Portia

Allow me to introduce you to Portia, the youngest of my troop. It may be rather late in the day seeing Portia's now been around for nine months, but better late than never. I have been having different reactions to the fact that I named this kitten Portia, but the real explanation is that I'd always wanted a little girl to name Portia, and seeing no human girl came along then a feline one was close enough.

I'd like to say I nursed Portia from day one, but that's not very close to the truth. I bottled-fed her for one day and felt like a real mummy until my illness tore us apart. She was so tiny she could fit onto the palm of my hand, six weeks later, and many bottlefeedings by Mr. Boyfriend later, she had suddenly grown into a little tiger. I love cats, they are such perfect creatures and had been over the moon to be able to have one I could feed myself. In that way, I thought, both our needs would have been satisfied, mine to behave like a mummy, and hers to be nursed as a proper baby should. But time was limited so I missed out on her growing up such a lot. I'd daydream about her while I was in that ugly buildings which has blue doors opening and shutting and the same ugly building where lights are never switched off.Pity they don't allow four legged visitors in there, I really missed my little girl. But here is what really makes me guilty; out from the ugly building, I just couldn't bring myself to bond with this tiny creature. And bless her, she did try as hard as she could. I thought she was being a pest, I'm bad, I know, but I console myself with the fact that I was not behaving normally. I still feel guilty although she had a lot of her daddy's love. I wonder what she must have thought seeing that mummy had left her just after one day, and her daddy was constantly coming and going to and from the ugly building. Yes they do have feelings just as we do. Her daddy brought me plenty of Portia-videos to watch, it was just as far as he could go. Now when I look at her, I feel this surge of love and pester her to play. I just stare at her and wonder how one earth couldn't I bond with this very special cat with her very special name. I just hope she's forgiven all the bad feelings I had, but cats are better than human beings and they not just forgive but also completely forget.

Crocodiles

Everything in life takes it's own toll, but we become accustomed to the way it is now? Well I suppose a lot of people do, not I. I'm just plain scared. Not even holding a hand grenade would make me so scared. It's all to do with change, and I hate change of any sort. Move just one item out of my make up boxes and I'll flip. It's not because I keep anything need and tidy; it's just because since I left it there, then it's got to be left there. Do not even move a chair out of its place because I'll cry. Sounds like a control freak down to a T. Yet I don't consider myself one. I just need my own very basic comforts, and any sense, taste, smell, touch is related to some history which I have not ever grown out of yet. It's just like the smell of baby talc making me soft all inside, the touching of my leather sofa, and the taste of kid pink bubble gum. All of these go with something else. So that makes me think that everything should smell, taste as they should. And I so easily forget that it's not the case. Take crocodile. Eat crocodile. What should they smell like? What should they taste like? Well seeing that they spend their better half of their life in and out of water they should be something of an amphibian. But they have this fishy taste (which is ok) together with a beefy texture (which is not ok). To me crocodile is a paradox. To me it is also unsettling, because I can't really accept how two different things could go together like that. And yet life does that. And it picks up all the whiffs and scents of the world and puts them together just to make me know that it's really all right to be different. But is it really? Crocs are ugly creatures, I don't want to sound, smell, or feel like one.

Memories of an angel...

I'm not sure what I remember, or if remember anything at all. It's been too long now, so sometimes the memory is hazy and can play the dirtiest trick on the mind. But I do remember that I was in a place so clean and sterilized; one which I wanted to go out of. That wasn't going happening in a hurry. How can a person who is so close to death be oblivious of that fact? And yet here was I having a chin wag with death without really knowing it. Either that, or if by any remote chance I knew that death was so close, I have no recollection of fear. Illness is an ugly thing. But I do not know about the fear of death. I have been spared that. And yes of course people who have had near death experiences speak about the tunnel and the light. All of that is true. The thing is I saw the tunnel, and although it was not pitch dark, there was no glorious deity bathed in gold. It was a nice cosy atmosphere in there, but not enough to want to stay there. I don't know, it wasn't a place called home, but then neither was it too uncomfortable. For once in my life I knew that I didn't have to take a decision, someone else was going to make one for me. I'm not very sure I wanted to go back to the clinical sterile environments with blue doors and where the lights are never switched off. But that is exactly what happened. And extraordinarily, seven months later I type my story here. And that for me is a milestone, I couldn't even sit and watch a monitor for more that a couple of minutes. Now I can, and I can also write.And I will always keep asking for someone to fill me in on the details which till now I can remember. What I really remember is a very kind man who came to sit and stay with me for as long as it took. And no, I didn't imagine that and even if that isn't true, the fact there is some guardian angel looking out for you when you're just about to land elsewhere is kind of comforting. And of course it was a good looking angel, with such kind eyes, and more importantly with Strong gentle hands. And as I write this I am off meds s...