Reaching for Light

It's winter.  It's the sort of winter weather we don't often get a lot of in my little corner of South Mississippi.  In fact, I've seen perhaps five winters like this in the three decades I've lived on this little plot of ground.

Cold.  Strings of days with highs not reaching 40 degrees.  Long nights of hard freezes with temperatures in the teens and 20's. 

Now that might not sound like much if you're accustomed to it, but I'm not and I can't cope with cold anyway.  I shut down in many ways and I hunker down in the warmest space I can find.  It's hard to find a way to fight back against it.

One of the things that has been worrying me during the past weeks of cold is cats.  I've been caring for two strays. 

Byron (who was likely born feral) appears to be a Himalayan mix with lynx point markings; he's lame on a rear paw and fiercely independent.  I agreed to care for Byron so that he would stop being a bother to my good neighbors but I wasn't too happy when Byron brought me his girlfriend.  Cleo is a gray-brown tabby who seems to be a throwaway.  She obviously hasn't been treated kindly by others because she is fearful that hands are for hitting and because there is a BB pellet lodged near her little ribs.

Cleo, it turns out, is a cat of character.  She has stayed determinedly near me during difficult times this winter, and I've appreciated her empathetic presence.  Despite the cold, she won't agree to come in the house, so I've made a pallet for her on the porch with an old bedcover and a fake-fur throw.  Cleo sleeps there happily at night.

This morning, the sunrise was glorious.  The skies were clear finally, and the sun was bright.  When I went to feed the cats, they were not on the porch.  I saw them outside sitting next to a pair of sawhorses that I'd left after painting.  The kitties were seeking the sun, raising their faces to the light, basking in that small solar warmth.

But for Cleo that wasn't quite enough:  she had to try harder, to reach higher.  As I watched, she jumped up on top of the sawhorses to get just that little bit closer to the light.  And then she raised her face again in praise of warmth. 

Perhaps we should all be more like Cleo--braving despite fear, staying the course, and always reaching higher.

Life is good.