Moving to a new home is exciting, but it’s mostly exhausting. With stuff everywhere, it’s hard to rest or write when there’s a list of things to do and things to put away. I need the home to flow before I can settle into something artsy. But I am working toward that during this social isolation time. Every day, the new home has a little more flow.
During our move, Bard, our tuxedo cat, didn’t know what was happening. His home slowly degraded into boxes, and then he was in a box going somewhere else. His comfortable room was gone, as was his old scratching post, and he roamed the new single-story house looking for “home.” It was heart-wrenching to watch him pace repeated patterns of stress as he struggled to find solace. Eventually, he became so tired of constantly searching, that he crawled under our bedspread and slept the entire second day. He still has his family, and we often cuddle with him. Now, he sleeps with us.
We did buy a cat tree, but cats are… particular. With his old tree gone, Bard didn’t know where he could tidy his claws, and a few of our door frames fell victim to his large-cat machete-claws. Within a week, Bard finally found a little comfort here, I didn’t want to stress him out by scolding him for doing something that is is in his nature.
So, I designed carpet-covered scratching pines to attach to the adjacent walls near the door frames he used. We’ll sprinkle some catnip on them and entice him to use those instead. I’ll let you know how it goes.
New home, new isolation from a life-threatening virus, and so much more disrupts what is normal and calm. Whatever is happening out there, it can’t BE the normal. The flow that sparks our creativity is something we create.
Peace.
SR
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