But that’s getting way away from the spine of this memorial to Lulu…and my simpler (hidden) agenda.
Me and Marcel and Syl trekked along the sacred Indian land of Pogonip, coming to rest on a bluff of sorts, a precipice-wannabe with a panoramic view. To the east…rolling fields and mountain tops, all greenery ‘cept for an abandoned clubhouse and a couple of empty, thin trails. To the south…a lookout into the basin of Santa Cruz, a view across Monterey Bay, Holy Cross Church blocking very little, the roller coaster less. To the west…more greenery, mountain tops. Silence.
A sleepy world of streams of internal tears for me. Forever being licked at the nape of my neck by that serving Russian Blue, deep plush all over with thick fur standing out from her obesity. Frustrated foundling who could never be a mom, compensating for lack of offspring by singing each day…to me. Even if loud, mean, and not deserving a heartbeat of hers. I would cringe when I should have cradled…too often.
We took out the gypsy shovels we had hidden on the way, violating the law as usual. Placed Lulu’s well-wrapped body next to the straw Marcel had gathered, the sage and lavender Syl had…. Sad, I can’t finish that sentence. For reasons readers could never guess. Worlds of wanwood leafmeal.
Yes, we went through quite the ritual. Spike, another old catlove of ours playing in the Great Feline Field in the Sky, happened to be buried by a two-hundred year old oak…only steps from Lulu’s oak tree. Broke me up watching Marcel spoon dirt onto the flowers Syl had set, using his baby blue shovel. Maybe she felt it all. Maybe she knew all.
I do know she was soft and warm…and watching us.
Archangel Blue Lulu. Russian Jew, me, hearing songs my mother sang as I panged myself with the family grief, hard to see. Little Boy Blue was able to be distracted by bugs he came across, thank goodness. But Syl had no relief, and her whole being resonated a synapse many years past for me. Professor Weber and his Queen Elizabeth.
My mentor, George Weber, had had to put his Black Cat Nonpareil to sleep back in the 60s. George –the world’s expert in Chinese Bronzes of the Late Chou Period– always maintained that he learned more from Elizabeth than from anyone or anything else. Injection.
When he returned from the vet’s dirty deed that fatal, hot summer afternoon, he was glazed over. “What can I do, George?”, I pleaded.
With that –so much smaller than me that he was– the Art Department Chairman lifted me up off of the floor screaming at the top of his lungs, smashing me onto the furthest wall. “What can you do? What can you do!? YOU CAN GIVE ME MY CAT BACK! GIVE ME MY CAT BACK!! I WANT ELIZABETH!!!” To this day I remember the exact words. And more.
George –legally blind as per the State of New Jersey– saw more than anyone I had ever met. Syl kind of reminds me of him in that way. Not just with the grief or the angle of passion.
Weber went the way of all flesh in the 90s, I’m told. In green Ireland. As told by another art professor, a world famous Brooklyn College prof now…who knew me and George…very well…back when. By someone who has no time for getting together, no interest. A Distinguished Member of the Faculty.
That too reminds me of some dynamics with my loved ones, sad to say, so much has been buried along the way. Ah. So much that’s human –that used to be human– buried alive. Lulu knew. She was ready to go. Like me, almost.
Yet…here…with zero to write (as per Beckett)…I am obliged to say what the payoff is for people of politics…reading an article such as this. And that’s very easy, thank goodness, considering the hour.
It’s always three o’clock in the morning in the soul, and that’s where I am as I write now. Besides, whatever’s truly obligatory is usually quite easy.
Forget their complicated agenda. Activists will have to bury so much that’s habitual…to not be buried alive themselves. They will have to do the personally impossible. Like lose their cat as character Chloe does in Cedric Klapsich’s French light delight, When the Cat’s Away. So that doors will open…as they search for what’s dear. Probably they will not want to speak to me, as I purr a different language. And cats run freely through my mosques, scratching the holy furniture these days.
I am not the Walking Dead.
Richard Oxman is reachable via info@parisgraves.com. He is a former faculty member of Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey (where he first connected with George Weber)…and many other so-called institutions of higher education.
