It was not I who was teaching my cat to gather rosebuds, but she who was teaching me.

We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we would still live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.

Unlike us, cats never outgrow their delight in cat capacities, nor do they settle finally for limitations. Cats, I think, live out their lives fulfilling their expectations.

No one shall deny me my own conclusions, nor my cat her reflective purr.

Could the purr be anything but contemplative?