The Moon and I

It’s hard to recreate a time when there were no words, only feelings.

Moon~~Tree~~Clouds.

These are the first things I remember. Crib slats casting black shadows on a summer smooth sheet. White face through spreading branches. Next, a perfect silver disc lending its sheen to arching branches. The sugar maple that grew behind Grandparents house was enormous. 

Perhaps, long ago, it had been brought west to Ohio by a homesick Yankee.

Of course, I knew nothing of that. All I knew was that the spreading maple was good to see, the harmony of black and white, the leafy patterns, a vision which sounded in my head like a clear note. I was here, entirely secure. Outside the broad leaves with their sharpened edges were barely moving against a velvet sky. Moon face gazed down serene; a cloud edged in rainbow and silver passes.

No wonder I am who I am.

Ghosts of Abbott Road, Ellington, CT

In the next room, women’s voices. They were the ones who cared for me, two young, one old, getting ready for bed next door in the spacious bathroom, big enough to accommodate one woman at the dressing table mirror, a bather in the claw foot tub, one at the sink running water--or perhaps even seated --the “watercloset” was one of the first improvements my Grandfather had made after purchasing this house. He had called his home “a girl’s dorm” for years, and now here I came, the newest addition, another little female--the one now wondering in the room full of moonlight.

Two Juliets, 1945

Sleep was impossible bathed in silver, danced over by mutable leaf shadow. There was nothing frustrating or lonely about it. I didn’t need to cry and call them to me, even though I knew they would come. After all, the women were happy. I was fed and dry and comfortable.

Besides, outside my window was the venerable breathing tree and a full moon.  

~~

Juliet Waldron

http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi    Historical Novels by JW at Amazon

http://amzn.to/1YQziX0  A Master Passion   ISBN: 1771456744

Happy Birthday, Alexander Hamilton!

The Last Hamiltonian Cat

Major General Schuyler and Elizabeth enjoy a treat from their indulgent human 

Orange Elizabeth —you used to be so petite! When we adopted you, you weighed four lbs. You were plunked down on the counter of a friend’s pet store with half a bag of Walmart Cat food and the parting remark, “Take her. My daughter can’t keep her any longer because cats smother babies.” After imparting this bit of folk wisdom, the 3 bonnet ladies—the youngest, pregnant and weeping--walked out and left Elizabeth behind.

Major General Schuyler relaxing

Stunned, my friend tucked her into a bunny cage for the day and then took her home and hid her from her husband, who’d sworn there would to be “no more darn cats in this house!” Before you think him an ogre, you need to understand that she already had sheep, assorted dogs, cats, teenagers, a business to run, and a big gray Macau.

                                                                                                 The Renowned Hamilton

The next day she called me and begged me to take the young cat. I had four puddies at that time, but Lizzie was smart enough to sleep under the covers with my grumpy husband for a few days, which was exactly the move guaranteed to open the door to a permanent new home.

She was always a lap cat, a lady who liked to share a couch with us in the evening while her Mommy—not so svelte herself—snacked and watched TV. In her youth, Liz hunted bunnies, birds and chipmunks with deadly skill,  committing rodenticide along with the best of 'em, but with a bottomless food bowl and a lap ever available, she soon retired from these classic feline pastimes.  Sitting on the porch on long lazy summer evenings, the resident house wren could scold to her heart’s content, but Lizzie, stretched out on the cement like a purring mini-tiger, would no longer so much as twitch the tip of an ear.

Years passed. Her hips bothered her. She lost the ability to climb onto the couch or into my bed. It was difficult for her to clean. If I helped, the thanks received was sometimes hissing and a lightning fast rake – the only dynamite move she had left. Some years back, when my son visited, he declared her “a Tribble, not a cat.”   At that time she was round as a ball, legs barely visible. When we were gifted with a second orange female, Lizzie, in disgust, temporarily banished herself from the downstairs. The two “orange girls”  have continued an on-going feud for the last five years, complete with hissy fits when they unexpectedly encountered one another.

Spring and Elizabeth

Lizzie's old age was best for sleeping with me, but even that wasn't an unmixed blessing.  She took to waking me with blurt-blurt-blurt and the delicate, ever-increasing pressure of a claw against my ear. Like Simon’s Cat ©, she then pointed to her mouth, asking for me to go down the kitchen and bring back a treat. When Kitty Bob, who, like males of all species, enjoys pushing the buttons of females, scrambled noisily onto the a/c in the bedroom window, Liz would attack the the blinds, spitting and screaming. Our long-grown-and-gone sons never engaged in this much sibling rivalry!

Goldfish in from the pond, Liz, Bastet

Then, she began to lose weight. I know the end signs, but after 16 going on 17 years, it was impossible for me to admit what was happening. She stopped grooming, so every evening I helped out. I offered canned cat food as I believed she had a tooth going bad. When her face puffed on one side, she and I went to the Vet.

It was not a tooth, however. It was cancer, so I listened to the advice of Dr. Mimnagh, our excellent Vet for the past 33 years, and made the decision every pet owner eventually must. Afterward, they wrapped her little body and I took her home through a sudden, blinding, traffic-jamming downpour--my tears and Nature as one.

This morning, my husband and I put her into the ground, wrapped in a bit of Halloween print fabric—orange with black cats—and accompanied by a sprig Rosemary (for remembrance) and a sprig of catnip for sweet dreams.   Sorely missed she is, my sweet soft little ding-bat companion!

RIP DEAR ELIZABETH.

You can tell by the monitor how long ago this was

~Juliet Waldron

All my historicals, written with kitty help: 

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And, please, if you've got a moment, hop on over to these other talented

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http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com/ (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines

AN ATTIC VIEW

The Wars of Roses~View from Downstairs

 

Once this attic was empty, but entire lives are stored up there now. When we arrived here, 30 years ago, the house was completely empty. At closing, my husband requested that nothing be left behind, and nothing was, so we began with a blank slate. Now, thirty ++ years later, the whole thing is jammed. First, came a set of rustic oak chairs from our Tennessee sojourn and a few end tables. Then, in rapid succession came my grandmother’s stuff—the sad remains that the early bird relatives had deemed unimportant—and then came my mother’s boxes and trunks when she entered a nursing home—and next came his mother’s many photo albums, a huge collection going back into the 1930’s, after she too ended up in “incarcerated”. Sadly, we can’t recognize more than half the people who are posed there, giving us tight New England smiles in those old pictures pictures. 

Now all of it gathers dust. Some important boxes filled with memorabilia I would LOVE to find  have vanished—gone without a trace when I went back to locate them later. Perhaps they’ve fallen into some Twilight Zone like void that may exist in the upper stories of houses. My husband suggests they've fallen into the same inter-dimensional crease where the lost socks go.

 

We’ve thought of cleaning it, of sorting through, of discarding most and preserving the few things that might still have some interest and/or value to the next generation. Then summer comes again and we abandon the place for another six months. Next winter, we think, next spring, but somehow it never happens.  Our stuff is there, too. A host of coffee mugs emblazoned with the names of once famous and now dead Tech companies, untouched boxes of tractor-feed paper, and woolen tartan skirts made in Scotland made for 70 lb H.S. girl, as well as jackets and note books from 5^th and 6^th Form English school days—“O” level tide-pool biology and “A” level European History, adjacent to my husband’s brightly colored slacks purchased for 1970’s casual Fridays.     

There is a solar bicyclist who no longer pedals, a strobe light from the Roaring Sixties, a trunk full of 78 records (Big Band, Classical, Jazz) which belonged to my mother, and a bust which my brother-in-law picked out of some East Village trash heap back before gentrification had driven out the artists. My huband's gun club trophies are parked on a rickety bookcase.

Deeper in, there are my own manuscripts--a rejection pile--that all writers back in the day accumulated--pages thumbed through and smelling of cigarette smoke. (We went broke mailing the stuff to agents/publishers and then having it sent back via SASE.)  I even have a collection of dreary literary criticism from the 1920's simply because they they  had my Grandfather Liddle's signature inside them, and I couldn't bear to throw them away.

 

 

 

~~Juliet Waldron
http://bookswelove.net/authors/Waldron-Juliet
http://www.julietwaldron.com

Hop on over to these other talented Books We Love Authors:

 

http://triciamg.blogspot.com/ (Tricia McGill)

http://mizging.blogspot.com (Ginger Simpson)

http://connievines.blogspot.com.au/ Connie Vines