Yeah, I was kinda thinking of the lyrics from an old song that I don't really recall at all. I just remember that one single line and being struck by the truth of it:
Underneath the mud, there's more mud, dear.
(By the way, tried a couple of searches for the source and only came up with stories of sad tragedy, and that's not what I wanted to talk about at all really.)What's on my mind, I guess, is quirks. All human beings have quirks. Here's mine: I'm a cat. No, really. When a cat makes a mess, she covers it up and maybe even makes a bigger mess in the bargain. (Underneath the mud.....) Yeah, that's me. Cats also don't face down what they don't wanna see; if it's not in the cat's range of vision, she thinks the enemy can't see her either. Yeah, me again. I figure that's why I make big messes and don't even notice until I have an AHA! moment.
So I had one of those AHA! moments yesterday after I finally realized precisely why I was making a mess of my kitchen cabinets. Silly me. It was right in front of me and I couldn't see it at all. You see, I've got another quirk and I've mentioned this before: if stuff is hidden (cabinets, drawers, closets), I keep it perfectly tidy; it is only out in the middle of a room where I will leave a huge heap of untidy-ness. Doesn't make sense; doesn't have to--it's just the way my life works out.
My kitchen cabinets were in complete disorder and had been for weeks. That is just Not Me. My galley-style kitchen is small (so small that I can't open the oven and the dishwasher at the same time), so cabinet space is at a premium and everything I've got (and there's a lot of it) fits in like a jigsaw puzzle. It has to. Lately I had not been careful about putting things away, so there were huge messes piling up alarmingly behind doors. That's like me sending up the Bat Signal (or, more appropriately, Cat Signal). Something wasn't right. And I realized that it hadn't been right for a very, very long time.
Why has it taken me ten years to figure this out? Go figure. Hey, I'm a cat; I was looking the other way. The fact of the matter is that when I moved into my late mother's house, I moved my stuff in but I didn't change her method of organization because.....because.....because I couldn't change my mother's stuff because she was my mother, and mothers are right, aren't they? Well, a big cat knows the answer to that: mothers may know best about what works for them but you still have to figure out the way that works for you.
So, long story about nothing (yet again), that's why I was sitting on my little red stool in the middle of the kitchen after midnight last night, blasting Arashi's Are You Happy? on the CD player, surrounded by cookware of all sorts as I very belatedly re-organized the kitchen cabinets. It was exhausting. Utterly exhausting. So much stuff! And just why would I choose to do this in the middle of the night? Hey, cats are nocturnal, aren't they?
This morning I feel so much better. My kitchen finally feels peaceful, feels like it makes sense, feels like a place where I can create coherently, feels like someplace good. I actually wanna go cook something!
The funny thing is that my mother hated cooking. Oh, she could put a beautiful meal on the table (something I am incapable of doing) and she was devoted to making bread and homemade baked beans every week. She was very talented, very deft, very creative. And she bitterly resented every single moment that cooking required. Mother had her quirks, too, and rightly so. Me, I like to cook but I lack both skill (Mother refused utterly to instruct me in the art of the kitchen) and the talent, not to mention the patience necessary. But I still enjoy it, and maybe that alone is enough.
Underneath the mud.....well, sometimes that's where you find yourself hiding out. Cats like to dig sometimes, too.
Life is good.
Be a cat.
.....oh, and Arashi: they make every day happy. Click and watch this bunch of dorks enjoying being entertainers: https://www.bilibili.com/video/av6766352/
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