Tancred

I think I have a clever cat. A very very clever one. Now I have 6 of them, and they're all clever and so beautiful. Because they're my cats so that's how I see them. I guess it's the way all mums see their kids, but seeing that kids have never come my way, then I have to dote on something don't I? And since it doesn't hurt anybody then it's all right. Please note though, I am not that kind of spinster who has never known men (as in male human beings), or the spinster who has something against men (as in male human being), and turns all of her affection, time, and love to cats. Yes I love my cats to bits, but I have also known men, through friendship, through boyfriends, through intimacy, and no I have nothing against men. Oh no, men make life interesting. That's the reason they were sent into the world, to amuse people like me. They were also sent to love people like me, and they do. But I still love cats. And one cat in particular is getting very clever, he'd probably get a degree in the Cat World overnight. He's that clever. So this cat called Tancred has realised that my monitor is a warm place, so warm that just after a minute it is switched on, he makes his way through my clutter and onto the monitor. And there he rests for as long as I do. And it's almost scary, he goes into a sleep so deep that almost nothing wakes him up. And I worry about him, because it becomes a very hot sleepy cat in the process. So I worry he might catch a cold, in the same way mums pile on clothes on their kids for fear of cat-ching a cold. But, out of all the six feline creatures sharing my home, Tancred is the only one who has realised that my monitor serves his purpose as an electric blanket. And he won't even have to pay the Enemalta bill. Now if that isn't clever, I don't know what is? Am I right to be a very pleased doting mum?

Addictions

It's so damn cold that I have thought twice about pulling up my cardigan sleeve to type and have a smoke as a good excuse. Ok so smoking is not a good excuse but a bad one, but I'm done anyway. It appears to me that one can tell the future of whether one will be a smoker or not. The first cigarette one smokes in life is vital. If you think you're going to throw up with your first puff, then that's it, smoker no more. However if you think that the first puff is so good that you want more, well, that's it, smoker confirmed. And I still remember perfectly well where it happened, and who gave me my first puff. Very shamefully it was in St. John's Co-Cathedral, not on the altar of course but in a hidden nook just behind the restrooms. I have kicked myself time and time again about this filthy habit, I have also tried to kick the habit. But there is no willpower because I enjoy smoking way too much to give it up. I know, sometimes I reek of the smell, but I cannot do anything about it. Love it or hate it, it comes along with me, although I do not exactly go about with some badge stuck to my chest which says, I'm brilliant because I smoke. And this is what perhaps has been a blessing. I never knew I could get addicted to a substance, not nicotine. But I have. And that is scary, because an addictive personality could get familiar with so many things, even illegal. Thankfully that is where my addiction has stopped, although I love the occasional Cadbury, but then Cadbury isn't exactly so very bad. On the contrary, I have yet to come across something made by Cadbury that was bad. Cadburdy is all so very good. I do not remember who first introduced me to Cadbury. But I do remember the one who introduced me to smoking, and I am not thanking her, not now, and not ever.

The tears

And when the fear, anger and whatever else subside, they give way to something else. Sadness. Not the intense sadness of helplessness and hopelessness, but the poignant feeling that comes with watching the coals within a real fireplace when it's about to go out and slowly put away everything into darkness. The coals. Those coals. I will never forget that feeling. And I will never forget Beethoven's 7th. Together with the coals. Suddenly the world becomes gloriously sad. Yes gloriously, because it's at that exact point when I somehow managed to accept the sadness, to accept that yes it was very sad, to accept that yes I could finally cry and sob myself silly and it didn't matter because there was no one else to listen, and nobody could ever fathom out my silhouette in the pitch black darkness. That is a part of my life. Now I accept it. But it's in the past. And although the past is what makes us who we are, we needn't get stuck there. And if it takes a hell of a lot of sobbing, then so be it, because it is only then that the glorious sadness somehow starts giving way to the something called the rest of your life. And it was also those same coals which gave me the lesson of life, and that was patience. Because sometimes we square the dose which life deals us, we multiply and multiply again, when all we need is to divide and subtract. We have a right to feel sad, and it's ok to cry. It doesn't make us lesser people. I know that, because I've been there. And I wouldn't wish the same to happen to anybody, although sometimes perhaps it would be the only thing which would work.

What about me?

I think I'm behaving like a very little child who has had her toys taken away from her. Well, at least not behaving, but thinking on the same lines. Definitely. I'm such a bad loser. But then this is no game, it doesn't include toys and yet I feel so pissed off. It's worse than that but that's the only phrase I can find which doesn't border on the obscene. I am constantly trying to prove something which isn't there. And I keep going back to the fear word. I just cannot take it. There must be a million synonyms which could have replaced that, but no, I have it in writing, the word is fear. And that is something which I will never accept. Because I don't believe it. How can a human being go from a take-me-with-you to fear in a matter of days? It could happen had I the luxury of contact, of course I could do something wrong as all human beings are subject to, but I didn't. And unless some old hag has lied so much that her hair has turned white, then I don't believe it. Of course, I cannot prove it. But it all sounds very shifty. I also probably have come to the answer as to the why, but since my blog is gathering popularity (oh la la!) then I have to keep that safely with myself. And I wonder what I should do. Do I keep harping on my mission? Or do I just convince myself that yes there are people who go through a lot in life, but it's not my fault, I didn't create the people, nor was I responsible for giving them a topsy-turvy life, so since it's not my responsibility I should just leave it and look the other way. It's not my fault after all. It *is* daunting and frustrating seeing the ball of lies rolling in the otherwise perfectly smooth stretch of snow-lies and gathering momentum. But what can I do? I have not even thought about myself, when people think it's cool to cower behind a lie. It's not cool, it's pathetic. So we think about the people, big and small. And what about me? Don't I have a right to be thought about? I understand that all is done with the intention to avoid any trauma and suffering where little people are involved. What I will never understand is that all is also done with the intention to avoid any trauma and suffering where the big people are concerned, the big people who have actually created all the trauma and suffering in the first place. Perhaps it's comfortable. Perhaps it's the law. In which case it should be changed. But if the law has intervened, then why does the law go back on it's words? Or perhaps it is not the law but somebody else. Because it's so cushier that way. And, what about me?

Books

And here I go again, I've overslept. Actually I didn't, I did kick myself up at 8 am but decided it was too cold to live outside my duvet. These duvets are such lovely things. They are weightless and yet the comfort they ooze is out of this world. So it is one thing which we cannot judge by its cover. And it's not even a book. I like books, I've liked books ever since I could probably hold one of them. I like the fact that you can delve into one, pushing the pause button on the world around you, and pressing play the minute you open the first page. I'm not sure my relationship with books was very healthy when I was young. I read a lot, probably too much, but then I think I was quite a strange kid who was bored with playing around with Playmobile. And there was this huge library at home (there still is) and when you're little it seems so grand and big. So, without anybody knowing, I started 'borrowing' a book a day from this grand old library, and because it seemed so grand, it made the 'borrowing' even more exciting. Until my mum found out and wasn't pleased. And until my dad found out and was over the moon. His daughter was showing an interest in the same things which interested him. Lovely dad. It became like a game. Let's 'borrow' and see if we can get away with it, or better put, see if we can fool mum. And it worked, I was reading a book a day. I read so much that I started hating going to school because it was so far away from all those books. What was happening, unbeknown to yours truly who was still a little girl, was that this girl was getting extremely good at a whole lot of things. Which puzzled mum, and which made dad's and my secret flourish. Until one day mum 'caught' me reading Hardy, and Greene. And since she never wanted me to grow up (something which she failed badly at), she was so mad that I, at 9, was reading, as she called them, grown-up books. And then that made it all the more exciting. And the 'borrowing' went to 'stealing'. It was still just 'borrowing' but once it was so wrong it all graduated to 'stealing'. And yes I remember reading the first part of Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles and not really understanding the rape scene. I understood something bad had happened to Tess, but not exactly what. I also remember being so puzzled at the priest who had a child in The Power and the Glory, and I couldn't fathom out how on earth this could have happened, since I still believed children came into the world through praying to God, and since a priest was a man of God, how did God let it happen in the first place? Oh dear, it was so confusing. But it all has made me into what I am today. I am not in any way a Slimiza who is rubbish at talking English and just as much rubbish at Maltese. We talked plain Maltese at home. And I am southerly born and bred. And yet I think I can speak good English and I'm certain that my Maltese is just as good. Speaking English to little people at home just doesn't work. So many parents do that, and yet the level of the English level falls by the year. So, to all the adult ones having little ones, give them a book instead.