A Reason to Gather

Inspirational song: Meet on the Ledge (Fairport Convention)

The last time I saw these people, it was at a wake. Today it was the opposite reason to be together: it was to celebrate a birthday. You can't tell me that any one of us preferred the former over the latter. Two decades ago, we got together every single weekend during the days, and we spent several nights a week with each other, and at least once a year we would all go camping together. In more recent times, it took me two full years to make it to my first Independence Day picnic at the home of the couple who hosted tonight's gathering. It made me wonder, first, how was it that we had the time, energy, and freedom to spend several days a week with each other when we were in our teens and twenties. Secondly, I wondered how we could possibly recapture some of that closeness. People grow and change and develop different interests and intensity of feelings. These folks still retain a lot of the qualities that attracted me to them in the first place. I still like them. I'd like to see them more often. I can only hope that my energy and pain levels will let me get more face time with them. As a group, we suggested what would constitute good reasons to throw parties in the new year. The last two or three years have been so miserable for me, I would jump on any of those minor or major victories to meet these folks for a cocktail and a laugh.

Because our scheduling needs were at odds, we weren't able to get River sent back home today. We got one more night to play with her, so when we returned from the bar in Denver, we spent another hour getting kitten time. There was less snuggling, more playing this time. We made a video call with my daughter, and with River's mother and two brothers on the other end of the line. Much as we were disappointed when we carried Harvey over to say hello to her, River has fully transitioned to being a solitary cat. She couldn't care less to hear or see her mother, brothers, or her kitten doula (my daughter). We humans kept visiting even while the cats ignored us and did their own things. Sheba, my grand-dog, was most put out not to be the center of attention in that conversation, but there wasn't much I could do about that. The ginger brothers, all three of them, have grown so differently than River and Harvey. I saw an Instagram screenshot of Mowgli (formerly Johnny Rzeznik), and he is stocky and fluffy now. Ziggy is much the same. The runt of the litter, the space alien who has carried more names and identities than all of them, and is currently referred to as the Spyder from Mars, looks a bit like Harvey now: tall and lanky rather than stocky and fluffy. It makes me a little lonely in my own life, thinking that these kittens who were once so close will never have a litter-family reunion. I've seen cats recognize each other after a year or more apart, and act like they aren't going to snuggle, but neither will they fight. I don't think these brothers and sisters will have even that much.