The Imagination of Trees: cat-scratching

Wednesday, 20 August 2008

cat-scratching

One of the cats, real name Rosie, affectionate name Minnie, is incensed. She is unable to make the connection between the arrival of new sofa covers and the sudden disappearance of the sofa into a cat-proof room with a shuttable door. It is her sofa and she tried sending me to Coventry for a considerable time, not realising that living around here most of us have survived that once if we're lucky, several times if we're not, already. She has given up with the cold shoulder treatment and is now whittering at me, nagging, following me around the house using an irritating tone. The other cat, real name Tabitha, affectionate name Mimi, is unconcerned. As long as she has opportunity to put her bum in our faces twice daily and bat our faces like ping pong balls...in a loving way, she isn't that bothered. She is more pragmatic. As she sees it life is life and there is always the fur rug on the bed. There is also the cat bed in the spare room, donated by another feline who was above these things. It is supposed to reside on the radiator but she insists that she prefers it on the bedstead. Mimi/Tabitha is quite content with her lot, she didn't even bother ignoring us when the sofa disappeared.
As a consolation prize in the absence of the sofa I bought them another one of these cat-scratching posts. I don't know why because we've been down this route before and it is always treated with disdain. This one is a weird contraption that spins in the middle. We doused it in catnip and they were grateful at least for that but have refused to use it because it fails to be a sofa.
I think Rosie is over-reacting, which she generally does, she is after all allowed supervised times on the sofa. She never takes advantage of this, she demands to be drooling all over my lap and picking my linen trousers to bits. I idenitify with Rosie.

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My original introduction

This photo was taken by my husband Graham on Iona. It is important here because it represents the way in which my Mum's death and funeral offered me healing. It marks a point at which I have decided, as she did, to be fully myself and live every moment given to me as fruitfully as I can. As part of this I wanted to start a 'new thing' and start allowing people to see more of my writing and therefore live my life more openly.
This blog is a response to the insights so many shared at Mum's funeral. I discovered there that my Mum was so much more than simply my Mum. She was never a saint, had many flaws, she could be frustrating and difficult like me. But I realise that these things were tiny when balanced next to her capacity for living and for giving. What emerged from her funeral was an image of a woman whose appetite for life and for quality of life was remarkable. She was entirely herself with everyone, whatever the cost. She gave all that she had to the people she loved, she fed us, nurtured us and showed us that every detail of every day was a blessing.
I am giving you my writing as part of the fruits of my life and person in honour of her memory and continued presence in my life. It is a risk I am now willing to take. She has given me the courage to live my life boldly.
When my Mum was dying I went to the Cathedral and imagined her saying goodbye at the side of an expanse of water. In my imagination there was a boat waiting for her to depart. In my mind I urged her to get in her boat, turn her back on us all, never look back and hope for the light on the other side of the water.
The boat story of Jesus telling terrified disciples not to be afraid in the storm and calming the waves has always been comfort to me in the storms of my life. There are so many ways of looking at the symbolic meaning of a boat.
For me this photo speaks to me about a song called 'Lord you have come to the lakeside' and in it there is a line. 'Now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me; by your side, I will seek other seas.' It is a line which kept coming to me as a friend of mine sat at her Aunt's bedside in her final hours. I sang it for her and her partner as they said their goodbyes as a prayer for them, because I knew how much they liked it. I think it began to speak to me too. When I urged my Mum to the other shore it seemed that her boat was only her own and no one could be in it with her. In her death I do feel called to 'seek other seas' as a new beginning with which to honour her departing.

Books I'm reading & books I've just read

The New Black; Mourning and Melancholia by Daniel Leader
The Time Travellers Wife
Retribution by Maureen Duffy
The Summer Book by Tove Janson
Voice Over by Celine Curiol
Perfume by Patrick Siskund
Loads of Alan Bennett's writings
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Salmon Fishing in The Yemen
Engelby, Sebastian Faulks
The Lolipop Shoes; Joanne Harris
The Prospect of Heaven: Musings of an Enquiring Believer, Frederick Levison
The Courage to Connect; Becoming all we Can Be, Rosemary Lain-Priestley

About my Writing

My writing tends towards the poetic, it has also been described as filmic. It is intensely personal and seeped in Christian imagery and thinking. I think it is spiritual writing in that it is rooted in the belief that there is a God and that God is very real to us in this time and place on earth. I write because it is something I am unable to live without. I write because it is healing and therapeutic. I write out of instinct and because I am by nature 'a writer'. I write for myself and for others that I know and love. I write for specific occasions and for purposes as well as for its own sake. Writing is a pleasure for me.
I write sporadicallly and as the mood takes me, it is not a disciplined exercise but something which emerges from my soul when it needs to be created. I have been astonished to find that people around me need my writing. They ask for what I have written and they ask for more. This blog is an attempt to meet that demand, not because I feel pressured to do so, but because God has given me a gift and it is begging to be used. People are asking me to us this gift fruitfully.
I think my writing is healing in its nature, it is soulful and intimate, it reaches places within us which we do not understand and it sometimes moves people to tears. It doesn't seem that writing like this is a productive or lucrative affair. It is not a 'niche market', it is not designed for profit or thought through in any sense. This approach would disable it.

The Imagination of Trees