Mimi is sleeping next to me

My Cat, Mimi, is sleeping right here on the sofa, next to me. She is curled and her back breathes softly, up and down. She wants to be next to me and that is enough to calm her and make her sleepy. She feels safe and warm, maybe because of my body next to her, maybe because she has some feelings, and she feels happy with me. Even if sometimes I shout at her because she makes caca on the carpet. And then, like yesterday, I put her in the other room and leave there for hours, even a day sometimes, to punish her for her misdeeds.

But now she is happy, and looking at her makes me happy too. It makes me feel at home. It makes me feel safe. That is what Mimi does to me. That is why I take her around . Mimi, my cat from Beijing who has lived in Canada, Italy and the Netherlands, is what makes me feel at home wherever I take her. I should learn from Mimi, and accept the way she is and the way I am.

Mimi is one of the most stable things, together with my study, that I have had in the last 15 years. She has been with me when I was with Dinos, she was the cat of our house, the house we had together and for which we bought furniture, vases and paintings. The only house I ever had with a man.

She was not with me afterwards, she stayed with DInos. My life was already becoming unstable, in terms of geography, and so I decided that Dinos could keep her. And then I went away, far away, across a large ocean and another land, and stayed there for four years, not knowing much of what was going on with Mimi. I was far from her, somewhere else. My love for the next man came and slowly slowly started to go and then I got back , and it was at the time when Dinos was leaving China. So he gave her back to me and that is why I have had her ever since.

Mimi is 17 now, her birthday is probably this time of the year, or just passed. I think we got her when she was just born, and she is still here, on the sofa, sleeping next to me. I have moved continent or country six times since then, I feel completely lost sometimes as where I should be. I could not make my own family, or create a place where I am going to be for most of the rest of my time. I did not settled down, as that Indian lady the other day told me to do. But Mimi is still here. She sleeps and she just curled a little tighter. This is why I love her, this is why she gives me strenght.

Four months later

Four months later I am still on the same sofa in this little room under the roof, by a canal, writing my pain away. Four months later I find this screen, and the words that appear on it, as a way out from myself and my obsessions. Four months later I am still here pondering on my life, now and in the future.
Maybe being all by myself is not a solution. Or maybe taking advantage of my solitude is the way to cure it, to erase its negative influence. There probably is no creativity without at least some solitude. And probably the deeper the condition the better the creation. Great art may not come easily.
Or maybe this is just my illusion, to justify why I do what I do in such a unhurried way.
Yet Criulinha is still very much alive in me. Maybe she will tell you more stories.........Let's see.