Yet still more...

"For someone who talks about non-attachment," a friend commented today, "you sure posted a lot about Beasley."

Many dozens of posts back, I wrote something about discovering one's attachments, and dealing with the attachments that you can't even admit to yourself you have because you're so afraid of letting go of them.

I was attached to Beasley, and I won't deny or make excuses for that. Sometimes I would sit here at home and ponder my attachments and wonder how I would deal with losing my house and having to live on the street as a homeless person. I finally decided I could be okay with that, except that I'd have to figure out how to take Beasley with me when I was diving in dumpsters.

In an earlier post I talked about how Beasley could just sit contentedly in one spot all day. But I also have to say that he was one of the smartest and most inquisitive cats I have ever seen.

I would find him stranded in places where I could not for the life of me figure out how he got there, and he could not figure out how to escape. I once found him stuck on top of the kitchen cabinets, meowing for help in the nine or ten inches of space between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling. He figured how to get into the cabinet below the sink by standing on his hind legs, putting his front paws on the top of the cabinet door, then walking backwards to pull the door open. He was close to learning how to turn on the faucet in the lavatory. He did it once, but never quite figured how to repeat the action.

There have been a lot of other cats through here over the years, and in terms of temperament and personality, they have been pretty much the same. Even Smudge, who now inherits the role of senior pet, is a pretty conventional cat. But Beasley was a phenomenon unto himself.

He even walked differently. Beasley would amble along with his head low and stuck out a little. He folded his ears back slightly, not like a cat about to get into a fight but like he was streamlining himself to reduce wind resistance. But once he was under way, he walked about like I do, which is to say slowly. He was in no hurry to get anywhere. And his legs were so short that when he ran, which was rarely, he ran like a rabbit instead of a cat.

He would sometimes wake me up in the morning by getting on the bed and putting one paw on the tip of my nose. He would leave it there until I woke up. If I pulled a blanket over my face he would scratch at my scalp.

I can't overstate how much Beasley's departure changes the whole mood of this house. It just ain't the same place anymore.