Wednesday, March 5, 2008

WHY? **This writing contains graphic descriptions of an animal dying**

So why this blog, why now, why today. Why oh why oh why. All the fodder is out there, so what in god's name could make this blog special, what should it be called, what should it contain. To what end shall it aspire, to what beginning? Who are you, who am I?

I will tell you I have been thinking about this since three years ago, four years ago, when, lost in New York City, I wondered if I would be happy or at least happier if I wrote regularly and that in this day and age, a way to write regularly and have people see it, which I think is pretty important, is to have a blog. Yes, I'm telling you nothing new. I am older than some and younger than others and though I once believed it akin to selling one's soul to Darth Vader, I now firmly believe blogs are good news. I have been thinking about creating a blog for a long time.

On March 4th, 2008, two days ago, my mother's cat, Tula, was killed by a white man in a white BMW. I arrived home and got out of my mom's car in the beautiful late afternoon and the man in the white BMW was stopped in front of our house and as I got out of my mother's car he said, DID YOU SEE THAT? And I said NO. And he said AW SHIT I THINK I JUST HIT A CAT. That is what he said he said AW SHIT I THINK I JUST HIT A CAT. And I ran to the front of his car and saw Tula on the ground in a pool of blood with one of her greenyellow eyes crushed back into her little blackfurry Queen Thundercloud of a skull and blood had sprayed and gushed from both of her ears (later when I cleaned it off the curb it was in two distinctive places, meaning there was a place, and then for a few feet it was clean, and then there was another place). She was lying on the warm spring pavement where children learn how to ride their bicycles and worms sometimes crawl all the way across unimpeded and where I had just stepped moments ago, lightly into the afternoon, carrying facts deep in my soul. Facts of golden lava that flow at all sorts of speeds, facts like this--- my mother is at work, my father is at the JCC, my sister is writing, my love is on her way to yoga class, and Tula is out there somewhere, probably on the hill across the street, probably stalking a bird or a lizard.

So when I saw her in front of the white BMW and collapsed on the street, collapsed on my knees in the late afternoon sun, this fact of mine suddenly rushed away. And it is a feeling to have a fact of golden lava disappear so fast.

Tula-- from "gattula," which means little cat in Greek-- my mother's Tula, my sister's Tula, my Tula, but most of all Tula's Tula-- the greatest whirring Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Queen Thundercloud of a cat. The feistiest little glint who loved love as much as anyone else and got it when she wanted it, and went hunting when she didn't. And if you actually got to pet her, better believe you'd done something right in this life.

Ceased.

Ceased by the foot inside a penny- loafer, pressing its gas pedal, sending a machine on its way, but now standing next to me and Tula. Me 'n' Tula. Lying in the street together with the penny- loafers looking over us. In the seconds before I got up and desperately drove with her body in my lap down to the vet, I thought about grasping one of those loafers. Maybe because I thought he was sad too? --- Of course he was. He had killed Tula! He had to be sad. Well I should grasp his loafer so he'll know I'm here for him.--- Or maybe I just wanted to feel something that would move underneath my hand. Like all those nights on the way out of the kitchen after I was done with the dishes. I'd turn the lights out, stand over her chair for a moment, and almost know that a magic little blackfurry cloud was sleeping right there in the dark. But I'd have to reach out to smooth the perfect warm fur, just to be sure. And when I leaned down to nuzzle her forehead, she smelled like oak trees.

An hour later when her body was lying in our laundry room swaddled in a white towel the vet had wrapped her in, and I was wondering whether to call my mom or my sister or my dad or my love but couldn't call any of them yet, I looked inside her mouth and saw that maybe her tooth was going through her tongue and then moved her mouth a bit and saw that it wasn't, it just looked like it was because half the tooth was chipped (that's the same principle those plastic pretend- to- be- stabbing you toy Halloween knives work on). How long had her tooth been chipped, though? Had she had this little handicap those nights she was sleeping in the kitchen? Why didn't she tell us?

Ghosts work fast. As I crouched over her body in the laundry room, Tula's ghost asked me about this life I lead and she said, with a hunter's whisper of a voice, so as not to scare off the birds, NAFTALI, YOU HAVE TWO CHIPPED TEETH, ARE YOU DOING EVERYTHING YOU MUST IN THIS LIFE? And I surprised myself with my answer--

ALMOST, TULA. ALMOST. THERE IS THAT ONE THING I ALWAYS THINK ABOUT DOING THAT I'M NOT DOING.

WELL? She said. I gazed at the worlds that still remained inside her one greenyellow eye. DO YOU THINK THAT WHITE GUY AND HIS ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE OR LIFE OR LUCK OR GOD OR NOTHING AT ALL CRUSHED MY CHEST, BROKE MY LITTLE NECK, POKED OUT (RATHER, IN) ONE OF MY SACRED GREENYELLOW EYES, MADE MY BRAIN EXPLODE INSIDE MY SKULL, AND THEN MADE YOU LIE IN THE RED VISCERA THAT FLOWED FROM IT ALL FOR NOTHING?

We carry certain facts in our souls. We walk with them through our days. These are the facts of golden lava, and they are very simple. Each fact of golden lava says this: someone or something that you love is alive, out there, somewhere-- in front, behind, a million miles, a few inches away across the bed, down the alley, across the street on the hill near the oak trees.

I have never encountered such a fast and red and violent disappearance, and here I try to understand it as something as integral and essential as the peace that preceded it. What follows is a blog without a plan, but dedicated nevertheless to these facts we carry in our souls-- facts that flow, like lava, at all sorts of speeds. May we step lightly into the afternoon believing we have nuzzled them endlessly...

Thank you for reading.