A bout of vertigo has kept me out of commission for most of the day, but don’t fear, as soon as this resolves, I will return to Susie’s story.
Vestibular migraine: not for the faint of heart or stomach.
Category: Writing
Susie’s Origin Story – Part I
It all started with Mama Kitty.
She was a pretty Tortie, a green-eyed stray with a home. I know, that seems paradoxical, but in reality she was. Her home was about four houses down from mine. She would walk the fence in the backyard to come to my house. As is the case with the Cat Distribution System, we couldn’t figure out why she began to show up. But as this is a cat house, cats who show up get fed.
Mama Kitty was different. An anxiety suffer for most of my life, I could tell that she suffered from panic attacks and anxiety. Any attempt to bring her into the house to eat on the landing, she would run away. After a time, she would enter the house to eat, but the door had to remain open for her to have a clear escape. I know all too well that feels like. Anxiety is stifling and the flight response is overwhelming. Once she was done eating, she would go back outside and disappear for a few days. She slept on our front porch glider that was covered for winter.
It was during the late winter of February/March 2008 when one day we noticed Mama Kitty was a bit round in the belly. A few pets to the area revealed what we didn’t need a vet to tell us: Mama Kitty was pregnant. Capturing her to bring her into the warmth of the house became of utmost importance. As I mentioned, it was winter. If she’d had the babies outside, they all would’ve died. As I’ve also mentioned, Mama Kitty had an anxiety disorder. Getting her in the house without causing a full-blown panic attack was going to be challenging, if not impossible. The guest room became a nursery.
We prepared a large cardboard box with old sheets inside and placed it in the closet on the floor. This would serve as the birthing area. Cats will seek out confined areas that are private in which to give birth. After several attempts to capture Mama Kitty, we succeeded, but she was terrified. Our course of action was to place her into the guestroom and shut the door. I would visit the room and coax her out to eat and have a gentle scratch or two (hundred). She was a very loving, sweet cat – but she was terrified of men, dark pants and boots. (You can guess why.) She eventually ventured out of the nursery and was comfortable enough to sit on my lap in the living room.
It was one such occasion that she was on my lap and I was rubbing her. She allowed me to rub her belly, and I often felt the babies rolling around and kicking each other. There was one baby that was very active and seemed larger than the others. We could count three with our hands, but weren’t sure about a fourth. Mama Kitty was not a very large cat. She was quite small, in fact, so we weren’t quite sure where she would store a fourth baby.
On the early evening of April 15, 2008, Mama Kitty was enjoying a relaxing massage in my lap when she suddenly stood up and quickly jumped to the floor. I noticed after she jumped that there was water on my lap. Her waters had broken and she was in labor.
Stay tuned for Part II . . .
©️2024 itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved
Happy Birthday, Ms. Hurston
What could you do differently?
What could I do differently? Or what I am going to do differently? The latter. Due to the current prompt being underwhelming, regularly scheduled prompt response is being replaced by a birthday wish for Zora Neale Hurston.
Born on this day in Alabama in 1891, Ms. Hurston was a part of the Harlem Renaissance. She was an author, a filmmaker and an anthropologist.
I first learned of Ms. Hurston in an undergrad American literature class via introduction to my favorite novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. I often refer to her as a true wordsmith. I feel as though her words are able to cast spells and almost hypnotize. Sublime words that dance around the reader’s head. I can see her words. They are the color of honey.
I am forever grateful to the graduate student who taught that American literature class years all those years ago.
Happy Birthday, Ms. Hurston.
Some of my favorite quotes by Ms. Hurston:
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Goodreads
He looked like the love thoughts of women. He could be a bee to a blossom-a pear tree blossom in the spring. He seemed to be crushing scent out of the world with his footsteps. Crushing aromatic herbs with every step he took. Spices hung about him. He was a glance from God.
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Goodreads
There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still gulf of formless feeling untouched by thought
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.
But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall In company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small, things priceless and worthless. A first water diamond, an empty spool bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knife-blade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two still a little fragrant. in your hand is the brown bag. On the ground before you is the jumble it held so much like the jumble in the bags could they be emptied that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place, who knows?
Zora Neale Hurston, How it Feels to be Colored Me
Goodreads
Perhaps I am just a coward who loves to laugh at life better than I do cry with it. But when I do get to crying, boy, I can roll a mean tear.”
©️2024 itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved
Time Traveling Up Ahead
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
I read the prompt suggestion today, and my reaction was, “Meh.” I scrunched up my face and was underwhelmed. So I’m going to break the rules a little bit and use the prompt to springboard (similar to billboard, but not at all) to something I wrote a while ago, and which ties into yesterday‘s prompt.
I’ve heard people say energies can inhabit a place long after a person has passed. It’s general knowledge in the paranormal community that ghosts/spirits can remain in a place, their energies reliving a certain time of their lives, for whatever reason, their presences seen in the same place, enacting the same scene for…ever (or until they have made their peace and move on). Perhaps these times were overwhelmingly happy or devastatingly sad.
What I question is this: is it possible for us “living right now” people to ingrain a happy memory onto a time and place so that others see or “feel” a presence when they are in these places?
As of today, living and breathing, I often pass places where I’ve created happy memories and wonder if anyone near or in those places now can feel the happiness that I helped create and lived once upon a time. In other words, do our living energies imprint our feelings just as spirits are able to when they pass?
I find myself searching specific areas with my eyes, curious if something akin to “The Time-Traveler’s Wife” is possible (horrible film, by the way, but compelling story).
For now, I don’t know. I feel no differently in these places, I see no out of the ordinary phenomena; it’s just me and my memories.
And I cherish them.
©️2024 itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved.
Van Halen Said It Best
Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?
What’s wrong with staying in the moment, in today? It’s the only day in which I can do anything. If I’m thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, what am I getting done today?
There are a few sayings about this topic. One is: “Don’t look back you’re not going that way.” Another is: “The future is a gift, today is the present.”
Many mental health professionals will tell you to think too much of the past may lead to/can be a sign of depression, and to think into the future may lead to/can be a sign of anxiety.
As a writer, I put myself into a zone which has no knowledge of time. The zone sometimes includes the past, as some of the best material for poetry is mined from the past. I’m not interested in writing about the future, unless I’m working on a fictional piece that involves fictional characters. In my every day life my feet are firmly in the day that I was given.
As soon as I saw this prompt, I thought of Van Halen. I started singing the lyrics, in fact. Below is the verse that my mind went to from the song entitled, “Right Now.”
Hey
Source: LyricFind
It’s your tomorrow
(Right now),
C’mon, it’s everything
(Right now),
Catch a magic moment, do it
Right here and now
It means everything
Songwriters: Alex Van Halen / Edward Van Halen / Michael Anthony / Sammy Hagar
Right Now (2004 Remaster) lyrics © Capitol CMG Publishing, Royalty Network, Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc
Every Day is Play Day
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
This prompt question has recently been asked, and you can read my piece on that here.
There was a similar prompt question, which asked how you remain a kid at heart. Read my piece on that here.
I guess it’s pretty obvious from the previous prompts I’ve answered, the fact that Hello Kitty is found throughout my house, and that there was a red nose on my car for Rudolph season, that I am thoroughly invested in play every day.
The key to staying young in mind and heart (and hopefully somewhat in body), is to find the moments of play. And if you can’t find them, create them. Opportunities are all around if you just look.
Below you’ll see photographic evidence of play in every day situations.
What does play look like in your life? Do you make time to play? Do you make the effort to look around you and see the opportunities? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for stopping by!
©️2024, itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved
Bert Pinkfoot
If I started a sports team, it would be racing pigeons, and their mascot would be Bert Pinkfoot.
Bert Pinkfoot was a racing pigeon who absconded a race and somehow ended up in my backyard. I knew he was a racing pigeon because he had green bands on both ankles. He was also rather tame. He arrived several Septembers ago, and I knew he wasn’t from around here, because we don’t have many pigeons where I live. That and the bands, as I mentioned. There are plenty of mourning doves, but no pigeons.
I immediately called the local bird sanctuary, and asked about this racing pigeon in my backyard, who had attracted a local flock of doves. As a matter of fact, all the female doves were quite impressed with Bert and tried to get his attention. Bert was a working man, he was a racing bird, and he was not interested in any female attention (this is when some doves cried).
The woman at the bird sanctuary told me that Bert likely left a race. My understanding is these birds race from point A to point B and back to point A, as pigeons are trained to do. She told me it was likely if I tried to return the bird to its owner, the owner would likely kill the bird because he absconded the race and lost the owner money. She also said that there had been a race about 300 miles north, and that he probably was from that race.
I wasn’t sure what to do with Bert. I had already been feeding and giving water to the “normal” birds, so he had a bit of an all-you- can eat buffet and sanctuary in my backyard. The woman also told me that he’d be likely to be eaten by hawks because he was raised to be a racing pigeon, and had no true exposure to the outside, natural world. At least not while he was trying to sleep.
Bert hung around for several weeks, though he never joined in with the doves. He tolerated his distant cousins, and maybe he found solace with them. We’ll never know why he left the race – whether he was seeking freedom or he got lost – but after about two weeks, Bert was no longer in my backyard. I didn’t see him again. I like to think he found his freedom and flew to a nearby city to be with his brethren city pigeons. I don’t think of the alternative.
©️2023 itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved.
It’s This
You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?
I have it. It’s here. Preassembled. No modifications.
Claircognizance
Are you a good judge of character?
My mother told me that when I was little I would stare at people to size them up without saying a word. But she didn’t need to tell me that I did it, I remember doing it. I did it even before I could talk. I can imagine a baby silently observing an adult would be a little unnerving for the adult. As I got older and continued to do it, people would say that I was a brat or spoiled or whatever other hurtful phrases they sputtered because they were afraid. These were people that had something to hide. I’m not quite as obvious about it anymore. I do it with every person I meet, it’s not an ability that I can control. I sense the essence of a person, whether good or otherwise, without them ever saying a word. I was born this way. There are other attributes of claircognizance. Check out this page for more information about the phenomenon. Do any of you have the ability? Or any other ability that seems unique to you? I’d love to read your comments!
Creatively Speaking
When are you most happy?
When I am creating another world through writing, showing a glimpse of a world through photography, sometimes combining the two. Making basil pesto pasta sauce from scratch. Baking brownies. Spending time with animals. Wrapping Christmas presents.
Creating something or some things that will be perceived by or given to others for their hopeful enjoyment is usually when I am most happy.
Watching tennis makes me happy. I’m not creating anything but noise for anyone else, but I enjoy watching tennis, especially from the stands.
I am also most happy in the summer. When I can walk through the soft, cool grass, with bare feet and feel like the warm air is an enveloping calming blanket, I am content – the combination of happiness and stillness.
“It's Amy,” I said. 