I find myself, at long last, with kittens. They are infinitely curious and they sniff, scratch and peer into everything. They make a mess and never once give a thought to tidying it up. They move through the house like small spirits, connecting and dialoguing with everything they meet – a fly, the cursor on my laptop, a ray of sunlight on the carpet. Where once was stillness, is now a flurry of activity in kitten-shaped form, a kind of fur and claw reckoning with the parameters of material things. Whole days pass in watching them. There’s a gladness in my soul that I’ve been patiently anticipating.
I’ve waited a long time for kittens. At least, it feels like a long time to me – I’ve always lived alongside animals, and in 2024 we lost our old dog and our old cat. They were 18 and 19 years old respectively. We knew each other well.
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