Because she had woken up from deep sleep to use the bathroom, she then heard the wolf’s sharp request intermittent barks, and got up again to let her out, give her dogs more water, and turn the fan toward the heavy-coated wolf so that the wolf could cool down from the fire that the hound always loved to cozy up in front of.
She reached fingers through the small cattery cage to carress her sweet tiger who brushed up against the bars in loving greeting while she waited for the two dogs to be ready to come back inside.
She realized then in the early morning quiet like those past settled evenings when the four of them had gathered in front of the fire to support their last previous cat’s winding down passing that it wasn’t that her animals were too much for her to manage.
No, they were her loving team, still there, patiently waiting for her.
It was that her house had become crowded full of others’ lives recallibrating in ways that seemed to have very little room for and not much to do with her own being able to function – although there were some other healing benefits of the reuniting.
And she had been bombarded by extreme overwhelm from the injuries, poverty struggles, and fighting to hold herself together to provide them all with stability when she had no longer felt any herself.
Because she had managed to straighten up the house some yesterday in that morning’s too early ‘wake up call,’ for a moment in these early hours today she could briefly see her own space and critter unit reflected in its own clarity.
Her posse was in a holding pattern…
And as she observed, the hound nibbled at her hind flank, apparently chasing a flea, so therefore needed flea treatment.
She rubbed the hound where she’d itched, and in that moment’s caring exchange, the hound turned back to look at her with deep, soulful eyes as if to ask, “is this really the end between us?”
She needed more care.
The four of them needed more care and space of their own again to reclaim their natural rhythms together.
She didn’t know what to do about this, as she hadn’t felt capable for far too long on so many levels, and had been so worried about and limited by extreme lack of finances.
Candid Corvid Productions 