Better A Solitary Life

The newest cat to find her way here is a half grown, at least partly calico little girl with a sweet, heart shaped face.  When I pull into the driveway, she skitters off the front steps, careens through the azaleas, and like a small, heat seeking missile, dives through the lattice work to the shelter of under the house.  I suspect she's more stray than feral and despair at the thought of more kittens in the spring.  Of all the houses on this dead end block, mine seems to be the most popular, a veritable halfway house for stray felines who would rather live a solitary life than a compromised one.  I know it's done all the time, but if I live to be a hundred and fifty I will never understand how people can abandon animals.

I don't know how many cats now call under the house home, in truth, I try not to think about it.  The Cat Who Lived in the Garage still comes by now and then, just as skittish and unapproachable as she ever was.  There are one or two tabbies that wander the neighborhood and of course, sometimes the enormous and bad tempered Siamese strolls by, picks a fight, and moves on.  Now and again I see one with a notched ear, the local spay neuter clinic's way of marking the Trap/Neuter/Return cats - a noble effort but for the fact that it actually accomplishes so little - the lives of the animals are only marginally improved but at at least it puts an end to their breeding.  Meanwhile, feral cat colonies seem to be blossoming all over the city.  There's no end in sight.

We may call it independence or a retreat from a mad world, but I imagine that we all have a little stray cat in us, a tiny bit of spirit that wants no ties and who in the words of Tennessee Williams, has always depended on the kindness of strangers for it's uncertain life.  This little girl is clean and sleek, with no visible signs of neglect or injury  and a street wise wariness of humans.  She appears cared for and healthy and while so far I've refused to feed her, my neighbors are not so heartless, little dishes of dogfood appear in the driveway on a regular basis.  She licks them clean and then retreats, slipping under the latticework and disappearing.  It's not the easy life I suspect she knew at one time but she does the best she can.

When the rain comes, falling fiercely and punctuated with thunder so close and loud it shakes the walls, I think of her and hope she's managed to find a warm and dry place under the house. 

 I don't suppose a dish of dry food every now and again would hurt.