BRATTLEBORO — Winter world turns toward darkness, snow forms into mountains, snow covers the streets in a blanket of snow, white feathers fly overhead, drifting down over us as if we are held in a snow globe.
Now the cat stretches and yawns. He has no care about the weather. He will not trudge to the hardware store, where I get two sacks of litter and the salesperson is kind in her concern.
“Are you walking?” she asks. “1 don't think you should take two,” she says.
White hair marks me, but I balance out and trudge up the road past the mountain, stoic and serene, the way to be, to gaze out at the world like the mountain, let the wind blow over you, endure.
The little cat I now have, he's not so little. He's very fat.
He yawns. He stretches. He jumps after string. He is so happy.
That's another way to be, to take delight in the most simple things. Ask for nothing more than this, someone tossing around some string in your direction.
* * *
Oh, cat - it is snowing. The icicles gleam. They cling to the roof and the pine trees tower over all.
Little Tuxedo Guy, I call him. He looks like a cat from a cartoon. He sometimes stalks my arm and bites hard. I am trying to break him of this habit.
Oh, he would like to roam in the winter night. He would like milk in a saucer white as snow, and from the window he gazes enraptured at the snow falling, at the night. And that could be another way, to learn to so quietly and raptly gaze.
What does he see, what goes through his little cat brain?
Is he in the Siberia of his ancestors prowling the frozen wastes?
Do they huddle together for warmth, all of the creatures wild, listening to the fierce screaming of the wind and narrowing their eyes in silent understanding?
Creature of the forests, of the wild woods, Little Tuxedo Guy, I will get you organic cat food when the Purina runs out. Will it be any better? Who knows.
* * *
Snow around us, and we are in this house and warm, far from Siberian wastes. Tomorrow I will go to dig out the car.
Now the snow forms a tower on the roof. The neighbor, Sarah, will come to tell me that in the winter we must put our cars in the parking lot next door when the plows come through. She will put notes on everyone's door.
Why do I not want to think of what must be done? Why do I only want to gaze out at the snow?
Unlike the cat, I must be someone living in a world of rules. He stretches and yawns; his soul travels for miles in the winter night.