Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.9

The morning after Zoe's blue dreams amidst the puffy garbage bags, the frigid air stunk like diesel fuel and dead fish, the skies were beige and broken by naked limbs and the new lights being strewn up around knuckley brown trunks of large and tiny Maples blinked in festive twirls.

Shaking off the sleep she made her way down to a doughnut shop near Quincy and 33rd, just off the Central Parkway. She brought cravings for chocolate doughnut, jelly filled, strong black coffee. The man she left had spoiled her for sure.

She thought to herself, Of Course it's ridiculous my needing my menu of choices. But I'm not going to blame myself. He was a generous soul, indeed. I remember times when he would really shoot the works. We'd have prime rib, he'd fill my little dish with Cabernet Sauvignon, let me sit by the table. He would not only ask, but learned what I liked on pizza and afterword always went half-zees on toppings.

She went on ruminating as she kept tucked away under park benches or keeping close to the alleyways.

Yes, I am a cat who knows what she wants for breakfast from Kelly's Doughnuts. And the same idiot who lavished me, unconsciously perhaps setting up a sense of expectation of the same, day after day, after month after year… Oh, the cookies we would make!… Yes all of that… For which I was so appreciative for so long, to have all of that suddenly taken away… Only to watch him curl up into a selfish, apathetic ball of insensitivity and neglect… I did what I had to do!

And now it's starting to rain, I am freezing my mitts off and I want some damned doughnuts!

It was just then that Zoe's journey would take its first major shift.

At last the gleaming lights at Kelly's were in view. Without seeming too desperate Zoe made her way for the front door. It was unfortunately very close to rush-hour for lunch but she decided to dart for the door anyway amidst many wet galoshes and pointy umbrellas.

Immediately she felt a kick to her midsection and the odd sense of weightless flight. Oh my God what's happening!… The world around her spun in slow motion.… And then… Biff! Splash!

She almost landed in the street and toppled over into a puddle which soaked her from nose to tail tip. She shook off the water completely startled and had half a mind to find the person who had just kicked her and fly straight at him with the claws out and sink her teeth into his jugular's until the SOB fell to the floor, all blue in the face and utterly lifeless – paid in full for his sickening offense!

As I live and breathe I will have this man's blood for my breakfast!

Nevertheless, the owner shouted: Get the Hell Out Of Here… you damn cat!…

Zoe scampered away to the nearest alley and sat attending to her bloodied lip. She would sit here and try to recover before simply moving out again into the gale.

But again, as though gravity itself was beginning to lose its hold – her entire weight vaulted straight up into the air. First she tangled and tried to twist against the upward movement. Unexpectedly, she felt a hand just below her chin that was soft, the energy was gentle. Soft hands were stroking her chin and her head at the back of her ears. She was held in someone's arms and instinctively closed her eyes and began to purr and to soak in the warmth of the person's body.

It made it clear to her how frozen she was straight through her entire system. As the petting continued, the person walked over and took shelter in their Honda CRV which smelled like cotton candy and coconut butter.

What on earth was about to happen next? Zoe had to work to care at all about that question.

We're gonna take you home sweetie! Everything is going to be okay.

Warmth radiated through the woman's hands. Her nails were well trimmed leaving each of the tips perfectly rounded as though cultivated for massage. Zoe's sense of surprise, of wonder and gratitude was now paired with the heat enveloping every inch of her chocolatey fur covered being. This was nice. It was happening, it was better than doughnuts.

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.8

 Zoe is more than worth it. I'm going to keep at it. Make some plans, do some networking around town.

He stood now by the small apartment window looking out while they spoke.

Something else weird happened, Yes what's that? Laura asked… The poppy fell off the wall and onto the floor the other day, I slammed the door shut as Anthony and I were heading out to search.

Interesting…

So, yeah… Thank you so much for calling back. I mean… You're someone who gets it.

Who gets it or who gets you…?

They had already gotten through the mutual apologies, she being sorry for overdoing it on her "alterations" of his revelatory and very personal process of spiritual formation and all that surrounded her overstepping, he being sorry for being so touchy and angry to that degree, without hearing her out. The main thing now was Zoe.

Who gets me, yes… Maybe almost half as much as my cat. He smiled.

They made a date when she would come out to see him and they would hit the surrounding areas from a different perspective.

He thought her idea of focusing on restaurants was a smart one, maybe force himself to dig a little deeper in garbage areas.

Tonight the city was chilled to its lowest temperatures yet. But the air was still and the moon cold as bright. He thought about lucky Fred curled up on the couch with Laura, hearing all about the conversation they just had. He got online and played chess with a guy from Zimbabwe and lost four times in a row over the course of two hours while taking trips back and forth to the fridge, to the bourbon in the cupboard above the microwave, to the case of records in the crate on the floor.

AMERICAN PIE was one of his favorites for this mood. The big finale was one he would skip. He would not, however, miss Starry Starry Night…

Over the next few days he was forced to fall into his routines for his work schedules. He thought he was destined to throw up each morning, as getting up early became harder and harder.

He would think about Zoe all throughout the day and was sore in his neck from constantly spinning his head around from side to side whenever he was out in public. He searched desperately. People probably think I have some kind of disorder, he thought.

By grace, there were other times that he would choose to stop thinking and so sometimes gave himself to tai chi on the occasional afternoon break.

He stopped on purpose and chose to cause an intentional swimming through the ether. It was not space of course, but a sort of density through which he swam and forced himself forward as might a fish in a cold stream in the Canadian mountain waters. Limbs being spun in undulating flow, arms waving the space open, slicing through the gelatinous room.

Just keep swimming.… Then stop… The earth turns, feel still how you flow, still one flowing…

Was she here? Was that Zoe…?

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.7

 I only want to make thoughtful choices. Simple and efficient. Think clearly, be decisive, I'll be fine.

She walked for 24 hours without stopping for more than a pause to smell something, make the occasional analysis as to the edibility of a given glob on the sidewalk. Under a park bench, while it poured rain, she managed only one full facial from a cab that blew up a puddle nearly hitting the curb to get around a Swanson's delivery truck.

She was kicked by a man near the corner of the apartment near the garbage can where he liked to pick through fresh drop-offs – on his own apparently. She wondered how the man had gathered any information about her mother and why someone would pour forth such horrible and inaccurate commentary about someone's family member, none of which should ever be shared in the first place with anyone, irrespective of whether or not the claims could be substantiated. Clearly he and her mother had never met.

The night was dark and murky and the winds howled in between the downtown district filled with its ten to twenty story buildings where she soon discovered there would be much light but little opportunity to slip in somewhere unnoticed. The glow of the place felt strangely comfortable however. The bright windows of the storefronts glowed warmly and it felt like being at home watching the big screen, only the wet concrete was no place to curl up and try to turn in for the evening.

No, after several more hours, finally she discovered an alley with an overflowing dumpster whose bags filled with garbage were more cushy and plump than stinky and so she nestled in between a few of them and circled herself around four times into one perfect Burmese bull's-eye. Her tummy was soft beneath her chin.

Some kids from around the neighborhood piled up on the bags beside her and smoked reefer for nearly 2 hours.

Zoe breathed deeply.

She slept.

And she slept and she slept the most beautiful sleep that a tired sleeper would want to hear about. She slept in dreams that moved in soft blue light throughout an expansive ether, an ever opening universe expanding outward and drawing all things into deeper complexity, connection and beauty… God's glory set ablaze right before her dazzling eyes… As when the autumn came… As when she slept nestled under leaves of gold, those thrown over her by Angel after Angel, winged and running and thrown into embrace… Sleep and dream the power of the love of God – throw it to your heart and out through all your bones… Sleep Zoe… Sleep… Dream your blue dream through me…

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.6

 I lost track of how many blocks we had walked, alleys we'd checked, dumpsters and mucky ditches we scrapped through and how badly my feet ached so we sat down. There were benches in the middle of the Parkway and it was strangely quite secluded from the noises of the surrounding traffic, pedestrian and vehicular. We got beef sandwiches from Milleys. Hot coffees.

I think you're probably going to have to make some signs. Anthony wiped horseradish sauce from his mustache, also glad to be off his feet.

Yeah… This just sucks!

I was half-asleep when I opened that window.

Don't do this to yourself… Don't do it.

This just sucks, man… Just a few hours after and everything would have been fine. I'm just confused… I'm angry, I'm hurt. I'd love to tell her she's a bitch!… Zoe!!

Okay, now… Easy now, let's hush down, hush it… Dude seriously…tshh, shoo, shoo…

I dug into the beef sandwich, best roast beef in town. And you definitely need the horse radish.

That night, listening to RUSH and doing some charcoal sketches from old photos with friends felt utterly unbound and weightless. I was completely in the flow of the music and color and form of line emerging at the tips of my fingers and all of this movement lost grip of time and space and so was everlasting in that pure white always glorious flash of radiance!

I raced through the ether, electric.

Then the crash. With every thought he received, onto and into himself, his mind stacked sandbags too heavy. One after the next.

The sense of a reality moving forward, of his life without Zoe… Without her completely… It stabbed straight through his chest. Piercing him straight through his heart, he was relieved to be at home bearing it alone and felt the need to let it shake through him and out like a demon thrown from an empty tomb. It was just so stupid! So damned unnecessary!  She's got to turn up somehow.

Final flashes of golden light disperse as leaves release from branches and fall twirling to the grass.

The snow turns to rain on the trees framed at the center of the window.

A golden shawl once above us… he had thought while sitting on the bench… Is now slowly given to the ground.

There is a piano playing tenderly. Sad notes and gentle.

I miss you Zoe. Come home.

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.5

Speak the thoughts and say what they show, say where, say which, say why, say how, say when… All you ever do is attend the show and say what it is and where it goes and what our ears want to tell us and your nose discerns and your fingertips touch and point to and to whatever your curiosities, wherever your wanderings wish to take us… Attend to the flow. Tell us what occurs to you… What seems to make sense… Or maybe no sense. Tell and show… Attend to the flow, tell and show.

~from The Spiral-Bound Notebook

Beyond eight lanes of traffic only a mile or so away, the morning rush with its thousand travelers in steaming vehicles sipping their Starbucks, texting their friends, speaking aloud their two cents to the morning talk shows; the shining towers of glass slowly release their myriad raindrops, rivulets streaming down, splashing out to freefall down into the surrounding mulch and landscaping. It is undeniably a sort of castle set atop a hillside close at hand but beyond the reach of the modern towers of the city, the old cathedrals, the historic districts, the discos and fast food restaurants.

Having been constructed in 1858 the still glowing conservatory wore a timeless elegance, architecturally sounding out each of its vaulted lines straight upward, garnering the great force of linear simplicity in its framing so as to accentuate and companion its most vital guest, it's paradisaic cause and Edenic purpose, the light of the sun.

Here within, millions of life forms could grow freely and into their true identity, co-mingling one with the other and thereby mutually supporting what would later be called biodiversity, a sort of natural harmony of living things to be enjoyed not only by scientists in search of answers for earth's future, but also for each visitor invited to reimagine the wonders of these living surroundings so similar to their own.

Here is where over 200,000 people will visit in a given year, where buses filled with children and/or the elderly will deliver groups, rewarding the youngest with a foretaste of the finest future they can imagine and the oldest, who knows but perhaps a certain sense of the same.

Here is where Zoe found her way to more than she'd ever imagined. Here is where she waits, again long hours throughout the late morning at the top of the rock. But of course she does so quite differently.

She never waits. Not nearly in the same way that most would. Contentment is not a thing she works at, it is how she manifests as a being. Being is what she does, she is, and that is all.

The comparative mind belongs to another, she may tell you. The way of others is to perhaps live in constant evaluation of what is; what is present, what is missing. 

For them, whatever they possess must needs be the very finest and best, which will carry them a very long way but never forward into their fullness. Instead, on their phones, faces lit by the false light, they scroll up and up endlessly assuming that one or perhaps just a few more flips of the thumb upward will bring them to their perfect boots and coats, their cars, couches and televisions and updated kitchens and baths every couple of years. They will want to show you. They will want you to see their life.

In many ways, to the extent that she knew she had this gift, Zoe tried to simply exude contentment. There was no point in trying to teach it or point out when people were needing to be more patient or less attached to this or that.

This is why they had gotten along so well for as long as they did. They rarely preached to each other about how to be. Rather they always were working, or so it seemed to her, at being… Manifesting what they wanted more than talking about it. Showing more than telling.

Still, if you asked her, she would tell you it was all a little more complicated than that. Much discontentment arose that rainy night she jumped out the open window after all. Her foreboding upon making those first frigid steps out onto the wet concrete of the city's night and all of its dangerous possibilities was still not stronger than her dissatisfaction.

So, a contented creature… Indeed. Nevertheless, there were moments that demanded a shift in vision, perhaps even a different way in to contentedness, one that could send one straight out into the high winds of homelessness, of rabid raccoons and stray dogs and animal control trucks.

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.4

ALL SAINTS DAY

How do you lose an F ing cat?

I guess I had thrown him for a loop. It seemed perfectly obvious to me how this could happen to someone. I wasn't some kind of idiot, after all.

Still Anthony sat mystified on the couch while I finished getting dressed. I was ready to put my coat on and get flying out the door. We did just that and I told him of course nothing about Zoe's special presence and abilities. I still felt like SH but managed to get my boots on and while making down the stairs I caught him up on the basics.

She's a small brown cat, kind of like darker paws and face, but bright blue eyes. But the colors are all muted so she looks like a shadow usually anyway.

I'm glad I found you, we couldn't remember which apartment number at first but nonetheless it seemed little if any traffic up here for a few days and we were getting concerned. 

Helluva cough… he said. Let's grab you a bagel and some hot coffee, figure out a plan.

At first I thought you were my friend Laura… 

Oh really.  I see… A friend Laura?… 

The window has been closed. The door shut firmly behind them as they leave. The Poppy photo drops to the floor. 

No, no no it's not what you think, just a friend. She has a dog named Fred and we are both pretty close to our pets so when I started to come to, here in the last few hours, I reached out… To see…

You reached out… Ladies and gentlemen, alas, the man was only reaching out… Outreaching, that's all it was… Reaching for Laura…

Will you please knock it off – I'm serious here.

I just don't understand it. Part of me gets it. I feel terrible, the poor little creature has put up with a lot. I think I literally slept two days in a row. 

On the other hand – you think you get to know a cat, right? Day after day living together. Could I not just have some time for me to be sick, did someone constantly need to be heard. You have to understand man, the Burmese… The Burmese are like people, man! Believe me. It's like having a roommate.

I hear you man –

I mean what the hell! Are we gonna go chase now, all over the city? Is that what I'm supposed to do? She's probably doing just fine. She is highly intelligent, beyond smart man. I'm telling you this is a brilliant… Amazingly, adaptive… I can't even begin to describe…

She's a cat.

What you mean? – – I mean that's it – she's a cat! Come on!

Don't say that like that – What Do You Mean –? Like that! 

She's a cat. 

See what I mean? People don't get it –

All right, I'm sorry – let's just trace some of the places around here where I've seen you two walking.

Outside temperatures had plummeted 20° over the last eight hours and there was snow in the air intermingled with dead leaves all awhirl through the parkway out in front of the building. Each bundled up.

I chose the Memphis Lambskin Leather Bomber moto jacket and tweed scarf, I wore Norwegian gloves.

I guzzled down the rest of my French roast – felt both of my ears pop open again crystal clear – and we headed out the door wincing into the wind.

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.3

We are not loved because we are beautiful and good. We are beautiful and good because we are loved. Jurgen Moltmann

In all fairness to her, she had tried her level best.

Although she had agreed within herself to only use her human voice when he was already awake and completely oriented, which is to say worth talking to, during the long nights of his illness he was so inaccessible that she brought out every voice she was capable of doing.

Tarzan of the jungle, no go. Pavarotti bellowing out his finest from Nessun Dorma (No one shall sleep!) Nothin.

She tried out her own urgent holler and immediately decided it was never going to be enough to wake him. She tried several types of canine bark; the Yorky, the Terrier, the rest of your run-of-the-mill yippy dogs – zippo. Most especially she took pride in her snarling Doberman, the growling German Shepherd, the plaintive whaling of a coyote, the crooning richness of the forlorn Red Bone Hound but nothing seemed to work.

Of course many of the natural moves that any cat in her situation would've made she tried. With the litter box turned into a disgusting minefield, her food dish giving up the last of its crusty edges, and finally choking down one small water bug that made its way out of the bathroom, she resorted to much more physical means.

She batted him about the face, right and left, right left right, left left right right… But the man continued to snore deeply. All that was audible were the rhythmic interruptions in the long and drawn out reverberations as when one rides along the speed strips of a highway shoulder, skipping on and off in syncopation with her rapidfire welterweight combinations.  B errrr…barrr…brrr…berror

It was just no use. Would she need to get out the claws and put them to use? Had she ever done so while living with him? The violent temptations, by some small grace, left her mind as quickly as they entered. Certainly it would go against every thing she'd ever stood for and despite feeling hurt by his recent negligence, she decided to ere on the side of nonviolence. There had to be another way forward without hurting anyone.

It was just shortly after this important choice, while she had positioned herself squarely atop of the man's face for a good long sit, that the opened window caught her eye. While she had gone off to rest or think of different ways of rousing him from the couch he must have gotten up for a moment wanting some fresh air. After being tossed left and then right, then once more straight up with a backflip and all four paws to the floor, she decided the window was her best option.

One way or another she knew that it was the best choice she could make given the circumstances. Things would work out. If she didn't act now she might very well lose any chance in the future were he ever to decide to shut it. Then where would she be?

Stuck in the stagnant box, listening to the refrigerator trickle, to the furnace blowing. Endlessly adjusting what seemed to her like such basic needs… Finding a morsel and a relatively clean place later on to let it go… Even these had been knocked offkilter so drastically since the idiot had run off and gotten infected somewhere… Enough – no more of this, she thought.

No, something alighted within her in that moment. Something… let's call it instinct, made her hop straight up over the sill and out into the cool of the night that one night already so long ago.

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.2

Paradisaic intentionality happens by initiating and sustaining the conscious manifestation of communion. Being one with God on purpose in the immediate present. Trusting where the spirit moves while we are relinquished to the very gaze of Christ.

… from the Spiral-Bound Notebook

What you see is who you are? Father Richard Rohr

Hello? Are you there?

Laura, it's me… I know I left a message already, I was hoping you would pick up.

He spoke in stammers, his fever still over 101. The city had been under cloud cover for nearly two weeks with rain and cold wind ushering in a late and grumpy November.

Couch cushions were on the floor, blankets were tossed about from the bedroom and nearly every item of clothing from the closet had been tossed out in search of the cat.

How on earth? When the hell would she even have had a chance to get out.

Hey, call me will you…? You're never going to believe this but I can't find Zoe. He swallowed deeply and tried to hide the sound of his stuffed head. I know it's been tough for me to talk about… Sorry it's taken me so long. I'm just in a bit of a panic as you might imagine. Shoot me a text or something, if you can. Thanks

He rummaged through the cupboards and took out a large garbage bag and began filling it with the random items he'd been strewing about the apartment since falling ill; open soup cans and Kleenex wads, a box of Triscuits along with three Gatorade's drunk down to various levels, blue, purple and orange. Two different Sunday papers had been dismembered completely. He threw laundry into the wash and upon sitting down in the leather chair only then noticed the top ledge straight across from him at eye level, the window had been left ajar.

He must've opened it during one of his fever's in an attempt to move through sweats. So much of it was a swirl of aches and pain, one dream dissolving into the next with all of them being quite epic in nature. It reminded him of the legendary night on his journey through the Poppy and into so much more. Still, the illness dreams were different… circular and barely making any sense, abstracted characters and words, the repetitions of alleyways and hallways from high school.

Throughout the illness he had an underlying sense that after he was better he was really going to have to make it up to her somehow. Still, all of it stayed in dream state.

Litter… must change. Food… Can food… Zoe…

Now he stepped into the shower to get a full restart. He'd pick up something downstairs, ask Anthony and the others if they had seen a chocolate Burmese cat anywhere around the neighborhood. What then? What if some kids had her?

Would that even be so bad? What sort of a friend was he in the first place, completely forgetting about her for most of the time he was sick. Maybe she got hit by a car, traffic was crazy sometimes depending upon the time of day, especially right outside of the coffee shop at rush hour.

How many people within their lifetime would ever be gifted with such a smart and spiritually balanced companion cat like he was? Her English was immaculate.

Good Lord I hope she's okay. Kids these days get a hold of a mysterious looking creature like that and the next thing you know…

He heard his phone buzzing as he made his way back to the bedroom. It was his mother, more than likely calling to see how he was feeling. Why couldn't Laura just call? Why was that so important?

All he knew was that he wanted Zoe home. He let out three crackling bronchial coughs and decided to sit down to finish toweling off. As his dizziness settled somewhat just then he heard the ring, more than likely for the first time ever, of his apartment door bell.

Hello? Am I at the right place?

Book 2: Zoe's Flow, 1.1

She rests high above the canopy of palms. 

Down below, fruit trees are scattered between great boulders, streams are woven and swell, jetting into freefall before careening down the falls, sounding out the endless quenching, full supply.

The wash of cool water bathes itself; churning beneath in deep currents below the surface, then out foamy to the rippling white edges of the lagoon.

A small chorus of turning Finch swarm past in song as clouds, towering well beyond the glass, part like the doors of an ancient cathedral, pouring light and heat onto her face.

Try to tell her she is not the Queen, attempt to ask what ever took so long for her to get here, she'll leave you cold.

Not unlike the Abyssinians, bred so closely to her own, she knew there was a great tendency to get caught up in too many human affairs given the social nature of her ancestry. Still it was time. Over time. Which is why three weeks earlier she had taken leave of the apartment at an opportunity one night with a window left open and nothing but a zombie roommate to engage. Zoe took to the streets.

It was time for pure feline.

I am a furbearing animal and I need nothing else but to breathe and carry on simply, efficiently. To live cleanly and happily.

She licks and licks again. A great Canyon of deep blue is opened above. Here is where she lies effortlessly and for as long as she wishes. Feline wholly and truly. Unadulterated by human influence and sentiment, strictly speaking: CAT – nothing else,; meowers, man.

Three days per week people are allowed in to enjoy the five-stories-tall Wardian's case.  Otherwise, as far as she is concerned, which is as far as anything will go from now on, this is her little kingdom.

Every hour, as the shadows move across the stony pathways fanning patterns all about the broad leaves of the Yucca plant, the massive Bismarck palm, belongs to her. 

Yes, she would tell you immediately, to her and also as equally to any living thing held there in gentle dynamic permanence, in paradisaic balance within the centuries-old tropical conservatory.  So to then did it belong to the fragrant orange Jasmine… the Blue Porterweed… Yellow and green budgies, The Golden bamboo with it's scampering monkeys in miniature… every musing of the Fiddle Leaf Fig… each of the daily red splashes of Hibiscus and Canna Lily.

Of course, there are mice. There is a way to become rather hungry and lackadaisical if one is not careful. Surely it took her at least a month to become completely acclimated and to win her way to the top of the searching rock, to earn her Queendom fair and square. However, she continued to marvel at how quickly so many of the other creatures within the obscure and profoundly comfortable confines found so many ways to adapt to her arrival and effortless ascendancy among such a diverse group of species.

Half of the joy she now savored through morning hours such as these came in sharp contrast, of course, to how things had gone for her that first night out, back when the man had become so sick and run down, so much so it was as if she had disappeared already and he hadn't even noticed.