I bought a creative writing course book month ago thinking it would help me with my blog when I felt less than inspired on writing topics. I just got around to starting it. The first exercise was to write about one of the sounds you hear around you and what that sound means to you. This is what I came up with...
I was about 9 or 10 when I got my first kitten. We were on a family vacation with my father and his family (my step mother & step brother & sister) somewhere on the jersey shore. At what I think was our bed & breakfast, we found a litter of kittens in the shrubs. They were old enough to be fed food from a can, but still so small in size. The owner of the business was giving the kittens up for adoption. After some begging, my father let me choose one. My choice was an orange and white long haired one (white with big patches of orange and a white face with an orange head and one small orange spot next to his nose – which I thought matched the beauty mark I had next to mine). I chose him because he reminded me of a stray in our neighborhood that I loved and had disappeared months before (I later found out he drowned in my swimming pool – a thought that still haunts me today).
My cat purring – When I try to think about what this sound means to me I think of the first time I really heard a cat purr...
My first night with my kitten, my father and step mother let him sleep in a box next to my bed. They lined the box with blankets and my step mother put a clock in the box with him. She said the ticking of the clock would remind him of his mother’s heartbeat and help him sleep.
He cried a lot through the night. I remembered what my step mother told me about the heartbeat so I took him out of the box, laid on my back and placed the kitten on my chest. I remember thinking that he was so tiny and fragil. He curled up there and began to purr as I pet him with his tiny vibrations of happiness that made me feel so much love for this tiny life. He was asleep in no time and I remember lying awake for hours that night as the kitten slept on my chest – afraid if I feel asleep, I would roll over and crush him. I didn't get much sleep, but having my first pet made it so much worth it.
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