Ground

You think that you're able to relax and feel at home wherewhever you find yourself? I know that it's one of the areas of my life that needs work. Luckily, I have a professional visiting who can help me, if simply by example.

Here you see Emmitt hanging out in my bathroom sink, a bit miffed that I'm interrupting his buzz. You can't hear him purring and I was too impatient to capture his cat smile. Not because of impatience really, but because he might have decided that rest time was over. An uppity fur mouse might need a beatdown.

Since Atwood's gone, a large part of Emmitt's daily life has changed. He and Atwood had mostly cordial relations punctuated with occasional disaffection, just like most siblings. They found that teaming up together was an effective way to combat The Man, better known as Marlene and/or me. Eventually, the Stockholm syndrome kicked in and they began to sympathize somewhat with their oppressors. Regardless, they huddled together against life's tepid unfairnesses.

He misses his brother. Even if you're a person who is uncertain about the quality or existence of animal emotions, consider that the guy Emmitt spent all of his day and night with, is gone. That is an enormous change. I don't want to say that emotions are responses to unwanted change. Just that this change affects every hour of his day. At the very least, that is disorienting. Already, talk of a kitten, a companion, is in the air.

He might have us but he is alone now after sharing his life with his brother. His situation reminds me to the reasons why parents often want to have at least two kids. It's certainly about love and joy but also about the hope for companionship. Coming from a household full of kids, I know the manic understanding that can happen between little kids that makes NO sense to anyone but them. Kids and cats can best conspire with their peers. Anyone who's watched kids tell nonsense jokes to each other and scream with laughter knows about this. Sure, adults can find this camaraderie and it's nothing but joy. It's just harder to get to and less frequent, sad to say.

But I'm not a parent and it's probably not solid to extrapolate from cat to child to adult modes of companionship. I'm not much of a psychologist and I was too frightened to have children of my own. My claim here is that how we build satisfaction into our lives and ground them is slippery. As I watch Emmitt and ponder what will make him feel more at home, all is see is a guy wanting interaction. Not much different than me really.