Bowing to Cats

These last two weeks of returning from my short vacation have been full of cat things. A wee one showed up in my neighbors garage. She came home with me to the box I had constructed earlier this year for some very young kittens, two of which survived and went on to become Canadian citizens.

I named her Litha, which means Summer Solstice, because she was found on Solstice. A small cat we had missed in our roundups, Bambi, had her and two others which were discovered in the next days. Litha is robust, certain of her place in the world, and opinionated. She’s also very sweet and loving. At four weeks, she’s done really well in her adjustment to being snatched from one world and put into another. The load off of mom Bambi helped considerably, too.

There must be an instinctual fear of kitten moms because the few times Litha has slipped through the door into the studio, the large cats have split in a hurry. One day, she visited a neighbor and her large dog for a few hours. She quickly took to the dog, including thinking that leaping and hanging from the dog’s nose was a good sport.

In the meantime, TangaRoo began favoring her other hind leg. Yesterday, it was determined she had a cracked femur, so into surgery for her. “Keep her crated for two weeks,” the surgeon said. She has come home to a 70-pound dog crate in navy blue, which is a good color for her. She’s not convinced, but as usual is sweet and patient. “What fine stitches!” I said to the vet. “I’m a fiber artist and I know a good hand when I see it.” He was pleased. “I try to make really fine stitches.”

Roo sailed through the surgery. Prayers from people and Puffer and her new apprentice Bongo, flower essences from Sharon, homeopathic, and Roo’s sweet energy probably all contributed considerably. I predict her recovery will be speedy. My hope is she’ll refrain from picking at the fine stitching so I don’t have to put on one of those annoying plastic funnel collars.

My house seems lacking a few rooms for managing all these cat things. My conventionally trained vets are in favor of isolating kittens from big guys to try to prevent exposure to corona virus and other bugs before she gets vaccines at age 8 weeks. I feel ambivalent about this approach. In general, I’m hesitant about vaccines and have usually avoided them. But, with the large colony, I took a more conventional approach and have gotten rabies (for legal reasons, but I chose the newer, safer vaccine) and distemper. My hope is to get Litha placed pronto, but in the meantime, she gets my small kitchen for her house-box, a little perch, a carrier (under the table), toys, and the smelly shoes she’s taken a liking too. When everyone is outside, she can be in the studio.

I need to keep TangaRoo quiet, so she needs some space even in a crate. For now, she’s tucked into the studio bathroom, but the crate is large enough it prevents me from shutting the door. In a day or two, she can be out under supervision, but no exertion like jumping, which rules out the studio. The small kitchen sans chairs would be ideal.

Puffer has patiently retreated to the loft side. I moved her food there, which I have done before, and she can always go up the spiral metal stairs to the loft itself. So far, no one else has dared to go up the stairs. For a week, Litha couldn’t get up the one step into the lower loft area, but yesterday she figured out a running leap and pulled herself up. She back up a bit toward me when Puffer hissed, but she didn’t back up completely.

Somehow, I mistakenly thought that TNR would be the end of concentrated involvement with these cats. Food, water, scooping poop--these don’t take a lot of effort. But the sudden flurry of intense conditions have reminded me of the twenty-year commitment that comes with cats. On the days I feel most tired, or when I don’t see quite how to organize the finances around unexpected expenses, I feel the burden of Responsibility. It leads back to a lingering habit of thinking: It’s up to Me to Save the World. Of course Me feels overwhelmed and exhausted in the face of such a silly and unfortunately common belief.

I wasn’t a woman in search of a cause when Penelope first appeared behind the wooden fence with her brood of four. I simply responded and one thing led to another. But I see clearly it’s not a one-way service. Like Sharon, I trust animals and others come to serve our awakening. Someone remarked that TangaRoo was lucky to have me, but I see that I am equally lucky to have her. In the last weeks, I’ve looked to see if I am choosing to do these things freely, even if it looks like it prevents other things from happening, like spending time at the loom or taking another trip soon.

When I was waiting for the results of an x-ray for Roo yesterday, I felt panic. What to do?! Search out alternatives? This was before we knew it was bone, or even which area of the leg it was. So, I asked Roo’s great cat goddess to help, and with my feet on the ground, a surprising calm came over me. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.” The panic was gone and I returned home clear about the choices I’m making. Enough so that if a part-time job appeared that I felt interested in doing, I would take it to make up some of the deficit.

As I write, little Litha has settled into my lap for a purr and a nap. Roo is quiet in her new little blue home. It’s all very mysterious to me. We so easily get caught in concepts of how life “ought” to go. It’s a lot more fun to follow with wonder than to lead with determination.

I bow a full prostration to my cat teachers.

Slow Fashion

There is a movement on for Slow Fashion, like Slow Food. And Slow Life. Slow Fashion primarily originated in Japan, one of the fastest-paced countries on this planet. I recall once in the late 1960s going from Tokyo, where I was living, to visit New York City; I found the pace in New York slower than in Tokyo. So it’s not surprising to me that some folks in Japan want to slow things down.

There is also a phenomenon of Fast Fashion. This refers to designers turning out more frequent collections for those who want to change their high-style clothing faster. Since I am a person who has been slow to move beyond LL Bean comfort jeans for the last two decades), and since shopping for anything, but especially clothing, is unpleasant for me, I am barely a candidate for Slow Fashion and am completely unsuited for Fast Fashion.

Slow Fashion offers a more leisurely approach to style “built on lasting quality and an aesthetic which endures beyond one season,” according to an article in the current Selvedge magazine (Issue 11). “This form of fashion exists in direct contrast to both fast fashion and major designer brands: the creation of apparently simple yet sophisticated clothes which utilise textiles of the purest form, capitalising on the skills and knowledge of traditional weavers, embroiderers and hand workers across many Asian countries.” In other words, good style that lasts.

I have some pieces my mother made that have never gone out of style. I wish I had more, in particular a brown and gold sun dress with stuffed appliqued flowers and some subtle beading. The ones I do have are well-constructed and made of sturdy wool; only the linings need attention. They suited her perfectly. She may have tired of them after several decades, but I feel confident they would draw interest if worn by her small body type in the coming winter season.

As you might guess, these slow fashion items don’t come cheap. A Jurgen Lehl indigo dyed sleeveless top is about US$165. Considering the work that goes into dyeing, weaving, and constructing, this seems to me a fair price. My mother’s wool was pricey for the day and there were hours of making patterns, constructing, and beading.

Too, there is something lively about natural dyes and natural yarns. It’s a different brilliance than synthetics, almost as if the light of plant or the animal is within and still shining. It is true that synthetics are of the same stardust that all life forms arise from, but it’s like the difference between a plastic rose and the real thing.

I figure I’ve got a good ten years left of making things. Even if I beat the odds in my family and live longer than anyone in recent generations has, functioning is likely to diminish. Curiously, this recognition doesn’t stimulate pressure. I read recently of an artist who goes on retreat each year and then comes back with the intention to make one thing. Her one thing is larger than pieces I am drawn to make, but there is something superbly and invitingly slow about the notion of making only one thing a year.

It is very good luck that I have come to see this before I turn sixty. How much more enjoyable my days are when I go slow, when I am more deliberate in making choices of how to spend time. I want, simply, to make a few things I consider beautiful, whether it’s for viewing on a wall or viewing on a chair or viewing on a body. I want to learn a few more things about dyeing and weaving and sewing, but I don’t want to learn it all.

I am reminded of a Deena Metzger poem:

SONG

There are those who are trying to set fire to the world,
we are in danger,
there is time only to work slowly,
there is no time not to love.

Entrainment

Physicists call synchronized oscillation, or vibration, between objects mutual phase locking, or entrainment. Ursula K. Le Guin points out in her essay “Telling is Listening” that all living beings are oscillators. “Being in sync--internally and with your environment--makes life easy. Getting out of sync is always uncomfortable or disastrous.”

We humans have created a plethora of deliberately synchronized actions--singing, chanting, drumming, marching, playing music, dancing. We want to be in sync.

It turns out that we entrain when having a conversation. William Condon filmed people in conversation. He saw that “when we talk our whole body is involved in many tiny movements, establishing a master rhythm that coordinates our body movements with the speech rhythms. ...listeners [make] almost the same micromovements of lips and face as the speaker is making, almost simultaneously--a fiftieth of a second behind.”

Speech is incomprehensible if we don’t get the beat. We all have the experience of not being able to track a conversation, even in our first language. We’re out of sync. “Listening is not a reaction, it is a connection,” Le Guin writes. “Listening to a conversation or a story, we don’t so much respond as join in--become part of the action.”

This morning, as I muse on this, I think of the effect prayer has been shown to have for people who are ill, whether they “believe” or not, whether they are aware or not they are being prayed for. Healing of any sort seems to me to be about getting the rhythm. Healing may bring vibrant bodily health or it may bring peace and acceptance of the situation. Whatever the result, it makes life easy.

I wonder, too, if the cats and I join together more consciously to “pray” for the neighborhood what effect we might have on bringing about greater entrainment. This is, I think, what Pamela means when she suggests giving satsang to apparent resistance we detect in others. Resistance to the beauty of cats, for example. Fear and loathing comes up. Welcoming, inquiring sincerely into what is wanted, inviting them to be seen in their true nature.

Isaac said, “Don’t pray FOR peace, but pray peace.” Something here wants to be prayed. Maybe it is to “pray the neighborhood” rather than “for the neighborhood.” Maybe it is to pray the intimate connection of all life.

Bailing Cats from Jail

While I was blissfully on vacation, a neighbor who is inclined to think of cats as dirty and dangerous called the City animal control. Before my neighbor-who-feeds-cats contacted them to let them know we were getting them neutered and giving them rabies shots, five had been impounded. The day after I arrived home, I was learning my way through impoundment bureaucracy.

It turns out cats are required to wear a city-issued license along with proof of rabies vaccine, just like dogs. No household can have more than ten cats without a license for a kennel. And, cats are forbidden to stray onto other people’s property. Another ordinance, which we didn’t discuss, forbids fences higher than six or so feet, so I’m not quite sure how they expect people to meet that particular requirement.

Two of the cats were the last of the Golden Girls who I hadn’t caught yet. Because they hadn’t been neutered, I was fined. However, both the City and the Shelter staff worked to help keep the cost down. The City gave me two weeks to take care of the cats. The State will reimburse their fine. When I showed up the next morning with proof of neutering and rabies vaccination, they were astonished. “I took them straight to my vet and he was willing to take care of them.” It turned out that they were boys, the easier surgery. (In fact, all the Golden Girls are boys, so someone suggested they could be called the Golden Dudes.)

“Why so many cats?” the officer asked me. I know the city isn’t generally in favor of TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release), so I said, “I doubt you are in favor of TNR, but that is basically what I’ve been doing.” I didn’t say what I wanted to, “What I would like to hear is ‘Thank you for trying to keep the cat population under control.’” Nor did I say, “You know what, I wasn’t really looking for this job, but they showed up at my door, and one thing led to another and it’s not clear to me now who has benefitted the most from this arrangement, me or the cats. In fact, I attribute a lot of my growing recognition of true nature to their guidance.”

There were moments of high drama, including the way I expressed anger to the neighbor who called the authorities. And tearful expression of my upset and grief was stimulated by a volunteer at the shelter who was the first to express appreciation to me--she too belongs to Alley Cat Allies. She said, “It’s a new day at the shelter--talk to the director. You don’t have to feel alone in what you are doing.”

Before I left for my trip, I had gotten two “directives” in a meditation: make a flyer to take around to neighbors to let them know that we are working hard to stabilize the population and keep the cats healthy and to call us if they have concerns or want to be involved in our endeavor; and engage in conversation and effort with people who are trying to shift the attitude toward feral cats in this town. This experience motivates me to keep to this guidance.

When I inquired into my rage, here is what I saw--under is a deep, deep sorrow that we humans have become so disconnected from life that we see “others” as others. Creatures to hate or fear or wish to disappear. “I was afraid my kids would get sick,” the neighbor said.

I have no doubt that the cats pooping in their small yard is a nuisance, but I wish she had called to ask us to do things to prevent that. She knew we were taking care of cats, but she didn’t know we were getting them neutered and being sure they got rabies vaccine. (Which may or may not be useful, but it is the law so I made a choice to comply.) Perhaps if she had felt more connected to our efforts, or to neighbors in general, the first call would not have been to the city.

“Be careful of visibility,” a friend cautions. “These efforts can backfire and suddenly strict enforcement of the law shows up on your block.” I had already come to that conclusion. But I do see an opening here and something my heart is interested in following. Again, this wasn’t part of my plan, but it has arrived and is asking for attentiveness.

The good news is that none of the five were destroyed. Some other sweet, sweet cats in jail will not be so lucky. I am in awe of people who work at the shelter as staff or volunteers and manage to stay human. Eventually, I hope, all shelters will be no-kill shelters. Los Angeles is apparently very close to that goal. There are many in New Mexico working toward this “impossible dream”.

In the meantime, I take to heart the mantra that Puffer Vasu reminds me to follow: “Everything is good. Do what you can. Everything is good.”

Stabilizers and Freedom

I’ve just printed out a chart that lists over seventy different kinds of interfacing available to purchase. This is a daunting number to choose from. If you sew or you use cloth in some way, you know that stabilizing the fabric can be crucial. Necklines, sleeveless armholes, and button plackets will distort sooner or later if not given some sort of stability. The hangings I make need a layer of stabilizer if I choose to machine sew.

I have a drawer full of fusible and non-fusible interfacing products. Some dissolve in water, some are stretchy, some are light, and some are heavy, some are sheer, and some are pieces of cloth left over from other projects. The color range is limited--black, white, off-white, a pale yellow and a pale pink, and one length of beige. I recently read that silk organza makes a fine stabilizer for many projects. This adds a wide color palette which the imagination is having fun with. A sultry red, for instance, under a conservative black shirt. Or lime green, a color that clashes with my fair skin, inside a maroon fabric.

When I learned to sew over fifty years ago, there were few choices. Pellon, a nonwoven soft-to-stiff fabric, horsehair, and some woven versions of sew-in. Fusible interfacings were just making their way to the home market. When they first arrived, they were greeted with enthusiasm in our household, but we soon discovered their unreliability. A glue is applied to one side of the fabric in manufacturing. To use, you press with a dry iron and a pressing cloth for at least ten seconds. They frequently came unglued in the wash.

The current crop of fusible interfacing is much more reliable if you prepare by pre-shrinking and by pressing longer than the usual recommended ten seconds. I’m not convinced they will hold up as long as a well-made garment, like the wool jackets I have that my mother made over fifty years ago, but I like the convenience for most things I make.

What I don’t like is choosing. I noticed a book in a store the other day that is solely about this topic. I’m guessing it lists more than seventy choices.

The same is true of thread. Cotton, polyester, quilting cotton, silk, z-twist, s-twist. Machine needles are specialized--stretch, denim, delicate, and so on. I have also six or seven different kinds of pins. I could easily have another dozen if I wished.

Each month, Threads Magazine has an article or two that delves into the details of these items.It adds up both in quantity and cost. In my small ten-drawer roll-around cart, I have thread, needles, scissors, and other gadgets that easily add up to a replacement value of over $500. Some, like my favorite scissors, I’ve had for twenty years or more. Just thinking about my scissors stash, I’m doubling that replacement value.

The point is not that working with cloth is expensive--it is, and even more so if I include what is needed for weaving and dyeing. The point is that it seems to me we’ve convinced ourselves that complexity is good and simplicity is, well, simple. We in this country have come to believe that making product choices is equal to freedom, and that freedom is inherently good and proof of a working democracy (good). Autonomy, stability, and freedom are to be actualized through acquisitiveness. This seems to me to be the current version of the pursuit of happiness guaranteed by our constitution.

Today I want to choose a stabilizer for a current project. I went to the internet to do a little research. I spent, perhaps, a half hour sorting through articles before I chose to print the chart I have before me. On closer reading, it is of no value for helping me decide what works for what I want to do. I could spend a good part of the morning doing research, getting in my car and driving to the two fabric stores in town, looking, feeling, buying.

Instead, I’m going to pull out my drawer of interfacings, pick three to start, and then narrow it to one. I predict it will take ten minutes. I’d prefer to save my choosing energy for which kind of tea to drink while I sit and enjoy the cat antics and the blue, blue sky. After that fine leisure, I will have some sweet, slow time to stitch. Ah, freedom.