I've been looking after cats and thinking about why people behave in the way that they do.
I've been looking after cats and thinking about why people behave in the way that they do.
The world sparks us, glances off and through us. What we call 'character' or 'personality' is just a long, complicated series of reactions, codified and voiced in an attempt to predict future reactions.
The cats spend a significant portion of their day sleeping. When they are awake, they look for food, or they look through the windows at the world outside, hoping to roam.
On some days, the garden plants are weighed down with snow, although it often melts as quickly as it falls.
Many cats are found outside, then rescued, then brought indoors, then never let out again. This is for their safety and our satisfaction. There are mountain lions, SUVs. The street lighting here is poor.
When I lie down to read, not sleep, the cats will draw close. Depending on their 'character', they'll sit and stare expectantly into my eyes - as if there's something else, something I'm unaware of - or they will rest their chin on my chest, whiskers brushing my face, and doze, dribble, purr.
Wherever we are, wherever we sit or sleep or stare outdoors, the patterns of the home enclose us. Our natural forms intersect with straight, manufactured lines - spirit-leveled kitchen countertops, sleek panes of glass, sanded wooden beams. We curve and breathe. Our lines are never still.
But of course, no line is. That which appears fixed is merely passing through. A wine glass, a lawnmower, a lava lamp, the slowly growing sun. I heard someone say that a wooden table is merely one stage of becoming. From seed to tree to factory bench to home to rot to ruin and what's next - it's always on its way to something else, though to us it may appear fixed in time and space.
My girlfriend and I have been talking about being different people: who we were two years ago, who we'll be a couple years from now. The characters in the conversation switch with every word and second. We are swapped out, replaced, one moment after the next. A person is a moment, if anything at all.
We sleep, we're switched, we wake, we're switched again. We call ourselves something, hoping it will hold. I think I'm a certain way, but the way keeps going. Food. Windows. A doze in the afternoon snow. A melting garden. Spring once more. The bloated sun pretending to be there. A different sun, again, and then again.