The Cat That Wasn't Mine

There was a grey cat under my window this morning. Not my cat, I don't have a cat, just a cat, sitting in the dirt beneath the backyard bush like it owned the entire square foot of earth it occupied. I noticed it when I was sitting on the windowsill drinking my coffee, which is a habit I've started this summer because the sill is wide enough and mornings have been cool enough that it feels like a good idea. The cat just sat there. Tail curled in. Not moving.

I watched it for probably twenty minutes. Maybe more. I kept expecting it to do something, chase a bird, bolt across the yard, meow at a fence post. It didn't. It just sat and watched whatever it was watching, and I sat and watched it, and at some point I realized the coffee had gone lukewarm and I hadn't noticed.

just watching

I've been thinking lately, in that loose way where thoughts kind of drift into each other, about running, and the blog, and all the screenshots I have saved on my phone of places and programs I haven't let myself actually look at properly yet. It's a lot of energy spent on waiting to decide. And then a cat shows up and spends twenty minutes being completely, utterly unbothered by the concept of a next step, and I found that unreasonably soothing.

It was gone by the time I went to get more coffee. I don't know where it lives or if it'll be back. I kind of hope it comes back.