Cats

I'm startled when I discover that I'm loved. I'm not talking about romantic love here. It's not that my parents didn't love me, but since my father drank and my mother was exhausted by maintaining the household, raising four children and working full time, there wasn't much cuddling, laughter, or soothing of tears. 

So when my new stray kitten Rosamunda reciprocated my love for her I walked all day buoyant, everything lovely: the falling snow, parks in a thick coat of pristine white, trees with sparkling ice on branches, halo of lamp lights.

I wished my past were like that, suddenly disappearing under a thick layer of white new beginnings, covering it like snow covers all the dirtiness in the city, its littered sidewalks, its mounds of black garbage bags.

Such a miracle seemed possible.

Before Rosamunda we had an old stray cat. My son brought it home and declared I never allowed him a pet, so now at the tender age of 24 he'd have a pet. His pet looked dismal. Her fur all matted, skinny like a death nightmare, her screechy meow so horrid it made me laugh. But in six months her fur coat was thick and shiny, and I didn't mind when she'd wake me up at dawn trumpeting with her alarmed meow that the end of the world was coming any minute now and no one believed her, and no one did anything about it! I related to her. I'd had my own recurring panic attacks before taking pills to pacify the horror of small hours.

I called her Mișu, after my sickling father, who eats spoonfuls of sugar, though a diabetic. My son insisted she was Ricco. I compromised and called her Miso. Then Miso Soup. 

I was proud that the vet I’d taken her to in the summer was proven wrong, our cat was not dying, under my care she recovered from her hard life in the streets. Our cat was not ill. She was just an aging, aching cat.

Around January a friend who fed stray cats in his neighborhood brought a kitten in a bag. She looked exactly like my senior cat, a gray tabby. The brother of this kitten had been killed by a car. I took her in, maybe my morose senior cat needed company. But upon introducing the kitten to my cat, my never scratching or biting senior started hissing! The kitten bolted out of my friends' strong hands and hid in a deep corner in the living room behind my paper archive boxes. I found her in the evening and placed food near her hideout and was gratified to see her eating ravenously.

The second night I discovered her under the kitchen table, on top of my old dowry chest. I put her food there and crouched under the table, soothing her with whispers.

My son caught me at it, but he thought it was our old cat that was noisily crunching the dry food under the table. I giggled to myself, because my son was working temporarily at a storage facility and he was sure the sixth floor of the building was haunted by a spirit. The elevator often went up on its own to the sixth floor and no one was there. He declared he could sense spirits. Oh, please, he lived with a smuggled kitten in the house for two days and he didn't notice it.

He asked me why I looked so guilty. I just smiled. But the second time--I don't know why he kept on coming into the kitchen, it was past midnight--as he left the kitchen he saw the old cat on the corridor and said to her, 'Oh, you ran from my mom's cuddles.' Then it dawned on him and he pounced on me, 'You have another cat hidden there! How could you?! Now you'll start hoarding cats, have seven, twenty cats!' 'No,' I said apologetically, 'just this kitten. I won't be able to survive if Miso Soup dies on me. Just this stray kitten. Her brother died hit by a car. Just this kitten.' 

Plus mother scared us we'd end up like Enikö néni, a neighbor who had 13 black cats frolicking in her small home, never let them out, and didn't teach them litter box manners. 

Oh, the stench…

My son slammed his room's door. Fine. Well, in the morning he asked me where my new friend was hiding. That's how he is: hollers, then cools down. 

The next morning my senior started coughing. I thought it was a fur ball, so I put her into the bathtub, so she could vomit there, not on the carpet, but she coughed and coughed and nothing came out. I held her, soothed her, she was so weak she tried to stand up, but she'd fall down again, and again. Until she didn't get up anymore. Then she stopped breathing. I picked her up. She was limp, a rag doll. Never had I held her without some fretting or purring in her lively body. Her heart stopped beating. I tried to hear it. It stopped beating. Then her eyes turned glassy. Her spirit was gone.

I was in shock. I knew death, loved ones died, but never under my very eyes. To witness life go away was demonic. How breath and heart beat makes us alive, conscious, and then when they stop it's all gone. How indeed life is a gift, an incomprehensible miracle. What sustains its flicker? Where does it go? Inconsolably, I cried all day.

Then whomever I met I'd tell them how my cat died, not sure if I killed her by not knowing what to do, or if it was her time to leave. People shared their stories of lost pets. My neighbor's daughter had cried on the floor for a week, her mom divulged, to her daughter's outrage. My therapist, when she was a little girl, had a bowl full of goldfish and one day they all died except for one. The next day her father bought a new fish to replace the loss, brought new friends for the lonesome fish. When she came from school she found the old fish dead on the floor. He jumped out of the bowl. She ran crying downstairs to her dad, but it was too late. My physical therapist told me how she had watched, powerlessly, her dog eating her parrot.

My son said at least we gave Miso Soup a good home and care for a few months, and she died in peace. The kitten needed us now.

Yes. The kitten was hiding less and less. Gradually she moved to my bedroom. First hid under the chest of drawers, but eventually came on my bed and played with the rubbery wiggly lizards and balls containing bells I hung for the senior cat on a folding-arm lamp. Then I started brushing her fur. She'd not let me do it for long, just a few strokes and then she'd turn her head and try to grab me with her clawed paws and bite me. I'd back off scared.

See, me having a pet is unbelievable. I come from Romania, where packs of stray dogs attack people in the streets. There was a scandal a few years ago, stray dogs ate a baby left unattended for a few minutes in a park.  I'd seen rabid dogs, rabid cats when I was small. I was bitten by dogs and hatefully barked at by those chained in the yards. See, in Romania dogs are security guards. Cats are sanitation workers. They eat mice and rats. 

My mother gets annoyed and cuts me short when I talk about my cat. Her cats would steal schnitzels from the kitchen table if left unattended. She can't conceive that I let the cat sleep on my bed, they never allow them to stay in the house, even in harsh winter. 

Here in New York pets have coats and shoes. 

When my kitten looked wistfully out of the window I told her, 'I know you miss your friends and romping outdoors, but think how harsh this cold winter is. Soon spring will be here and we'll go out for walks.' 

In spring I went with her in the park and she turned into a crouching tiger, sneaking around the park fences thru the mounds of dry leaves. 

Two elderly ladies talked to us, both had lost their cats that week. I understood their grief. One was crying, 'My tomcat would kiss me every morning. Better than a man he was.' It was a bit creepy, but I understood her pain. Years before it was mind boggling to see the pet mania here. I'd be sarcastic about it. But I understand it now.

I'm lucky to have Rosamunda. 

She ended up being Rosamunda after I tried out various grand names. Brumhilda, Rosamunda, Gertrude, Geraldine, Wilhelmina. Wilhelmina was how the Russian language professor called my mother at the university, though her name was actually Vilma. 

My Rosamunda was to be royal. 

I wanted to call her Wilhelmina, but it sounded Wagnerian. So she is Rosamunda, the Rose of the World. Sparkling of life and curiosity. She darts up on my five-shelf rack of clothes, she follows me everywhere I go, from room to room. In the evening she scuttles to my bed and hunts my moving legs and feet covered by the bed quilt and battles them. 

Yesterday morning I was meditating at what I just read in a book about human-animal interaction. The author says we are deluded that our pets give us unconditional love. To him it was clear that his cat thought about him as her food dispenser, fur scratcher, play toy, and door opener. There are some who say pet ownership is wrong, like slavery. We keep them hostage for our own enjoyment, we fix them against their will. It's immoral.

Yes, I said guiltily to myself, Rosamunda hates me, she always turns around to bite me when I brush or pet her back. Always. But then why does she follow me around? And why when once I closed my bedroom door she meowed forlorn on the corridor.

So when she wanted to attack my feet, then moved to my hands, I let her have her way with me. If she wants to bite me, let her bite me, I said, masochistically, guiltily. Here she comes! Her paws hold my hand, then the open mouth with sharp teeth closer, closer to my flesh, ready to dagger her fangs in it. But she holds my hand gently between her teeth, then she lets go of it! Again and again. Then, wonder of wonders, she licks my hand! And again! I thank her, grateful and honored, 'Thank you, Rosamunda, thank you,' each time she gives me her raspy hand kiss. 

I'm overwhelmed that I misunderstood her. She was reciprocating, showing me her love. I’m sad my mom never experienced that. I had a fluffy dog, a puppy when I was small. He got lost and I cried all day until my father brought it back from wherever the puppy went. But then he grew into a large shepherd dog, furiously barking from his chained powerlessness. 

*

Rosamunda liked living indoors, but I worried her safe apartment-cat life, involving plenty of food and not much physical activity, would turn her into a depressed tub of lard, with the painful, and costly, prospect of a diabetic old age. So I walked her regularly, on a leash. We did well. She was stimulated by the neighborhood scents, bird sounds, and squirrels’ acrobatics. We graduated from the nearby puny park with its dried grass baseball field to the Conservatory Garden in Central Park. But though we enjoyed the flower bed designs and the excitement we caused in other humans--who had never seen before a cat on a leash, so they eagerly had to Facebook Rosamunda--our exploits were limited by the park's policy. No pets were allowed to explore the bushes, their walking restricted to paved areas only.

Thus the day came when we took off for the larger vistas of meadows where people sunbathed, ate cucumber sandwiches, flirted, played Frisbee, and so on. It was a hot summer day. Rosamunda and I sat in the shade of a tree next to a bush thicket, my hand gripping her red leash.

A bunch of youngsters passed by. One of them shouted, ‘Look, a cat on a leash! Look, there by the bush! You can see the red leash! There! There!’ Rosamunda scurried deeper and deeper into the bush, and I quietly tried to follow her, until the leash got tangled in the thorny branches, and she backed out of her harness. In vain I and the youngsters tried to catch her, in vain I called her name, she was gone. She was gone, gone. I sat on a flat stone, shuttered. My beloved Rosamunda was gone. At the first occasion she fled. I thought I was a good guardian to her, but I was wrong, bitterly wrong. Rosamunda ran away. I was deluding myself all this time. She didn’t love me, foolish me, she hated me, resented me that I had to have her spayed. She ran back to the streets. I was but a jailer, she was my captive. Oh, how I misperceived. I sat on that stone stunned, crying, trying to contain myself. At intervals I’d go back into the bushes and call her name, but she was gone. Maybe even exited the park at the speed she was running. 

I was a slave owner imagining myself a benefactress.

After hours of fruitless waiting, I tied a part of her red leash on the tree, and left, crushed. I went to the animal shelter nearby my home to report her missing. I couldn’t stop crying, feeling ridiculous. The intake person soothed me. Maybe my Rosamunda was already found by someone and brought in. He took me to see all the cats waiting in cages. Some of them were sullen, others were hidden behind curtains, shy or unfriendly, aggressive. Cage after cage without my Rosamunda. So many cats, I could love them all, bring them back home, but they were not my Rosamunda. My Rosamunda was lost in the huge park, or in the immense city. The shelter man said his cat once disappeared for three days, and came back jumping on the garbage bins, meowing under his window. There was hope. Often they came back to the spot where they were lost. There was hope, I nodded sniffling.

And then I saw Sebastian in a cage!  A tabby kitten, gray like Rosamunda, only he had white feet, and a white patch on his chest. He was eagerly seeking my attention. He leaned into the wired cage for me to pet him. I told the attendant, ‘I want to take him home. I can’t cope with the misery of no Rosamunda. Can I take him now?’ He said there  was a three-day wait time for the owner to claim him back. It was Sunday, so by Tuesday if his owner didn’t claim him, I’ll be the first on the adoption list.

I went back to the park, asked my way around, 'Please, where is the Northern Meadow? I lost my cat there by a bridge.' A young couple helped me get to my red ribbon tree, and they stayed, calling with me, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda!’ until the girl’s mother called on the phone and she probably alerted her daughter I might be a dangerous nutcase, so they left me. I stayed in the dark, imagining bad things. I cried her name for an hour, but she was gone. My Rosamunda was gone. I asked my way towards the West Side exit from a dog walker, and as I went towards it, I’d call from time to time, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda,’ to no avail. I was ashamed, here I am a cat lady walking about the dangerous alleys of Central Park at night, yelling Rosamunda, Rosamunda.

Near the park exit I saw again the young couple, seated on a bench. The girl said she heard Rosamunda responding! After they left me, they kept on calling, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda!’ themselves and she answered. Where? Up on the boulders! We climbed with the young man, his smart phone in flashlight mode. We saw a pair of glinting eyes. ‘There she is!’ the boy cried, scaring the eyes into hiding. I stayed on the boulder after he left, and called my Rosamunda, but after a while I felt danger. Raccoons. Coyotes. I shimmied down the rocks and walked out of the park, then headed north along the tall stone wall. I passed by the young couple, again seated on a bench, and the girl said that they'd seen Rosamunda up on the jutting boulders. ‘How did she look like?’ ‘White and black.’ ‘That's not Rosamunda.’ Nevertheless, I went in the brush with the young man once more, and called her name, but no one responded. I assumed she was surrounded by feral cats and had to shut up, the alpha cat growling at her, it was for the safety of the group.

I left, hoping in my sorrow that her new cat family would be kind to her, if this is what she wanted, and not me. I barely slept, fearing she got raped by tomcats, bitten, or eaten by raccoons.

In the morning I went back, walked stealthily through the brush. A black cat stared at me, then disappeared. Indeed a colony of cats was living there, hiding during the day, prowling at night.

I talked to the park rangers. They didn’t have the capacity to rescue cats lost in Central Park. I emphasized there was an entire colony of feral cats up on the boulders. Yeah, but they just didn’t have the man power to help… I went to the Conservatory Garden where once I'd seen workers setting traps to catch feral cats. I talked to a gentleman who said he himself had owned four cats but when he moved to a smaller apartment he had to give them away. He didn’t find me ridiculous. But they couldn’t help me with a cat trap, or mount a rescuing expedition for my Rosamunda.

I went home. To my surprise they called from the animal shelter that Sebastian was up for adoption, even if it was just Monday. Could I come at 7 p.m. to sign the papers? I cancelled my evening appointments and eagerly went to meet Sebastian. As I was waiting in the hallway four policemen came dragging a large plastic cage, containing what appeared to be a drugged dog. I asked them since they rescued dogs, couldn’t they help me with my Rosamunda? No, they couldn’t, they sniggered. Came out that dog was a coyote! They brought it in for cremation, not adoption. A coyote had come all the way from the woods to the city, running along the highways! Not good. My Rosamunda might be dead by now, I moaned. Raped. She was like me when I left for the big city, a bright-eyed girl falling prey to a gang of rapists. But the shelter attendant assured me Rosamunda being fixed, wouldn’t attract any rapists.

They let Sebastian out of his cage, so we could become acquainted. I eagerly held him, the tiny, innocent creature. Only first they had to neuter him, give him vaccines, and I’d bring him home the next evening. They had me sign various promissory papers. One asked me to promise not to eat Sebastian!

The next evening when I came to take him home, I again did the cage rounds to see if Rosamunda had come in. So many caged, sad cats. No Rosamunda. A dog owner was distraught over his pit-bull. His nephew took the dog to his home, while this man was away, but his mother gave the dog to the shelter. So now the owner had to pay adoption fees, and his dog would be released only after being fixed. ‘Oh, man,’ he hold his head in his hands, ‘if I knew this would happen, I would have kept at least one of the puppies.’ Probably he was a breeder… 

But here was my Sebastian, in an Elizabethan collar cone.

For the next two days, I busied myself over his wound, his eating, and litter box initiation.

Only on Friday afternoon I had the respite to go back to Central Park. By now I consoled myself, Rosamunda chose her cat family and freedom over the confined life I offered her, the bowl of dry food and loneliness she must had felt when I was out. But still it hurt.

I went with my friend, first scurrying the brush up on the boulders. ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda, Rosamunda.’ No answer. I tried to keep my voice cheery, because they told me at the shelter if I was emotional, Rosamunda would get scared, thinking I’d give her grief, so she wouldn’t be easily coaxed back. I resigned myself. ‘Let’s go home.’

But my friend said, ‘We’re nearby the picnic meadow. Just a few more steps. Come on.’ We went. Here was the red leash tied on the tree, here was the thorny bush. I sat down under its branches. I chanted, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda, Rosamunda.’ A weak voice responded. My heart jolted. ‘Hear that?! ‘Oh, it’s a bird,’ my friend said. I called again, ‘Rosamunda, Rosamunda.’ The feeble voice was nearing! I called more. The bush rustled! A shiny back with red reflexes, my very own Rosamunda, was running towards me! My Rosamunda! She was as desperate as I was for her. She came so close to me, my darling, my dear darling. I lunged to get hold of her, but instead I scared her away. So close, so close and now I lost her again?! My friend asked if I wanted him to get her for me. ‘Yes. Yes.’ I was faint. ‘Open the can of cat food, so Rosamunda can smell the food, and she won’t resist it.’ We called her again, and she came back. My friend threw a lump of food toward her, Rosamunda famished ate. He threw another lump closer, Rosamunda approached. Again, closer. As she gulped the food, my friend, with his strong, vise-like grip, took hold of her waist. I was laughing, crying, feeling elated! I was so fired up, blasphemous as it may sound, more than at the fall of communism, the ‘89 revolution when we shot our dictator and gained our freedom.

It was a miracle.

We exited the park. I hailed a taxi, but the driver said morosely, ‘Sorry, no pets.’ So we walked all the way crosstown, holding the cat away from us, fearing cooties. Each time someone looked askance we’d announce, ‘We found her after almost a week. We lost her in Central Park on Sunday! We found her! It’s unbelievable!’ Some looked away, others said smiling, ‘God be praised.’

When we arrived at our building, I went inside my apartment and brought out the pet carrier. We pushed Rosamunda in it, and I took her straight to the bathroom. I was afraid she got fleas, or she’d go wild when she’d see Sebastian in his cone and scratch his wound open. I gave her a good bath, toweled her, fed her, and for three days I kept her in my room, her litter box too. She curled by my side, watching me, so I don’t leave her lost to the wilderness again. Gradually I let down my guard and forgot to shut the door after me when I went to tend to Sebastian, who was in a cage, because I couldn’t have him jump on and off the furniture, his wound could have ruptured. And so Rosamunda followed me and saw Sebastian. She bristled and hissed at him. She arched her back, the fur spiked up, seeing her replacement. I took her to my room, but she cried. How could I bring a stranger in her home?! 'I’m gone four days and you replace me?!' ‘Rosamunda, it was you who left me heartbroken! I thought I’d die without you. Besides Sebastian is a kitten, he was abandoned in the dangerous streets of the Bronx. You could play with him, you won’t be alone anymore while I’m away. It’s going to be fun.’

She meowed dolorously.

Sebastian couldn’t care less about her hisses. After his wound healed, I took off his cone, got rid of the cage, and they befriended each other. Now Sebastian is often grooming Rosamunda who accepts his ministrations. It’s a wonder to see them playing together. They grab each other by the neck and move so fast, it’s a blur of bundled fur tumbling around at such high speed you can’t even see them. 

When I first brought Sebastian home he was bobbing his head, like a bobble-head toy people put on their car dashboards. I read that was a sign he had suffered from distemper. But in time with nourishment, the bobbing went away. He is the calmest creature, like I’d like to be. He doesn’t hold grudges. 

Darling Rosamunda never totally forgave me for my betrayal. Each time Sebastian hopped on my bed she left the room in a huff. Plus she turned scardy after the expedition. She runs into hiding if I move towards her fast; if she hears a building noise she stops eating. She behaves like my old self, high strung from the past attacks. God knows what had happened to her in the park. I sooth her, I tell her she is safe now, I love her, she should hang out with Sebastian and me on my bed. Gradually she comes into my bedroom and sits on a shelf by the window, watching birds flying outside, or even briefly relaxes on my bed quilt. She is still shy, not like Sebastian who licks my hands or gives me playful bites, or grabs me with his paws when I scratch his belly. Sebastian knows no evil. He often sleeps belly up, which is the most trusting and vulnerable position for a feline, Jack Galaxy, the cat whisperer, said on YouTube. To watch him is bliss. I often fall asleep, not a care in the world.

On our walks at times I’m reminded how arrogant it is of humans to disdain animals. One day we were walking back from the compost bin placed in front of the community garden, and Sebastian was exploring the many scents along the fence. I walked by his side, one foot away, holding his leash. An old man came along and instead of going around us, there was plenty of sidewalk space, he barged between me and Sebastian, scowling that no cat had priority over him. He was superior to a bloody cat. As he walked away I told him my Sebastian was God’s creature too. He hollered that I should watch what would happen next time when he comes upon my cat. Only later on the right reply came to me. ‘Indeed, Sir, I know exactly what would happen. I’ll call 911 and report you for animal cruelty and you’ll get yourself handcuffed, that’s what will happen!’

Another day we were crossing the street. It was raining. I was holding Sebastian in my arms, protecting him from the drizzle. A hefty young guy spat out, ‘Stupid cat!’ when he passed us by. His intense hatred stunned me. My Sebastian is brighter and kinder than that hoodlum. Both he and Rosamunda when they hear me opening the zip lock bag of treats they scurry from whatever far corner of the apartment. If I say to Rosamunda, when she furiously scratches the kitchen upholstered chairs, ‘Rosamunda, NO!’ she stops instantly. And they move so gracefully, so fluidly, I bet the fashion shows’ catwalk word derives from their feline slinky strut.

Their round astonished eyes, watching me perform the fantastic feat of dishwashing, or slicing onions, are gratifying.

I told my mom whenever I look into their large, clear kitten eyes, I remember my infant siblings' blue eyes. My brother died from drinking, my sister is still alive, in the room with mom when I call in on Skype. My sister understands my love for my cat. She loves chicken. Mom's three roosters sing together at dawn. 'A choir of roosters,' she laughs. 

I tell mother I believe my cats have souls. She scoffs.

I love my mom. We are from a people that still have ancient purity codes. Odd ones, misogynistic ones, and one of them is that animals are unclean. She always warns me cats carry awful diseases. But my cats are vaccinated.

My life is content now. I enjoy our loving solitude. I'm more part of the good in the world because of my cats. I write this story for the goodness in people.

I was walking back home thru the slushy melting snow, when at a street corner a guy was texting, waiting to cross the street. There was only a rambling snow-blade truck moving slowly two blocks away, so I told him, 'We can cross safely now,' and I went ahead. I don't know if he heard me or not, I walked fast so he wouldn't think I wanted to hit on him, but for a moment there was a 'we'.

For a moment I could share the world in kindness.

New York

February 2016

Golden Yellow Blues

From time to time when the sky is gloomy I gather various textiles that are not happy whites anymore and I turn them into golden days.
I'm told being useful to others, sharing your knowledge is the way to go. Keith Pavia fellow artist reminded me that talents are given to be shared not buried away.
It is still trying for me because I grew up under communism and much was taken from us in the name of altruism.
Yet for many years I went that route only to get burned out.
So: dissatisfying whites get soaked for an hour or so.

I put to boil 4.5 gallons of water  and 13 tablespoons of turmeric and 9 tablespoons of alum. If curious Google as to why.

I pushed the clothes thoroughly under the concoction and made sure it stayed oppressed.

After an hour get them out without burning yourself. 

Rinse. The turmeric powder might create a Milkyway of sorts on the bathtub floor. Get metaphysical.

Take pictures with your phone and not spify camera while rinsing until the water is not yellow anymore.

Put  a second load into the brewing cauldron.  If you get annoyed by the waiting like I do since I equate waiting with terrorising controlling tactics, as experienced under said communism, double task. Repot your plants. Here goes Pandele, my digging assistant:

After rinsing put them in the dryer and get all metaphysical again.

Then fold the fluffy clothes and uuu and aaa about how soft and sunflower fields and daffodils and autumn ginko tree leaves they are. And how you'll never get to be depressed by blahy whites again. It's not your fault the washing cycle is just half an hour here in America and you can't get them be the required white. 

And that how disgustingly patriarchal it is that brides must wear virginal white. And you can't remember the biblical title of a movie in which Betty Davis stubbornly showed up in a red dress she bought of a sexual worker and Jane Fonda's father dumped her. Jezebel the film. 

At my wedding my head looked like a buffalo partition in the middle  teased in two mounds stiff with hair spray. Made my own white dress. God, every year I find more stuff in my younger past to be embarrassed about.

Here are the invigorating results:

Even rust splotches look artsy now:

This flower is my phone screen now to remind me that when in doubt use yellow.

After trimming off the stray strings I made a tassel:

and left the rest to Pandele to play

while I took a hot bath using the brewing. Turmeric and alum is great for you. Google, Google. If you douse your nether parts you can be a virgin all over again. Yep.

New York City 

November 11, 2017

Colors

The Olympics Seep In

In the NYC Park and Recreation swimming pool down the block. I swim faster, vigorously, since on my retina the Rio Olympics unfold. I don’t understand the rules of the swimming competitions, or even swimming styles. All I engage in is my frog stroke. It’s an approximation of breast stroke and butterfly, I was told by savvier swimmers at the gym swimming pool in winter. They insisted I should sink my head in the water, but I can’t do that at our neighborhood pool. Swimmers share wide lanes during the early morning lap swim hours. I rotate my head like a periscope. I have to watch out for the careless back-strokers to avoid frontal collision. I surely don’t want to start my day in a Titanic wreck.

During day there are no lap swim lanes, the pool turns into a zoo. Crab hermits congregate on the pool ramp and steps, blocking your access. The floor is dangerous to step on, since queen conch shells covered in barnacles don’t budge, busily working on their pink pearls. Your serene swimming is hindered by papa sea lions dipping their squealing pups in water, majestic whales snorting menacingly at you, their calves frolicking under their protective bellies, or by dazed catfish with their fingerlings pulling at their barbel-moustaches, or alarmed frogs, basking on pool edges, squawking loudly as they dive to rescue their overconfident tadpoles engaged in underwater breath-holding contests, or teenage sea horses clutched amorously, or islands of rapping seagulls, or the occasional mermaid, slaloming through clusters of ponderous pelicans, searching for their mermen, attacked by quarrelsome Medusas, or lazily hanging out with Rastafarian octopuses, anyway, not to belabor my point, playful bathers pop up in front of you from the water, splash, jump, ignoring your ‘efforting’.

So when a teenage girl follows me around and finally asks me smiling what kind of swimming is that, I apologetically say it’s my one of a kind frog style. When she asks me how I move my legs, arms, I realize she wants to learn to swim. I demonstrate. She eagerly imitates my arm moves. She moans she’ll never be able to swim. I encourage her, she will swim in no time, much better than me, if she registers for free swim classes. I want to get on with my ten-lap quota, that is ten pool lengths. In the morning I manage twenty pool widths. I’m a slow poke, but I came a long way.

I grew up in a dusty little town with no river or lake or clean swimming pool, the seaside was 400 kilometers away, and mom was terrified of water, fearful I’d drown or catch diseases. When I swam my first lap a few summers ago I thought I’d die, my heart was pounding out of my chest, my lungs were agonizing, my feet were shackled in cramps. All this in a sad four-feet-deep pool surrounded by eight lifeguards. So to me frogging twenty laps in half an hour is winning gold at the Olympics.

What those swimmers do in Rio is unbelievable. I’m in awe that they manage to jump into the water timely. I’d be still gasping for air on my trampoline, debating if I heard the start signal or not, while they’d be finishing the race, go on the podium, take their medals, travel back to their countries.

But according to my Yoga teacher I’m a gold medalist just for the mere fact that I show up on Thursdays at her Yoga class. As far as she is concerned, I could snooze on the matt in Child’s Pose, well, maybe that would be uncomfortable, but in Corpse Pose, and still win a medal for my ‘efforting’. Well, the municipality pays for this class, so some follow her advice, but were they to pay from their own pockets I bet they’d like to get more bang for their money than a nap on a matt. Anyway, the teacher’s point is that Yoga class is not a competition arena. No judges, no judgment.

If only I could reach that stage of enlightment, life would be so much easier, so much rosier. It’s a daily struggle not to pass judgment. I blame it on being raised during Ceauşescu’s socialism. My theory is that officially we were supposedly all in it together, so everybody goaded everybody, criticized one another. Everybody’s choices and actions affected everybody else. We all had to attain Epoca de Aur/The Golden Age of Communism as a group, not individually, slow pokes and Olympians alike.

We stand tall in Mountain Pose, eyes closed, listening to our teacher about the new women’s gymnastics world champion, a nineteen-year-old that smiles effortlessly and treats herself to pepperoni pizza even when she doesn’t win gold. She is the greatest gymnast of all times ever, the teacher enthuses, she can do poses that even male gymnasts have trouble with, she is so strong, so playful. The best.

I just can’t keep my eyes closed. I squeeze my eyelids, but I just can’t meditate. How could this American girl, the new world champion, be the best ever?! Nadia Comăneci is the best ever. Ever, ever, ever! Without Nadia there’s no modern gymnastics! Plus Nadia was born in Romania, and so was I, and you are now telling me Simone Biles is the greatest ever, ever? No, no, no! Nadia Comăneci is ever, ever, ever! I was a child when I watched wistful Nadia, a child herself, competing in Montreal, making the billboards go 00.00, because the machine had no 10.00 score for her perfection. I watched the world go berserk with wonder.

Then when she competed in Moscow the Russians cheated and stole the gold from her, because Russia’s might would trample us under its boot. I watched in tears her trainers withdrawing the team from the competition. That was the last sports competition I ever watched. It made me sick for decades. Only this summer visiting a dying friend I indulged her and watched together one evening’s broadcast to see if a Hungarian swimmer would make us proud. To my surprise I was so happy to see so many driven youth. Nowadays it’s cool to drift aimlessly, alas. Those swimmers, faces so young. It was endearing to hear their rehearsed speeches of gratitude. If you beat your competitor with just one millisecond you became the winner. Ridiculous. I’d give all finalists medals.

And then, at the gymnastics there was Nadia in the bleachers. And Marta Karolyi. And the American team wins. There’s only one lonely Romanian gymnast competing, not even a team. It was heartbreaking. What happened?! Romania was a powerhouse! We defined modern gymnastics! And now America wins it all?! What happened?!

Well, dear Ella, funny you should ask. Where do you live? In America. Where’s Nadia? In America. Where are the Karolyis? In America. Who wins? America. The safe harbor we all seek.

Simone Biles is a sweet girl, from foster care to gold medal, what an inspiring, from-rags-to-riches story, sure, but don’t tell me she is the greatest of them all. There’s an entire team of Romanians behind her. The Karolyis gave America fifteen world champions, nine Olympic champions, over seventy medals, and on and on the list goes. I don’t know if Nadia had privileges in Romania, if she had enough food to eat or was starving like the rest of us under communism, if she was freezing in her home, like the rest of us, or if she treated herself to pepperoni pizza, but I know that behind her was the sadness and joy, the humiliation and pride of the little country of Romania.

And now they have nothing. That is partly their politicians doing, alright. That is partly our doing, because we ran away for dear life, alright. But it is also part of beloved America’s doing, gulping in everything. Look at the many Easter European names that American champions have.

Sure, it is for the greater good, for humanity’s good.

But, please Yoga teacher, even if you were not born when Nadia was a world champion, you surely have heard of her…

New York City

August 12, 2016

Walk in the Woods

The moss and its alert peoplehood, shoulder to shoulder, delicate green antennas, shoulder to shoulder, a sea of tiny green soldiers.

Dried ferns, scorched in arthritic hands of witches.

Why a scared child?

A turquoise car abandoned, bushes of ferns growing through its gaping windows.

Tracks of two-toed moose. Wild turkeys scratched the forest floor for acorns.

A network of plugs drains the spring sap out of maple trees.

Leeches we are, preying on life.

Down we walk along a trail, down, down, until we reach the Beaver’s Pond.

I’m startled by the rummaged landscape.

Death beaver ate its way through the young wood. Bit through it savagely.

Serial killer.

Here a fallen oak tree, majestic once, all chewed up. There a white birch column, massacred, half-drowned in the indifferent mirror of the lake.

Around the lake ridge scores of trees, columns tumbled chaotically, dried branches, sun-bleached skeletons.

As we approach the lake, death realm, the Beaver King furiously slaps his tail against water, to scare us away from his nesting den, his little ones hidden.

As if I care to bother them, disturbed as I am by the death scenery.

This forest ruin of untimely fallen trees is my hometown, forgotten I thought, but still deep in my memory. The beaver eating its own forest.

Instead of shots of green and buds of spring, ants and monster crawlers nest in tree flesh, young tree untimely chewed into death.

A waterfall at the dam, cries, mourning for my young brother, mourning, wailing for the child with bright blue eyes. My memory replaces his drunken young man face with so lovely an infant, my innocent one. I mourn the walks in the woods we never took together, the talks we never had together. The hope I never gave him. My love withheld in grudges and irritation, his adolescent arrogance, foolish squandering of life.

Beaver, don’t chew my soul with the regret I never ministered to my brother. My words might have helped him stay away from death.

I walk closer to the waterfall, its howling pain resonating in my ears, trembling my heart to tears, cry water, cry, cry, cry, cry water tumult, cry out my powerlessness, my splitting pain, cracking open all pain for all those I lost to death, even for those who were unkind. Maybe life taught them regret, before I got to tell them it’s all forgiven, forgotten, don’t blame yourself for the pain you gave me, it’s all forgotten, forgiven, die in peace. It’s all forgiven. I understand now. Look at the buds of green on the spring branches, ready to explode in riots of lively green. I forgive as I hope to be forgiven too.

My brother knew we loved him. He knew all too well, he played us, wrapped us around his little finger. He knew we loved him. He just couldn’t bear life anymore. I can.

Walk, walk, cry now, cry now. Bye now, brother, bye now.

The woods, cracking twigs under my feet, the evergreens mirrored in the reverberating circles of water, remind me of my childhood, of my mother. He didn’t want to leave her womb, he clung to it, scared of the outside, scared of growth, scared of independence.

Why my mother is it so?

I find your comforting love in the burning embers of the camp fire. In its pulsating red glow, your heart, unstoppable glow of love and strength, my mother. Your warm hugs, in the flames and sparks spurred in the darkness you are with me, my mother.

The sizzling sap of the firewood. The smoke stinging my eyes, your sharp tongue.

My mother.

I find you in the crying of the lonely screechy owls. Under the shiny stars, that glitter in spite of weather fortune tellers who predicted snow and cold.

You are, dear mother, in the laughter of my son. In my womb.

In the tallness of the room, in the wooden ceiling and its cracked oak beams you are, as I fall asleep in this friendly home, my Easter sanctuary.

Even in the warm soapy water I wash the dishes in, the memory of childhood and you, my kitchen chores then, scrubbing dishes in the cold water, my umbilical cord still tying me to you as I rinse dishes now.

On the table your chicken and mashed potatoes; we were served tonight your Sundays.

Mother, teach me how not to mourn you while I mourn my brother. Teach me how to be you, my mother, so that I should never miss you, my mother, when your death will come. Teach me how when the door of mourning those taken from me by life or death, when that door cracks open, teach me not to break down, but to be a gracious host.

New Hampshire

2003

Serene in a Festival of Lights

It’s been cold on Thursday. I don’t know what possessed me to dress in skinny black jeans, and a light black cloche coat. But by the time I was in the street I realized it was too late to trot back to my apartment. I was on my way to the endocrinologist, eager to see how my thyroid was doing.  What a year was 2014. Last December out of the blue I lost 10 lbs. in 14 days or 14 lbs. in 10 days. My throat was gorged. I could barely talk, the thyroid pressing on my vocal cords. Investigations, blood testing, taking radioactive fluids so they can scan the glands, on and on it went. Medication. At all costs avoid stress. No stress. No stress. How can one live in New York City and have no stress…

But when there’s a will there’s a way. A neighbor took me to her friends’ camp in the Catskills. Deep in the woods. There was a creek whispering no stress no stress no stress. Across from it a field of wild yellow flowers exuding scents of no stress no stress no stress aroma therapy. In the background the old fir trees guarded me no stress no stress no stress shall enter here. Ella is sunbathing on the weathered wooden deck. No stress, no stress, no stress….
A golden summer. But when fall swishes its cold cat-o'-nine-tails whip chasing you back to your cozy New York apartment you wonder how you will keep no stress no stress no stressing on when one must network, attend events, promote, sell, survive, push on her talents applecart.
And I was so tired of if you make it here you make it anywhere. I wished to be a chipmunk dug in a hole for winter. Feel no guilt I don’t press on. But how?
One day I knock at my son’s room door with a bowl of blackberries. He cracks the door open. A horrid meow screeched behind him. My son with a glint in his lovely eyes informs me he brought home a stray cat and he shall keep it no matter what. He always wanted a pet and I never allowed him a pet. So now he has a cat. His cat. Alright. But she stays solely in your room. I’m allergic to cats. Let me see the damn thing!
Oh, Lord, what an unsightly scrawny miserable creature. Fur dangling in thick matted balls. And the meowing most unfortunate. But my son dug his heels. This is his pet. Alright.
The next day when he’s at work, I break into his room and dig the cat out from a dark corner by the bed and start cutting off her matted dangles. She meows pitifully but doesn’t scratch, doesn’t bite, doesn’t hiss, always poops in the litter box. I bathe her. Her voice tells me it’s the end of the world, can’t I understand it’s the end of the world; can’t I stop the water and shampooing? We’re all gonna die in a matter of minutes. But I towel her and blow dry her and when done she scurries back to her dark corner. My son throws a fit that I could have hurt the cat, she’s his pet, I should not sneak into his room!
So of course every day I go in his room to pet the cat and play relaxing cat music and worry she doesn’t eat the dry food my son bought her. I name her Mişu, after my father, who got skinny and frail, but my son calls her Rico. She is not a Spanish cat! On Friday early morning I stay in line at the veterinarian van stationed by the park. The cat perks up when she sees bushes. It’s a long wait, so I take her on the baseball field. I tied a red rickrack lease around her neck and she roams the filed, munches on grass. I scoop her up. She never bites, never scratches, never hisses.
Finally the vet invites us in his mobile clinic. For his $25 fee he declares Mişu/Rico the cat is about to die, she’s dehydrated, she’s at least 12 years old, she needs blood tests and an IV drip, all for a measly $120. They trim her claws for $5.
I can’t afford your neighborly prices. He advises to drop her at the animal shelter.
I push my senior cat in the backpack and leave crying. It sinks in that America is cruel. I am that cat. If I can’t afford medical treatment they let me die.
I stop by the animal shelter to ask them if they could give me a pipeta, whatever you call the thingy with which you put ear drops or eye drops, so I can force water my cat. The boss there goes on that this is not what they ado there. Do I want to leave the cat with the shelter? I do not. This is my cat, my senior cat, and I shall take care of her till she or I die. All I need is a pipeta. Finally one worker gives me the device and we go. My cat walks on the sidewalk, stops and detects scents, scoots under parked cars. I talk to her, holding tight the improvised leash.
For days I’m heartbroken she’s gonna die. I ask advice over Skype from my mom who used to work at a cooperative farm supervising the animal sector. She is disgusted by my cat. One doesn’t keep animals in one’s home. They are dirty. They carry parasites. Contagious diseases. Cats and dogs are utilitarian. They eat mice and rats and chase robbers away. They do not, do not live in the house. I explain to her here they are part of the family.
Each time I talk to her I tell her about my cat’s progress. We discovered she likes tuna, so we feed her tuna. I brush her every evening. I walk her daily. People can’t stop taking pictures of her. They never saw a cat walking on a leash before. My son laughs that I’m like Dali and his ocelot.
My cat, well, our cat, gained 3 lbs., her fur coat is luscious, gray with black stripes, she sleeps at times on my bed, I scratch her head and she purrs, if I stop she meows reminding me I’m her human scratcher and must go on scratching. I got her rubber lizards and hung them on the lamp arm, she battles them fiercely. When she sleeps, flat on one side, legs and paws, her back and head making a circle, my serenity fairy, an innocent being, hurts no one, elbows not for hullabaloo celebrity in the greatest city in the world. When I hold her in my arms and she softly meows I don’t give a fig about what I’m missing by not going out, working the scene, network, promote, sell.
I am the quiet of my cat.
The endocrinologist shouted a big hurray when she saw the blood test results. My thyroid is back to normal levels, true with the help of her meds, but also my Zen cat.
So shivering in my flimsy outfit I hopped on the train to face Brooklyn, be part of an evening of stories curated by my friend Martie at the Branded Saloon on Vanderbilt Avenue. I sat on the A train, swiftly working out the crossword puzzle, when the conductor alerted us there was a fire somewhere along the line, the train goes back to Manhattan.
I won’t go back to Manhattan. I am on a mission. Tonight I shall attend the Festival of Lights at the Branded Saloon. I shall amble on by bus. I got to the surface and realized I’m gonna freeze to death if I didn’t go to the Goodwill around the corner and get a pullover, a cap. So I did that, then found the bus stop and saw I could get off at Vanderbilt Avenue. Bus arrived, I kindly asked the driver to let me know when we reach Vanderbilt Avenue stop. Half an hour later still no Vanderbilt Avenue. I inquire the driver when shall we hit Vanderbilt Avenue? Vanderbilt Avenue?! I announced it 15 minutes ago. Take this transfer and go across the street and go back to Vanderbilt Avenue. So I did. So I did.
Branded Saloon was indeed at the indicated address waiting for me, though an hour late.
The backroom had chandeliers made of intertwined deer horns. On a piano there was a stuffed peacock without its feather tail. Martie opened the second part of the evening introducing a charming lady who told us a story about the Christmas stockings her grandma cross stitched for each of her children and grandchildren. The charming lady is a rare object, antiques appraisal. If I got it right she found somewhere in Florida a small statue she purchased for $5,000 and was auctioned by Sotheby’s for $5 million, the statue being either formerly owned or a representation of Rasputin.
My memory is party inaccurate because I was next to go on stage and was annoyed with myself that I was clad in black like a typical New Yorker. But on stage I went for Martie and her Festival of Lights, and I told the audience how upon arrival in America, I was stationed for three years in Baton Rouge as a graduate student. And Christmas comes, let alone everybody was in shorts and flip flops under the arduous tropical sun, seeking the shade of palm trees, metaphorically speaking since they air-condition themselves, we were taken on neighborhood tours to admire the lawn adornments, electric bulb Nativity scenes and reindeers and Santas and Three Kings, and bales of straw as snow hills. Martie tells me it was a show off contest.
My interpretation was that the poor people were trying to fake it till they make it, but it didn’t quite work out. My childhood Christmas memories have no blinding electric bulbs concoctions, but the fresh air of my village, the crunchy sparkling snow, as I went with my friends caroling from door to door. It wasn’t so much about announcing the birth of Jesus in a manger, but about all the cakes and cookies and walnuts and apples villagers gifted us, and who got the biggest bag full of goodies by the end of the night. We would walk on the path thru snow, at times a misstep would deep you, swallow you, drown you waist high in snow, and as we approached the porch of the house the icicles trimming the roof would sparkle from the oil lamp of the home. That was real wintery Christmas you can’t buy with all the bulbs in America. And the ice flowers on the windows, frost flowers you call them? I haven’t seen any in America. Maybe they have them at Home Depot.
What I also remember were the Christmas tree decorations. We were comrade countries with China, and mom always brought out the boxes with glass balls and velvet figurines. There was a peacock, a green velvet peacock, its wire claws had to be clutched on the tree branch.
I don’t remember much of the Christmas spirit, father being usually plastered, but I do remember a ginger haired teddy bear with an azure bow. So large he was, I could barely hold him in my arms.
And once, we searched thru mom’s boxes and we found some white balloons and we blew them up and stringed them in garlands. Came out they were condoms.
Martie laughs, I was gonna say they were condoms. I was gonna say!
And we laugh, not sure if I already told her this story.
My trip back to Manhattan was a breeze. The train stop was four blocks from the Saloon.
I came home and hugged my soft cat, and I told my son, ‘You know, I still have it in me. My thyroid is at peace now. Maybe, maybe I still have it in me and we didn’t come here for nothing.’
I felt at home back on stage again.

New York
Saturday, December 20, 2014