The Continued Adventures of Emily Dickinson and Me

So here I am in my niece's apartment in Kansas City, having enjoyed a tremendous, joyful, and memorable Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with family and good friends, old and new.  Normally, I would not be here, but we want to sell my mother's house and its contents as soon as possible.  The most pressing concern for me, earlier this week, was my parents' books.  As my father was a scholar in his day, he had hundreds, if not thousands, of books that no charity thrift shop would have wanted.  I spent days on the internet and phone before I finally found a rare book dealer from not far away who has carted the best of them away where they can be properly indexed and cared for until they find perfect new homes with interested scholars.  Having dealt with those, we still had to contend with the rest of my parents' household items, clothes, pictures, and--oh, yes!--the furniture!

Fortunately, we have found or at least identified takers for everything, even if it means we'll have to resolve shipping issues later.  I decided to lay claim to my old bedroom furniture, and since generations of cats have torn my own twenty-something-year-old sofa to shreds, I decided I could use the nice newish sofa from my mother's house.   

I arrived at the apartment Tuesday, and Emily steered clear of me.  Emily’s favorite spot in her new apartment has been the window over the bed in the guest bedroom.  But recently, her humans have temporarily transformed the room into a forest of furniture that has been cleared from the grandmother’s house in preparation for its shipment, somehow, to the aunt’s (i.e. my) house in Milwaukee.  She has a new favorite spot, atop the nice newish sofa.  As there was no room for it in its normal position, turned horizontally like a dead log, it is standing vertically, like a live tree.  Or like a tall, tall scratching post.  In the meantime, Emily can indulge her primordial predilection for climbing and jumping down onto moving objects from high locations.

I tried feeding Emily Wednesday morning, and she refused to touch the food.  Perhaps she didn’t trust me not to tamper with it somehow.  Wednesday evening, after doing lots of work clearing my mother’s house, I spent the evening hanging out in the living room in Elizabeth’s apartment with the family while Emily hid away safely in the guest room.  Then I went to bed and found her perched atop her pretend tree/tall scratching post.   I expected her to dash out when I entered the room, but perhaps she was too tired to care.  I heard her a few times scratching the upholstery of my newish sofa, but I knew trying to stop her would be futile, especially since I knew she disliked me enough already.

Then at about 5:30 I had to wake up and, as they say, “answer nature’s call.”  I got up and Emily dashed out of the room.   Surely traumatized by the presence of a stranger, poor cat.   I went to the bathroom, and there I felt something touching my leg.  It was Emily.  She had followed me into the bathroom and tried rubbing up against my leg.  I tried petting her, and she began to purr vociferously.   Suddenly, she had decided that I was her friend after all.  She let me pet her and scratch her behind the ears, and when I went back to bed, she joined me, snuggling into the wool blanket.   This change of heart surprised me so much that I had to update my blog.  Fortunately, I was able to get back to sleep again until it got light enough for Emily to see something interesting from the window above the bed.