Word reaches me by email at my office this afternoon: Willow the blind cat died this morning in Normandy.
I can’t remember a thing about that instant only hours ago, which distinguishes it from the many other instants before, after and all around. Everything was as if stopped.
The cat touched me unthinkably.
She was not dissuaded from living, not by blindness, illness, or fragility. She just went on in the world as she experienced it. I could have watched her all day. She just went on and on.
What else is there to do?
What was I watching? A thin, sick cat losing her fur, blind, kidneys failing, probably with a constant headache, as Paul her owner said?
I think I was watching me.
Goodnight Willow
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
"Because I’m the size of what I see,
Not the size of my height…"
("Porque eu sou do tamanho daquilo que vejo,
Não do tamanho da minha altura…")
Alberto Caeiro