost, he cries at the back door for their return, or calls that he will soon join them.

His is a domain of pure imagination. He weaves the spells of intrigue and mystery that sometimes infuse my brain. I think his visions are dreams from his mornings in the sun. Though slowing with age, he is perhaps my oldest, dearest friend.

Finally, there is the middle child, Pristina, the Tina-fish, the Tina-nator, Ms. Jealousy. She was much like Mara when she was younger, a self-contained brat-pack of one. Now, she has become more staid, though still a wildling. On cool mornings, she finds any scrap of sunshine to settle in. She curls up with an attitude, claiming her position as a territory, daring me to take it away.

With her I must be still and very quiet before she deigns to join me. Touching her is sometimes encouraged, sometimes off-limits. She has become solitary, yet ever-present. In the deepest parts of night, she stares at me until I awake, then her eyes consume my soul.

This morning, she jumped into my lap and granted me a gift I had never seen before. Achingly beautiful but impossible to describe, there are lone amber hairs set against the pewter fur on the back of her neck. They glow in the light slanting through the window, sharp and reflective, like fiber-optic strands phosphorescing in the morning sun. Individual hairs like spun bronze threads set against a gray velvet coat, like the imperfections in a tapestry that makes a perfect whole. It took nearly nine years for her to find the perfect light to reveal her secret to me, beauty well worth the wait.

Some days, these muses provide me a vision of inspiration. Some days, they are the only inspiration I have.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Rebalancing

Karen and I have started doing yoga again in the evenings. It has been pleasant to get back to reintegrating mind with body after the buffeting storm of the previous year. While my mind is willing, my body protests the increased activity in a way it hasn't for many, many years. Some of you may think that stretching and holding a position, posturing and posing, couldn't be much of a workout. It is. At least, it can be if you remember to breathe.

The instructor of the program we watch is about our age, perhaps a few years younger, and more flexible than any man has a right to be. Watching him run through the positions with such ease reminds me of my fencing instructor from college.

During the spring quarter of my freshmen year, the electrical engineering curriculum gave us our first and only free elective. I'd always been intrigued by fencing, so I thought I'd give it a try. My roommate, a stoner from somewhere in middle Tennessee who wouldn't return after the summer, also ended up in the class wanting something more physically than mentally challenging for a few hours each week.

The first day there were a couple dozen of us, all guys, all between 18 and 20. Going in most of us thought we were in fairly decent shape. And we all had the same visions of fencing, dashing swordplay and Errol Flynn.

The instructor soon disabused us of these notions. She was short with blond hair dulled by gray and had a rich, Slavic accent. Her name was Sophie. No last name, no "coach," just Sophie. The introduction seemed reassuring, all very low key and relaxed. Believing the class would follow that example was our first mistake. We found out later that Sophie had been on the Polish national fencing team in the Olympics when she was younger. We also learned that she was fifty, mostly from her taunts.

For the first week, all Sophie did was try to get us into something she thought resembled reasonable shape. While we thought of ourselves as sturdy oaks, she saw us as shallow-rooted palms easily toppled in the wind.

She started with wind-sprints across the width of the gym, one quarter, touch, one half, touch, three quarters, touch, bleacher to bleacher, touch, then the reverse as fast as we could. When she thought we were not giving our all (which was most of the time), she would run beside us, sprinting faster, tagging deeper, pivoting quicker than any of us ever could, and taunting us the entire time about being teenagers outrun by a fifty year-old woman. Most of us were amazed that she could harangue us while outdistancing us and never sound winded. When she was particularly disgusted with our progress, she would run backwards in front of us, daring us to catch up.

For a break, she would have us assume a fencing position and heal-toe our way across the floor. For those who don't know, the fencing position consists of putting your feet about shoulder distance apart, right foot and leg facing forward and bent at the knee so your shin is perpendicular to the floor and your thigh is at about a 45 degree angle. Your left foot and leg are pointed to the side at a 90 degree angle with your thigh bent at about 45 degrees, but your heel beneath you. Ideally, this gives a very stable distribution to your weight, a balance point where you can move either forward or backwards with equal ease. You extend your right arm almost all the way out with your elbow pointing to the side and slightly bent, your wrist loose. Your left trails out behind and is hooked slightly above your head. Your chest is in profile toward your opponent to give a smaller target.

Once you have that posture set in your mind, picture moving your right heel up to where your right toes are with all your weight on your left foot. Plant it and accept your weight then move your left foot up about the same distance, keeping it pointed to the side, all with your knees bent and arms out. Distinct steps, don't drag or shuffle either foot. Pivot and rock like a teeter-totter moving forward on bent legs. Got that?

Get up and try it, right now, even for a few steps. I would join you but my left knee sounds like a pepper mill when I do it. Your thighs will burn within the first five steps if you are doing it right. Ok, now imagine doing that forward and backward across the entire width of a college gym, changing direction at random for twenty minutes.

After that we practiced the lunges. If I thought my thighs were smoldering before, now they needed a fire extinguisher. By the end of forty-five minutes, my arms felt as though someone had injected them with molten lead. My breath came in ragged gasps despite being told that, like in yoga, I needed to control it. It took me the day between classes just to recover enough to do it again. All this before we touched any equipment. If you are thinking "wax on, wax off," you have the right idea. I don't think we picked up a foil or donned a mask until two weeks into the course.

By then my roommate, who was broader shouldered and more muscular than I was, had dropped out. His southern male ego couldn't take being harassed by someone thirty years his senior and in better shape, a woman no less. At least that's what he told me when he stopped showing up for class. But he wasn't the only one. By the end of the first two weeks, we were down to about half our original number. Most of those who left had started in better shape than I had. If I learned one thing from Sophie, it was that it's not always the strongest who survive.

I still remember most of the exercises, parry 2, parry 4, parry 6, parry 8, all different positions to divert an incoming foil. And the routines, beat, attack, parry, lunge, riposte. Always maintain your distance even if you have to pull your chest concave from your shoulders to do so. Never drop your guard. Valuable lessons on or off the line.

Once I learned the techniques and positions, there was a detached balance between mind and body, almost a meditation on the line. Fencing, like yoga, is a discipline. If you have ever watched a match, points are scored in a blur, often too quick for the eye to follow. You can't react on the line. If you think about what you intend to do, it will be too late. You act without thinking, without allowing your mind to become distracted by your opponent or yourself. To do that, you have to breathe and live in each moment completely. Another lesson I carried with me, perhaps more practical than the rest.

The balance in yoga is more like everything in middle age, slower and more measured. Each night, we run through routines with names like the sun salutation, up and down dog, the warrior, the bow. I think a lot about Sophie as my shoulders shake while I try to balance sideways on one hand with my legs rigid and my other arm sticking straight into the air, like a cross resting on its base and one arm. The trouble is I'm no longer 19 so what the mind envisions, the body can't always execute with the grace it imagines. But it's beginning to remember despite the protests.

At the end of each session we assume a final position to cool down and center. As I lay there, I begin to feel a little better grounded, like a tree sinking its roots into the earth. I feel reintegrated and rebalanced in a way that I haven't for many years. From the porch I hear the sound of the distant traffic that drifts through the leaves with the wind. The wind chimes strike a single note that resonates until it fades, then strikes another with the deliberateness of our breathing. There is a peace carried on the wind with those tones. Whether in motion or in stillness, I hope you find a moment to breathe and listen to its song.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Imbolc 2008

We arrive at the feast of St. Brigid, midway through the darkest portion of the year. A final celebration of winter before our minds turn toward the first campaigns of spring. We have healed from setbacks of the fall and now repair our equipment as the skalds and bards inspire us toward fresh glory with their ballads.

By the lake, the water sparkles with a dreamlike clarity as though filled with sparks thrown from a blacksmith's anvil. A storm cloud of crows rises to shadow our eyes as their contentious laughter startles us from slumber. We wake to a proxy war between the Norns and Fates. The Wyrd Sisters spin their magic from the well of the world tree while the Crones weave spells into the scenes of their tapestry and prepare to unleash the Furies for grievances against this life or the last. We thought their battle was just a brushfire war until the flames set the trees alight.

I hope the crows do not look down before reporting back to their mistresses as I think they would discover a salient, a small peninsula extending from our lines. Though we have fortified our position, I fear it may soon become untenable, a Maginot Line easily circumvented despite the fortune we have spent reinforcing it. Dark forces stalk between the brooding trees of the impassable and ancient forest that anchors our left flank, threatening to leave us an island amid a hostile sea should they find their way to the fields beyond.

We dream of conquests and counter-marches as we retreat toward our mountain strongholds to ride out this winter storm. Once the passes clear, we vow to unfurl our banners and raise the horns of war, reclaiming our destiny from such godlings and lesser men. I fear our gains will resemble the first footfalls on the last snows of winter, strikingly beautiful yet leaving no enduring impression.

Such are the dreams of Imbolc that lay restless within our minds as we sleep fitfully by the fire until winter melts into spring and the wind gives voice to the trees which whisper of brighter days to come.

© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III