NOTICING FEBRUARY 2025

The sun rises over the still snow. Small flakes seem to percolate upward off the drifts rather than down from the sky, like bubbles dancing on top of a glass of soda pop. The sky is grey like fat, wet cotton. Coco the dog snores contentedly and flicks her toes in a dream. She gets her staples from her tendon surgery out on Thursday. 

I am warm in bed. I hear the electricity in the room. It’s cold, but I don’t notice cold indoors anymore unless I try. I used to be a lizard and was always freezing, but not anymore. Thank you, menopause! I save money on heating bills now. I have been cleaning and organizing like a manic typhoon. Since I know I’m living here now I just want to scrape it all bare and clean. Get rid of what doesn’t fit or I don’t need. Spring cleaning x 1000. I started cleaning at Beth and Diane’s when Diane suddenly passed a few weeks ago. I haven’t stopped. I am shedding my skin and becoming the new person I am now since I stood in the light of Diane being wheeled into surgery to give her body parts and organs to those in need. I’m not who I used to be. I am someone I don’t quite know yet. I am a little bit more Diane, I think. I feel more sleek somehow? I feel like I can see a little farther.

The cats are in the “late winter zoomies” phase of the season. Knocking big things over, wrinkling up carpets, pooping in plants… (DENNIS!) They are bored. A bored cat loves trouble. I need to make them a used shipping box apartment complex or something. Yeesh. I get it, I’d be bored too. They are also very needy. They want my attention most hours of the day. I feel like I’m a steer being rounded up by tiny gauchos who launch out of nowhere half the time. Just walking from one room to another can be a hazard, I have no idea what furry little body will bolo itself around my ankles and take me to the ground by accident. (If this is how I die know I’m not ok with it. Give my cats a stern talking to.) But I do so love when they burst in through the cat door and their fur is all cold. I like to scoop them up and inhale the odor of snow clinging to their little predator’s bodies.

The snow is crunchy and when the sun is out it’s epic. It makes me want to work. I’m seeing a few more birds around these days. Last night I dreamt of Juncos, their bodies heavy like they were cast in lead weighing down the bare tree branches into little dents in the snow. They're dark heads popping up from out of their accidental fox holes. I am deep in creating and cleaning mode, a Virgo’s wheelhouse. It’s a weird place to be after having been gone so much but I am gorging on the feeling like I had been starving to death. 

I will be giving things away in my cleaning frenzy, so I’ll keep you posted. Don’t worry, that’s not a cry for help, I’m just in the clean-out mode. If anyone is in need of anything specific let me know. And if it’s not too cost prohibitive I can send it. Keep on taking care of each other and thanks for being here with me. XO N

This kid can’t WAIT to go to the vet!