Old Is New

Beginnings arise out of endings.

When you look back to earlier stages 
of your life, what significant small pleasures 
became seeds for the garden 
you are growing now? 

Are there any that may yet bloom? 

The book and Jasper’s paw

This is the first of seven small books that were written and bound in small editions as gifts for family and friends between 1993 and 2009. These are seeds planted at the end of my career as a bookbinder and in the beginning of my career as a therapist. They’re mostly stories told from a cat’s point of view, woven with various forms of feline mysticism and psychotherapeutic folk art. I’m offering one a week as summer reading for my subscribers here on Substack while my new career as an author emerges. This first one is quite small and tentative…

Alice Ann offered her signature move to help with the photo shoot.

Bosco offered to help too, but he doesn’t follow directions well.

Agatsu & the Coyote

Just before the mid-morning doze on the foot of Lucy’s bed, Agatsu slithers around the coming and going feet and out the door. After some grass and twig sampling, he saunters over to the compost heap to stalk rodentia. 

Watch out! Four footed interloper approaching! In a heartbeat, Agatsu is up the tree, stripes quivering on end.

Bald-eyed and slobbery-tounged, a coyote hesitates under the tree. He twitches his ink-dipped tail and blinks up at the cat. The coyote says: “I run on the mountain, singing songs in the night and hunting the slow bunny. What kind of bunny are you, sitting in a tree?”

Agatsu answered: “I sleep in the sun on the dining room table and eat kibbles from a Big Bird bowl. My brother Atlas is called bunny, I am cupcake.” He turns and sniffs the breeze from the north. 

The coyote looks north also and after a moment confides: “I drink from the springs of the underground lake and nip at the hocks of the milky bovine. Men chase me with loud noises.” 

Agatsu replies: “I drink from the bowl where I wash my toys, and I jump on the shoulders of Barbara when she makes the big noise with the little black nuts in the morning. I chase Sophie and the old lady Jennifer and make them spit.” His big yawn is a grin.

Ignoring this, the coyote says: “Until the snows come I will romp after the slow bunnies and fat mice and then sleep for long times in my den under the rocks. The mountain will sleep.” 

Solemnly, Agatsu informs the coyote: “Rex and I romp when all sleep; we go after the fat mice and lay their little bodies on the hall carpet.” A bit smugly he adds: "We do not allow the house to sleep too long.” 

The coyote, who had hardly been listening, streaks off toward a stirring in the multiflora. Agatsu runs his tongue along the side of his paw and then settles, serene, to gaze at the old yellow house until Alden comes out to call him in. 

Bosco feels that the Coyote’s attitude has been under-represented here.