Where the Cottonwoods Grow

I tell myself it was werely a freak accident--one in one hundred chance that they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but was it, really? Was it irony that they died within 24 hours of each other, hit by a car on the same road, within a few yards of each other? My Dad suspects that they were after the mice-abundant fields on the other side (they were ardent hunters, having enacted a massacre of voles on our own lawn). Still, I like to think Carmen went looking for her sister the night after she didn't come home. I was worried about how Carmen would fair without her sister, her constant companion and playmate. We thought she'd be so lonely and bored.

I told myself, as I let her out for the night, since she was just dying to go--that it was highly improbable that they would both be hit on the road--it was a stroke of bad luck for poor Rizka. And Carmen wasn't as sporadic as Rizka, and more brave, less easily spooked. Did chance really take them away so suddenly? I feel like I'm reenacting Where The Red Fern Grows. I think of Lucky, how I consider his long, slow decline to be a blessing in disguise for me. One that taught me the skills of caring for the ill, as well as a chance to say a long goodbye, tocome to terms with something I dreaded for years. I guess these are all fishes in the air, but I do want to say this. These two cats were not equal to Lucky in my heart. When he died, I went into my room and cried. I sobbed. My heart caved; there was an enormous chunk just and nothing could really fill it up. I talked to him as Dr. Waddups inserted the needle and I carried his body--for he, I knew, had already moved on; I could tell the moment his spirit left--all the way to the cottonwood trees between our garden and pond. Many an afternoon, he and I went out there. The last time we went was a few days ago when I carried him out in a blanket and let him rest on my lap in the shade of the cottonwoods and lone Pine tree (for a stroke had paralyzed his hind legs and was slowly consuming the rest of him). He used to like to wander around the willows there and through the raspberry bushes in the garden while I helped to harvest and weed. I knew it was a secluded place, protected by trees, where it was unlikely that his body would be affected by any renovators who bought the house from my parents after they decide to sell it when I leave the nest. And it was pretty there, in the shade, and I thought it suited his laid-back, simplistic disposition.

Sunny, our "demonic" cockatiel died a few weeks ago of blood feathers (as we assume) after a run in with the afore mentioned playful sisters. I figured that there should be no better place than near Lucky's body, so I choose to have her buried under the pine tree, that will hopefully grow to a great size and cover her grave completely.

After Rizka didn't come inside all night--which was very much unlike her, who was so skinny that the cold affected her too much--my Dad went looking the next morning, since his semester of teaching was over, and found her, sure enough, on the side of the highway. This time he didn't even ask, and buried her underneath a cottonwood a little apart from Lucky's grove. This morning, after discovering Carmen's body near the same unhallowed spot, she too was buried and I haven't seen where yet--I haven't had the emotional stamina. Dad calls that patch of the yard under the cottonwoods "the pet graveyard." I think it sounds horrible, although I didn't say so. I know he does so much to try and spare me more emotional pain, being very much aware of the close bond I easily make with all our pets. I consider it more of a homage to friendship, of faith, of hope in the Resurrection. I pray for more faith, because otherwise I'd give in. There is the Atonement--Lucky helped me learn that when he first was sick and I sobbed every night for answers. I believe in it; I cling to it. I guess there is only one way to learn some lessons, and it's a very hard way.

But still, even though I know that they themselves are not under those cottonwoods; they are in heaven, I believe, doing who knows what with who knows who, but I like to think they--Lucky especially--are waiting for me. and i will be met by them as much as family and friends when I go. I hope that will be so.

What Peace

A poem written so long ago, I don't remember writing it. (actual spelling)

(To Grandma Powell)
What Peace
By Michaela
What peace is, is rain wettening the
hair on your head, rain should not
be a dread, for peace is ahead.

What Peace is, is music lasting
ever 4 ever, for hatred or war
should be never.

What Peace is, is thinking behond
imagine, little is greater, than
thinking with sarcasm.

These three sumbols of peace
are fine, but what is finer is
all the peacer around you, helping
you grow more time.

One Who Blogs

The word "blog" is such a disgusting-sounding word. What multimillion-too-rich-and-important-to-do-their-own-work-and-have-twenty-interns-to-do-it-anyway marketer came out with THAT logo?
Blog. It's that sound full milk cartons make when you turn them upside-down. It rhymes with Slog, Bog, Dog, Glog (which is the way teenagers and college boys drink milk, as I hope you were not previously aware), and Snog. All of which are unpleasant and also very wet. The only worse sounding word I can think of is "Blogger: One who blogs." If that doesn't sound like a ghetto dictionary definition for a slang word for a hobo in New Hampshire, nothing does.

Blog. This bizarre word has become part of modern lingo that every not-paid intern must use in at least every other sentence so that their peers, future employers, and parents all know that they are, in fact, doing something worthwhile with their major(s) and also that they shop regularly at vintage stores (and are proud of it), do asymmetrical and abstract photography in their spare time (one photo two weeks ago in an alleyway with their iTouch), are faithful tai-chi health fanatics (even if they did just start a week ago), are single (it's "complicated"), and "get" art.

Blog, the one word that never fails to make you sound six-times more annoying when you say it. Non-bloggers only have to hear that sloppy-sounding word once to suddenly realize that they still haven't watched that funny video their almost BF sent to their cellphone (NOT a touch screen) or need to flip aimlessly through their non-biodegradable planners while they conveniently turn off their ears.

Blog. It's what makes we hopelessly and proudly addicted people feel smart and quirky and creative and not at all like that other guy whose blog is about all his biking trips last summer. Because OUR blog is different from anyone else's. It's about sock puppets. We're certain its number of "followers" will explode exponentially in about three month or so. We know how it'll go, how all internet sensations gone celebrities went: one person will stumble upon it while searching for their designer woolen socks. Their curiosity will be piqued by our festive background and clever subtitle. They will start reading and be instantaneously hooked. Enraptured, this person will tell their sister-in-law, who will think it's the coolest and most informed blog about sock puppets she's ever seen, and she'll tell her boyfriend, who'll show all his business partners and suddenly we, the inspired, but still nasty-sounding, blogger will become America's leading official on sock puppets. Ventriloquists and puppeteers will read it daily for vital information in their very important fields. And then we are famous. Well, not yet, you understand. We're still waiting for the first follower. But really, the popularity will pick up. Any year now...

I'm All Left

I've been reflecting on the past month and it's made me realize something. Maybe the reason I've been so depressed and lonely lately is because my sister left for college.
This sounds obvious, but it's actually a little surprising to me. She was the one who was always talking about how would she get along without me and how lonely she'd be and how no one knew her better than I. But this month I've been the one lonely, starring at computers, playing SSBB without much zeal, constantly glancing at my facebook chatbox, only to find those distant affiliations orbiting far stars, seeming very dim and unattractive in the large blankness of space. I feel like my sister star has rocketed off to rapidly collect an all knew solar system somewhere beyond the black hole. I never knew how much of my whole entire orbital system that she retained until she left it all to me. It's awfully big. Without her greatness, so many of my planetary fauna are leaving to find other, larger, hotter stars. I am losing a lot of what I was.
I haven't drawn anything in months, and no one gets half the jokes I make. In fact, if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be writing at all, I wouldn't love drawing nearly as much, and I wouldn't be nearly as enjoyably funny or interesting.

What will I do without her? Who will I get after for speeding? Sometimes I speed when I'm alone in the car, just so I have someone to lecture. I still have her CD's in her car, which isn't really hers, since the parents bought it, but it has her unmistakable, down-to-earth, characteristically uncharacteristic smell. She was a constant buzzing in my ear, like an old fan, that I got so used to, I didn't even hear until it's shut off, and I find the silence deafening. She was the long, beautiful hair draping down my back, that I told everyone I couldn't wait to chop off, but now that it's gone, impossible to glue back in, my head is all light, I feel half naked and my neck is so cold!
I've been cracked over a knee, sawn in half, divided asunder, cleaved in two! My right arm is gone and now everything is all left and clumsy.
It's done. No going back. Soon I, too will follow, a little white dwarf among the supernovas, into the void I'll fly, gathering asteroids and comets, and maybe a planet or two, but none will be so intense as my sister star who is still gathering her own planets and maybe someday another star! This is sad. I don't like it. But there is hope: in two years, we could be room mates!
Oh, Caitlyn, how I want you back!