My cat has his paw softly on my right forearm as it rains and we listen to the new Band of Horses album "Infinite Arms." This band has released another quietly epic album that makes you wish you were driving high down the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way back from North Carolina. Or drinking a bottle of wine at dusk on the deserted coast of Nordhouse Dunes as you watch the grasses swish around in the breeze and think how scary Lake Michigan looks being so big and dark. Or listening to rain from inside a sauna in the Keweenau in the early evening. Little secrets that you and cats keep to themselves come trickling, then pouring, then tumbling. And you feel ok about it. Not sad.
I'm also thinking about the concept of tolerance. It's kind of like being able to grasp onto the non-tangible middle of something. Not going over and out, but not back and inward either. It might seem uncomfortable to exist near boundaries, but you've probably found yourself there for a reason.
find a boundary. explore and love it/them.
Albers had success doing just this, so come on! The closest example (literally) is my newfound/old cat. He sleeps with his little head up against my hip and his arm extends out to touch me; however, if I pet him on the side when he's in this state he'll wake up excited and bite me. I'd rather have a sighing, fat submarine furball cuddling his face into my side rather than yet another injury, so I appreciate and respect his boundary. With animals it's so much easier. Humans . . . not so much. Cats know who they are and they rarely change their minds. If they do, food is probably involved. I can identify with that though.
