By age 7, we had moved to a more rural setting with acreage, dirt road, lots of woods and plenty of places to play. We still had Boots, but she was now spayed. No more kittens. but we did find and adopt a couple of boy kittens along the way. A solid white one and a solid grey. We gave them names and cared for them.
During this time, I had an interesting and somewhat profound experience. I think I was maybe 10 years old. I was out playing in the back yard (yes, that’s what we did back then). I was sitting quietly on the edge of the big sandbox that my dad built, primarily for my younger siblings. I was too old for those things after all.
Anyway, I was gazing up into the beautiful trees when I spotted a cat that I didn’t know. I stayed still as not to scare it while I worked on a plan to rescue it in my head. My eyes drifted away from that cat in that tree to another cat in another tree. Both unknown to me.
As I sat there, I realized that there were several cats in several trees. I didn’t recognize any of them, but they were clearly up there by design. I couldn’t imagine their purpose, so I just silently observed. None of them seemed to be in distress. None of them were meowing. Instead they all seemed very relaxed and we’re all looking at each other with soften eyes, and softly blinking. They were communicating with one another.
I had nor do I have any idea what they were meeting about, but after a couple hours observing them, I knew there was something very unique and special about them. I consciously thought they were mind reading, which is a pretty advanced hypothesis for a ten year old kid. I don’t know how I even knew about such a thing, and this was years before Ouija Boards and seances became a kid‘s party highlight. So no supernatural knowledge that I can recall, except one very big one, which I shall save for a future post.
I returned to the backyard some time later, and they were all gone, back to wherever they came from. I recall counting 7 of them. Why they chose my backyard remains a mystery to me to this day. And I don’t recall ever seeing anything like that again.
I started to believe I was part of their meeting, and that I was some kind of cat or kitten magnet from that point forward, and from future experiences, I was right. More stories to come. ❤️
Obligatory kitten photo from yesterday’s photo shoot.