Sunday, July 3, 2011

Part III - Still a lot of work to do.


Sunday Night on the Salt Marsh
              There’s either a cat or a ghost in this bed with me. I have two cats. I don’t, to my knowledge, have two ghosts. Not here anyway. Not here where I have no history. Not here where I have no mystery.

              I want to be asleep, but I’m thinking too much. I have a perfectly comfortable bed, in a perfectly comfortable place where I live except when I am home at a friend’s house, and that’s the problem. Where do I live? Is home where my pets are? Where a cat can jump on my bed? Is home where my driver’s license says I live? Or is home where my ghosts are? My cats and I are in Salisbury, Massachusetts; my legal residence is in Monroe, Maine at my friend Martha’s house. My ghosts are in Freedom Village, only a few miles from Monroe.

              It’s Sunday night here in my loft apartment overlooking The Great Marsh that borders the Merrimac River just before it greets the Atlantic Ocean. I want to be asleep, but first I try to settle with myself just where I am, where I live.

              It’s not that bad. I should be able to wrap this up in time to get some sleep. It’s not as bad as the nights when I have to determine where I am now on my journey as an abject failure in life or the nights I try to feel more organized by reminding myself of the various mistakes I made in raising my children. It’s not as bad as the nights I have to go over my finances, just one more time, to make sure I’ll be ok in the morning. It’s definitely not as bad as when the ghosts take over. They are not here tonight. It’s Buddha, my fifteen pound tom cat with the colors of a Creamsicle, who is walking across me to settle in for our night’s rest.

              My ghosts are probably at home and, since I don’t know where that is, maybe they don’t either. With that thought, I settle in, settle down, and fade off next to Buddha. Tonight’s question can remain unsettled without being so unsettling. I live in two places, keeping me at least two steps from being homeless.