Illusion of Control – Feline Version
After 16 years, Calliope and I are about to be separated. I will miss our morning breakfast routine, a time when she talks constantly, and has an unerring instinct for being in the middle of the path from the kitchen table to the coffee pot or the refrigerator. Her hope is that Kent or I will massage her belly or her head with a foot (be it shod or bare). We do, of course, and have gotten quite adept at balancing on one foot while the other slides across her fur.
Our first meeting was a moment of perfect serendipity.
A flower shop is not the kind of place you go if you want to adopt a cat. But there, tucked among the seedlings at the Plantshed at Broadway and 96th Street in New York City, was a six-week old handful of white and tan fur, mewing in the thin, reedy and high-pitched sound I associated with a calliope. She was cute, no doubt about it. But when I looked into her hazel eyes, I was hooked. Without a second thought, I tucked her into my bag along with several exotic plants for my terrace and off we went.
Our parting is an equally amazing piece of serendipity. Kent and I are moving into an apartment building that will not allow pets, and for months we’ve agonized over what to do about Calliope. She is too old for the adoption agencies to want her. And since she’s never spent a night anywhere except this house in more than thirteen years, I was sure any move would be intolerably traumatic. Given her age, I couldn’t justify putting off decisions we had to make because of our age, but neither could I justify putting a still healthy and beautiful animal to sleep for my convenience.
And then, when I didn’t think I had any more tears left, we sold our house to a wonderful family of five that wants to keep Calliope. I know they will love her — as I write she is sleeping happily on one of the unwashed tee-shirts they delivered a few days ago, so she could adjust to their smell while Kent and I were still with her. And it seems that we can come and visit her from time to time, at least for a while.
Control is a much over-rated phenomenon. Despite all my planning and organizing, Calliope came into my life on her terms and she is leaving that way as well. No way I could ever have planned any of this. Serendipity? Luck? Who knows, but it sure wasn’t control.
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