english

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Mrs. Amber

For Deirdre

7/19/2013

Ms Amber was utterly comfortable in her pink-blossoming cherry tree. Stretched out on a wide branch that had grown almost horizontally with a slight elbow-like kink, she bathed in the playful sun spots that danced all around her. The warm light of a late afternoon of early summer threw more or less sharply defined shadows of cherry blossoms and leaves, which were weaving patterns choreographed by a slight breeze, onto the surface of the weathered grey pine board which connected her fragrant sky garden to the open window of the house. Although Ms Amber was getting up in age, she was a good climber as long as she was sure she could make her way back safely - whiskers first. She was as comfortable in her lofty gazebo as she was on the sun speckled ground below, a wide grass plot with its earthy and green fragrances which invited to exploration of flowers and their flying companions and to chases after the occasional grass hopper. Once she had even played with a field mouse here, which she afterwards happily presented as a special gift to Ms D.D., who lived with her in the house behind the window connected to her tree throne. Sometimes both of them would hang out in Ms D.D.'s hammock which had one end tied to the shiny red-brown tree trunk half way down from here, but she would never have visited the hammock without Ms D.D., she liked her places well grounded - motion-sickness would interfere with her desired level of comfort. Ms Amber squinted at the little green flower-bell that was tied to a smaller branch above her. "Ding, ding.......ding", said the bell gently, responding to the breeze of an approaching evening. Ms Amber briefly touched her nose to the cool metal, then she yawned and stretched limberly in a classic cat pose, her front claws hooked into the tree bark. Today she had no interest in engaging with flower bell and the wind more actively, as she sometimes would. Flower bell and the wind, interior aspects of her territory were as much part of herself, as was the sun, the tree or, for that matter, closer to home, her own skin. She experienced her places and everything in it as part of self, a fact that did not allow for the foreign concept of sharing with "other" unless of course, "other" became somehow integrated in her territory and thus "self".

She felt a sudden itch on her right hind and responded by grooming her flank with relieving tender bites after which she pulled the double sided comb of her teeth through the soft brown tabby fur, followed by the fine combing of her little pink tongue, a well practiced routine of daily hygiene. The warm tones of her fur complimented the color of her eyes which gave her the name she was called by, a speckled deep gold which was reminiscent of a long ago connection to proud lioness majesty, when live was more dangerous and less comfortable. She heard Ms D.D. call her name from inside the house and got up to cat-walk inside to greet her.