anthropomorphizing cats.

They are quite sedentary during the day. At night, they sometimes prowl. There’s the boy, all black and the girl, Baby. She is eleven pounds to his 16. They are litter mates. I call them the twins.

He has a favorite spot, the edge of my bed. She owns the house.

One is compelled to observe them. They do not deviate from their clearly defined set of rules. Do they negotiate when I am not home? Do they communicate telepathically? Is it only instinct? I think not. Two wise creatures rule my home.

The species has been around long enough to develop some brainpower! The Egyptians literally adored them and bowed to them: Had designated resting places for them. The Egyptian cemetery at Beni-Hassan yielded 300,000 embalmed corpses!

A prospective buyer looked at the house today. A twist of incredulity seized the woman’s face when we walked through my bedroom.

After she left, I returned to turn off the lights. There was a large lump under the duvet at the bed’s edge. Well, I knew it was the boy.

Some people are accused of anthropomorphizing cats.

That would be me!

Charles Darwin concluded that cats do indeed feel emotion. More recent research indicates that they experience fear, pleasure, terror, frustration, happiness, grief, stress and depression.

The reasons for the other’s rationalization/denial of this scientific proof are well known.

So, let them eat meat!

While sitting on the bed last night I was reviewing the ways I had rearranged this room during the years. Baby suddenly perked up and looked at the dark green floral-draped wall behind me.

“What, what,” I said. “What do you see?”

Not a flinch! Though her head remained still, she quickly rose on her haunches. Her staring intensified. Predictably, the boy hopped on the bed, stood motionless next to her, staring at the same thing. Apparently, it was just over my left shoulder but higher. They were looking at my eye level.

Cats have been credited with a gift for seeing ghosts. I figure if I can see ghosts, what's the big deal?

Their four eyes widened, then moved slowly up the drape and then to just above my head. Can cats exhibit intrigue?

In a flash, in unison, their heads swiftly went to the door to my right. “What?” I pleaded again. In an instant, their bodies melded into each other’s. Baby licked the left of his collarbone, they simultaneously sniffed each other and the night visitation ended.

We sleep here in my bedroom. On any given night my body is taken over. I have on occasion wakened with his front paws resting in my open left palm on the pillow near my head. He gently kneads. He purrs in utter contentment.

She is devious. She waits until she thinks I am sleeping, jumps into the valley of my waist, and rests her head on my hip. I allow her five minutes. She groks when her time is up, beats me to it and indignantly jumps down. I can hear her thump down the stairs to view the pitch of night on the bay windowsill.

The 17-foot wall behind the bed is draped. There is no headboard. I have a disdain for headboards as I have curtains. Artwork, paintings and prints cover the walls of the house. Curtains rob attention. I prefer that the windows remain in obscurity-just let the sunshine through. White, diaphanous shades and in some places blinds separate us from the world.

At some point in the evening, we retire to this room. He confiscates either the right or the left edge of the bed. She spreads out on the cable box. It’s warm. There is a TV about five feet from the foot of the bed. My jewelry armoire stands to the left of the dresser that holds the boob tube. It holds four generations of jewelry. I have two bracelets that I know were my maternal great-grandmother’s. A delicate Asian lamp brings the armoire's height to just above my head. It is a square porcelain block standing on a four-legged cherry wood platform and painted with the colorful wings of a male peacock.

To the left of the bed is my vanity. Several Chinese jars hold makeup brushes. Lipstick pencils. A crystal bowl holds silver dollars dating from 1885 to the JFK era. A black framed, gold Chinese filigree mirror hangs above the vanity. Two herons freely fly at the top within a sky reminiscent of a familiar Chinese scroll. Though the room is peach, it is a dark, cave-like room even on a sunny day, as I keep the bamboo shades down.

Sanctuary!

Three women grace the walls. Over the jewelry cabinet hangs, van der Weyden's, Portrait of a Lady ,next to the mirror hangs a print of a nude Japanese woman combing her lustrous black knee-length hair. The polished frame is the color of her bare skin.

Below her is a sad, elaborately dressed Chinese concubine whose thin, long tress falls to her side, her fingers are adorned with ancient gold talons, the razored tips of her right hand barely grasp the silk of her gown, the other hand, a beacon in the air, points to what might have been.

Her eyes are downcast.

These are my former selves.

I have an original cloth print, as the lamp, it is flooded with the glorious colors of the male peacock.It is of no value except to me. A friend in my undergraduate art class made it. She was pleased with it and our teacher thought it merited an A. On our last day, she held it up in mock humor, “Going for a buck.” She laughed. I gently took it from her hand.

It covers the night table to the right of the bed. My most current reading material is hidden there: My diary, a couple of meditation books, my current I Ching journal, the first vitamins of my day and three pennies.


They are lying on the green duvet. They face each other, their paws stretched directly in front of them. Their eyes are closed. His breathing is inaudible, she is wheezing slightly. They have commandeered the left side of the bed-that means I will sleep on the right tonight.

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