On New York and three months here..

Thing become more acute once you start thinking of leaving them..Tastes become tastier and sounds louder..I have a feeling that I will leave NY soon, as a matter of fact, very soon. Could be DC. Could be Jerusalem. Could be some absolutely unknown destination. But my sixth sense into which I have faith (and whenever I didn't I realized that I should have) is telling me so.

Not that I am unhappy about it. With NY I had quite a love and hate relationship. As it is usually in those types of relationships, the city made me dizzy. I took some long random walks during which it spoke to me. With its musicians (there was a guy who played Amelie's tune at Washington Square Park down in West Village), its small stores, hectic people in line for their coffees, yellow taxis, all cliche things which make NY so unique, it spoke to me in a very distinctive voice. I came here as a lost kid and if I will leave, I will leave as a pretty confident woman and for that I owe New York immensely. Someone asked me about the blog today and I realized that I never wrote on it after one posting. Probably it will make more than NY to make me more disciplined.

But the city has taught me to do things I wouldn't do otherwise. I had a strong sweet craving today so I went to Hungarian pastry shop and had some coffee and chocolate cake. I was reading a book - Murakami's "A wind-up bird chronicle" and then started a conversation with a guy sitting next to me. He was a Greek artist born and raised in the City and gave me a website where I could see his pictures. I just looked it up and it's quite good. The randomness of this city and the flow of it leaves me grateful to say the least. Ok, it is a lousy post but I will not change it. It would be artificial if I would. Now that I wrote enough I should get changed and read about efforts of UN in the Middle East. Who knows, maybe that would be my next destination.

My kitten and life

This is my first post on this blog and I hope it will live.

My writing urge, for a long time obvious in my composition home works, diary, abrupt notes on the corners of notebooks and later research papers even on irrelevant topics such as Georgian electricity reform system... I feel it is time to write. Though I needed something deep to move me and make me to write. Today this happened. So, it's 2 in the morning and here I am writing.

Two weeks ago, someone threw a kitten into our summer house. It was small and sweet. Vulnerable. Probably, they didn't want to get rid of it and threw in into our house through the fence. So, here it was. We fed her as she was all trembling. She felt safe. She was rubbing her head on our feet - mine, my mom's, my aunt's, my cousins..A very kind, playful and curious kitten. My mom, a cardiologist who is pathologically disapproving of animals totally melted. She would speak with her every morning and made a toy for her to play. She would follow us wherever we would go - to throw trash, to fill water, to see the chicken...She was absolutely and tremendously enjoying her life. And she became so seamlessly, so smoothly, member of our family. Every morning we would wonder if she was fed today and then as we had our tea, we would watch out for her as she would come under the table. After she ate, she would lie on her back and wait till someone would scratch her stomach and play with her. She was funny to watch - totally relying on her instincts, learning the place, smelling, suddenly jumping trying to catch her own tale or a fly, digging the ground, licking herself clean..A truly beautiful animal.

Today, it all came to an end. A very absurd one. She was laying on a doormat on the sun. We knew she liked the place so always watched under our feet. There is a heavy door in front of which we always put a chair and there is a lighter one, with only mosquito net on. She was used to the second one. Today because of a strong wind the heavy door slammed and we didn't see it. By the time my aunt went out, 3-4 minutes passed and our kitten was there in a pain shock. She was so shocked she couldn't utter a sound. The door was heavy and it crashed her hard in sleep. My aunt took her outside and there was this sound, which was not a sound of a cat, a very scary sound to hear. A sound of pain and agony. We put her on the grass under mulberry tree and waited a bit. She was breathing slowly and heavily. Blood came from her ear. My aunt told us not to touch her and let her die calmly. My cousin brought some water which the kitten didn't touch. I was crying. After a while she seemed to be recuperating. She stood up, walked a bit around, then sat down and fell asleep. We came to check on her every 5 minutes. We were all stressed, to say the least. It's an insane thing to watch a small creature so full of life now fighting for a breath. I have never seen such a thing so closely. "Yaziq pishik", "yaziq pishik" (poor cat) was all we would say..To make the long story short, our hope didn't live long..The kitten just couldn't manage those injuries. She was agonizing, trying to find a place to make herself comfortable, but not being able to..She would stand up, tumble and fall somewhere..Her right side became paralyzed so she would only move with her left side...I was exhausted from crying and couldn't take my eyes off her. My brother bought pain easing medicine and my aunt made a shot to make it easier for her. In the end, we put her far away to the end of the yard not to see her agonies as we couldn't help much. I will check her tomorrow morning and probably find her dead. C'est la vie..

Why I am writing this while I didn't write about many other things which I find incredibly important? The kitten made me realize how precious life is. Human beings, so stupid in our arrogance waste their lives and time away...And here it was, the kitten, mobilizing her entire inner force and magnificent resilience to crawl out of death. Absolutely desperate and brave in her despair. She was so sad to say goodbye, so sad to close the page of her short and joyful life. It made me realize how existence, that unbearable lightness of being, pure being is above and beyond politics, wars, territorial claims, anything. Life is the most important thing. Life is to be cherished and celebrated. It has to be sucked in, madly. Just as that kitten was sucking it in.

People are ungrateful and short minded. I am not an exception. Perhaps in a week, I will forget about our dead kitten and about the gift of life. Yet not tonight. I will think about it while I fall asleep and I will think about it when I see our kitten tomorrow. Dead or alive.