It’s Tuesday night, June 12th, around midnight, and I’ve just gotten back from nearly a month visiting my brother Ken in Seattle. I had a great trip. Seattle is a beautiful and awesome city, but we also took several long road trips through the Cascade Mountains in rural Washington State that were completely incredible.
The only drawback was that I had to be apart from my adopter cat Copper for nearly a month. It has been nearly eight months since I adopted her from an animal shelter, and this was our first time apart. I wondered how she’d react to my absence, and whether she’d think I’d abandoned her.
During my time away my very cool friend Mitch who lives across the street had been feeding Copper. He said she came out a few times, but most of the time she hid under the bed when he was there.
Copper is a very shy cat, and she’s only really bonded with me so far. When other friends come over, she usually hides under the bed. I think it’s related to her spending the first three years of her life in the animal shelter. No one adopted her because she didn’t “show well,” which meant she wasn’t social enough with visitors.
So I took a chance on her, and although it was tough in the beginning, we’ve really become close friends. I love her dearly, and I was reluctant to leave her. But to advance genxchronicle.com, and for my own mental health, I needed a break from New York, and Seattle was just what the doctor ordered.
I’ve been home a few minutes now, and Copper is nowhere to be found. She must be hiding under the bed.
I say “hey Copper, hey beautiful, hey sweetheart, I’m home.” She stays out of sight.
I go into the bedroom, lie down and look into the underside of the bed, and there she is. She stares at me with a mix of wonderment, fear, and possibly some love too. I say “hey Copper, hey beautiful, come on out.”
But she stays put.
I decide to let her warm up to me on her own time, to not rush her. After all, she’s been through a lot. I’ve been gone for 24 days. I reason that cats have about 1/5th the lifespan of humans on average, so 24 days to her is really five times that, or around four months.
So for all I know, Copper thinks I’ve been gone for four months. Maybe she really does think I abandoned her. Who knows?
Plus the four months is only if cats’ life spans are linear like humans. If they’re actually front or back-loaded, so that the first year is like 15 years, then I’ve actually been gone for a year and a half in Copper’s mind. So she could be freaked the hell out.
Numbers aside, it’s also just safe to assume that if I’ve missed Copper, she’s missed me too.
After a couple more hours she slowly walks into the living room where I’m on the couch watching coverage of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore. She looks at me, then lays on her side on the hallway rug and just chills out.
I’m relieved, because now I know that at least she’s not gonna hide under the bed for weeks or something, like she did when I first adopted her.
I really want to pet her, but I resist the urge and just let her explore the living room.
Finally I walk over to her, extend my hand underhanded with the palm up, and let her sniff me. She takes a quick sniff, then walks away.
OK, I think to myself. She’s being coy. She’ll warm up eventually.
A few minutes later I try again, but she walks away from my extended hand.
One thing I do notice about her is that she seems a little bit heavier to me. Just a little bit, because she’s still lean and in great shape, but it’s something.
Normally I feed her ¼ cup of dry food twice a day, plus various treats. She doesn’t usually eat all of it, but she eats a fair amount.
Since Mitch was only coming by once a day, he fed her ½ cup of dry food all at once. He told me that she always ate all the food, and that the bowl was cleaned out when he arrived each night to feed her.
So, I think to myself, maybe she was eating more because she was stressed? That would be interesting, it really would be, because it would mean cats are just like humans in that they self-medicate with food.
It’s not a big deal, and she still looks great, but I’m curious to see if she’ll return to her former, lighter eating patterns now that I’m back.
It’s past 3 am now and I have to go to bed. So I say goodnight to Copper, having interacted with her some but not actually pet her yet.
I wake up late the next day, and I spend the next few years doing nonstop errands like unpacking, cleaning, shopping, and catching up on emails and texts.
Around 7pm Copper pokes her head into the living room, looks at me for a second with wide eyes, then retreats back to the bedroom.
I say “hey Copper, hey sweetheart.” Then I get up from the couch and follow her into the bedroom.
She’s walking around the bedroom slowly, so I lie on the bed in my customary corner spot and extend my arms down below me towards the floor.
Copper walks over to my extended arms, puts her nose to my hand, sniffs a little, then slowly puts her head under my hand so I can pet her. Which I do.
Man does it feel great to be petting my own cat again. I met some cool cats when I was housesitting in Seattle, and Ken has a cool cat at his apartment too. But Copper is my cat, and I’m her human, and we have a relationship that’s strengthened over time, ever since I adopted her from the shelter.
So I pet her and pet her and pet her, and she saunters around under my arms and sways and purrs and makes contented cat noises as I pet her. It feels great, just absolutely incredible.
Eventually after a few minutes she slowly walks away, and our petting session has come to an end.
But I feel great. I finally pet Copper, and it seems, at least, like she’s forgiven me for being away for so long.
It’s funny to phrase it that way, since it sounds like such a human way of looking at a common relationship dynamic, namely one partner leaving the other for a while.
But that’s the thing about cats. They’re just so darn human, and complicated, and deep, and narcissistic, and wise, and impulsive, and passionate, and cunning, and ambitious, and loving, and all the other personality traits you find in humans.
So I like cats, obviously, I really do like cats.
It’s great to know that Copper and I are back together again. The band is back together again!
I look forward to having more adventures with her, and to sharing our lives together.
Thanks for taking me back in again Copper, and sorry I was gone so long.
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