Things to write while I should be studying
I was asked about the sanctuary recently. I didn’t realize I hadn’t written about it in a while. It’s such a part of my life that sometimes it feels like writing about breathing.
But, it’s also an intimate part of my life. So sometimes it feels like writing about…well, other intimate parts of life.
Things have been good and weird for me out there lately. The weird will be resolved this weekend (I think), and I will be free to talk about it then. While I have strong evidence on which way things work out, I honestly will be happy any which way.
I spent a lot of time there over the Christmas break. Well, there and Borders. A local Borders sets up free gift wrapping and has charities come in and man the booth. We are allowed to collect donations, and put out any literature we want. Borders chose us as one of two charities, giving us the lion’s share of time. I picked up some daytime shifts when other people were in work, got called out one afternoon when they were getting slammed, and volunteered to be there Christmas Eve morning. As I heard from the manager’s pep talk, “Welcome to Hell!”
I have a leopard spot trimmed santa hat, so I wore that and smiled a lot and used my telephone voice. I also wrapped a lot of books.
Christmas day, I got up bright and early, stuck overnight french toast in the oven, fed ST, then headed off to the sanctuary. There was a very small crew of us, but we got things done quickly and I was on my way home to ST by noon. It felt good to be part of such a great team. Oh, I also stopped at MC’s work on the way there so she could partake of the breakfast.
On a sadder note, we’ve lost three cats this winter. All were past their life expectancy, one by 10 years(!), but it hurts nonetheless. I once wrote a poem for another volunteer who has a great affinity for feeding the animals. She mentioned last weekend that every cat in that poem is now dead.
I used to be made of stronger stuff when it came to the life cycle out there. None of our animals are young; it’s nature. I don’t know if it was losing “my” lionness and tiger, or perhaps just time weaving into my heart a little more, but it’s been hard.