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Who is the most interesting person you've ever met?

By far the most interesting person I've ever met is a friend of my ex-boyfriend's. We travelled to the town where he grew up, and Dave's house was a requisite stop. Of course his name wasn't Dave, but it will be for this story.

Dave lived way out in the middle of nowhere, in a dump of a house placed in the midst of fields and trees and woods and ponds and streams. His kitchen bore an incredibly exquisite pattern of blue-and-white linoleum, almost like Persian art, from the 70s. I told him that I wanted to take his linoleum. Though worn in spots, it was glorious.

When we arrived we were greeted by a fierce, barking, stiff-legged Chow dog who glared at us like he would like to take off our heads. Dave's friend Mike, who seemed to be perpetually there, showed off a nasty purple-and-red wound he'd received to the thigh from this dog. We walked a long circle around his chain.

The dog was only the firstfruits of the menagerie. All over Dave's house, all over his yard, chained or cooped or caged or roaming free, were an astonishing number of animals. Groups of semi-feral bunnies hopped and scattered as we approached, disturbing their grazing on the lawn. Another dog and two or three cats permitted us to pet them. Baby quails huddled under a heat lamp in their sawdust-bedded cage. Tom turkeys and guinea hens stalked the grounds. A peacock perched high up in a tree. A long snake curled sleepily in its cage. Overwhelmed, I gave up trying to count the species or number of the hoard. It was like Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom.

Dave himself was quite the character. Short and grey-bearded, with an almost perfectly round, swelling belly and long, hanging arms, he bore an uncanny resemblance to a gnome. In fact, he cheerfully informed us, that was his nickname. He wandered around shirtless, in only an aging pair of gray sweat-shorts and sneakers. He was undoubtedly the hairiest person I have ever seen. Great rugs of hair covered his shoulders, chest, and arms, blending in with the long gray beard that covered his face and the top of his chest. The beard crept over and obscured most of his face, like untrimmed ivy. He even had a tuft of hair sprouting from the end of his nose. None of this bothered Dave. He was one of the most laid-back characters I have ever encountered.

Dave hospitably welcomed us and offered us beer. Beer, marijuana, and home-made corncob tobacco pipes seemed to be the main occupations of the house. Dave and his friend Mike drank can after can of Budweiser and deposited the empties into a bulging garbage bag in the kitchen. Dave showed us his system of smoking: he rotated through about four or five handmade corncob pipes, smoking one and then laying it on the end of the line, then smoking the one at the other end of the line. In this way he always had a cool pipe to start with.

In a lone conversation with Dave when he took me upstairs to show me something, he earnestly extolled the virtues of marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms. “It’s natural,” he explained. “Plants. Perfectly natural. They’re good for you.”

Despite Dave’s eccentricities, or perhaps entwined with them, he was obviously an intelligent person. He had or once had, I’m not sure which, a good job in the city involving computer engineering or programming. He was something of a lay inventor, describing to us his latest creation. He was generous, open-hearted, warm, accepting, and supremely laid-back, even when referring to his ex-wife, who’d left him for another man. His lone daughter, who with her boyfriend operated a tattoo parlour and who demonstrated their art all over her person, obviously adored him. One couldn’t help but like Dave, once one got over the astonishment of his surroundings, his physical person, and some of his habits. He was truly one of kindest and most intriguing people I’ve ever met.

Entering and leaving Dave’s place felt almost like those stories where children accidentally stumble into a strange, alternate magical world, experience adventures, and come back to the real world. It was a time, space and reality warp, this crazy kingdom populated by dozens of animals and eccentric people, and ruled over by a gentle, hairy gnome who drank beer, smoked pot and homemade corncob pipes.

So that was Dave. Who is the most interesting person you’ve ever met?

Hello, my name is Sidney and I am a symmetrical person. I am a balanced person. And I am oftentimes, a matchy-matchy person. These images make me so happy! I try to step out of my comfort zone when designing for clients but admitably, it is not always possible. But I am working through my issues-I have been through the steps, I go to meetings, I have a sponsor, and I am taking it one day at a time.


Maybe one day...

~Images: 1) Nancy Taylor Lynch via Matters of Style Blog 2) Tom Scheerer 3) Phoebe Howard 4) House Beautiful 5) House Beautiful Oct 2009 6) Phoebe Howard 7) Ann Spiro

What is it with us humans? Bored and restless with another's narrative, our minds wandering to what we will have for lunch, our last conversation, did I pay the car insurance bill; yet endlessly entranced with our own, and feeling that they should be, too. We switch on like a light when it is our turn to talk, all-too-often burrow back into our daydreams when it is the other's. Deep empathetic listening, genuine immersion in another's situation, patient reaching out in the conviction that for the moment, another's feelings are more important than our own—that requires effort. And cultivation.

Though sometimes the effort is not so hard. In the first stages of flushed love, every confidence the lover breathes is deemed fascinating. The higher the worth of the person to you, the easier, no, the more instinctual and desirable it becomes to catch every drift of their thought process, shared with you. Though this, too, is not always the case: how many times do wives wistfully complain their husbands are not listening?

True listening is an art, developed well and over time: the setting aside of one's own needs and wants to prioritize the other's. To bring everything you have and are to the service of whatever is happening in their life and whatever is important to them at the time. It requires a stone-worn-smooth maturity, an unselfishness, a care. It's rare, and valuable, and when you encounter it, you feel as if you've been given a gift. It's a gift increasingly precious in an intimacy-devoid society, where conversations normally consist of each person fighting to make his or her voice heard.

Because it's so rare, and so valuable, it's a gift I've sought to hone, seek to give to anyone I come across. There are few: two, really, only, who give it to me. And I treasure them for it.

MMM

If you asked my friends if I was the outdoorsy type they would probably laugh because I think I make it plainly obvious to them that I am very much a city person. Well, half of me is. I love convenience, comfort and great places to eat & drink, but the other half of me wishes I had no belongings and lived out of a back pack travelling the world. When I saw this photo of Lake Louise at Banff National Park by Kevin McNeal, that other side surfaced and I started to think about how much I could sell all my stuff for so we could take off into the mountains... and then I remembered I needed to go to the post office, so that ended that. Anyway, that's a long way of saying that I love this photograph and wish I could at least visit somewhere as beautiful as this... particularly as my husband is Canadian! For now I'm going to use it as inspiration until the day I get to go there in person. The colours are amazing are they not?

One thing I will never get used to about jogging here in New Hampshire is the inordinate amount of attention you gather from passing guys. (I say "you", not "I", because I'm sure any jogging girl attracts exactly the same attention). The route I normally take follows a fairly busy road, and nearly every single jogging session I can count on (usually several) honks, whistles, or remarks. It used to flatter me, although it was a bit startling. Now I just find it disgusting. Today I took a quieter route through a housing development neighbourhood with a nice wild bit of field where houses haven't yet intruded. I thought it would be safer, but ran into a gang of three lawn care workers. I could have made nice money out of charging them for the duration of their looks.

I suppose it's partly the way guys are made, but I personally find it offputting and even a little bit panic-inducing in that small, inside, sinking kind of way. Something about it calls up unpleasant childhood memories of the powerful guy and the totally powerless little girl. I know the men who salute in some way the effect my body has on their lusts are viewing me completely as a piece of meat: assessing legs, buttocks, waist, chest in a chillingly dehumanizing kind of way. Sex appeal is the only investment they have in me; they neither know me as a person nor do they care to. I'm eye candy for their male instincts, a passing diversion in their day. I know where those signals lead, and don't care to find out.

Usually I just ignore them completely. I hope they get the message. I miss the city, where the sheer number of attractive girls meant any guy inclined this way would wear himself out. You are just a number, another passing person whose presence arouses nothing more than a flicker of interest. Remarks are rare. The anonymity of the city is arrestingly reassuring. You're just another face, another body on the sidewalk, another facet in the ever-changing pedestrian kaleidoscope. Oh, how I miss it. . .

It's very weird. Even though I wanted to write about something else, I feel compelled to blog about blogging (although I'm not the first one to do so, I'm sure, it is what I'm thinking about at the moment).

In real life, I am a very closed and quiet person. I am friendly and outgoing, but do not have many very close friends and tend to keep my inner life fenced off. My greatest joy is to spend long hours by myself, taking photos, writing, surfing the internet, or doing graphic design.

When I started this blog, it was out of an impetuous desire to get the many competing and vigorous thoughts in my head, out, in a form that others could read without knowing who I was. I find the discipline of writing in a public setting invigorating: you have to choose words carefully, be less emotionally entangled in what you write. You must be concise and compelling, engaging others in your thoughts without becoming too personal. You are writing in one sense for others and in another sense for yourself.

I find myself increasingly self-conscious as in recent days others have discovered my blog. Now I know someone is reading it besides myself! As rewarding as that is, it is also somewhat panic-inducing. I find myself faced with the temptation to retreat back into the cave, drawing the curtains closed to keep the outer world, out. I won't do that, because I know it is not healthy. Plus I started this for this reason.

However, one thing I didn't realize when I started blogging is that blogging is not only about writing (though it is that), but about community. Face it, the reason we write our innermost thoughts down for all the world to see is that we want others to view them and acknowledge. And, as with self-revelation in private life, this is designed to create relationship. Knowing and being known. Going deeper into another's soul and secret, inner world. Even if the person who you are reading and to whom you are commenting is totally anonymous, it still initiates relationship: if only briefly.

I feel as if when I was blogging for myself alone, I was skating along the ice of blogging. Now that a few people have discovered and started reading, I feel as if (to mix metaphors in an odd way, but it's the image in my head) I've been sucked under the surface into a little pod of community. The blogs I read and their friends have opened up a whole other world. And as scary as that is for me, and as much as I'd like to withdraw, I won't. Because, after all, we were created for community. We need to know and to be known. And it is good.

Peace to you all.

I spent less than 24 hours in Beaufort/Bluffton with my parents on a random buying trip. Ranom might be the understatement of the century. I obliged my father in the self-proclaimed "World's Largest Yard Sale" in Hilton Head. My gut told me it would be terrible but I had hopes that I might find some random bamboo or rattan pieces that could be salvaged. Well my gut was right...it was beyond terrible. I have zero patience when it comes to mobs of people with no concern for the people around them so I almost bought a golf club and beat the sh*t out of someone. And I am generally a really nice person (honest). My poor dad had hopes of finding a Civil War relic. I think he's seen one too many episodes of American Pickers. So we tried to salvage the day by spending a couple hours in Bluffton which is one of my favorite, sleepy coastal towns which also boasts my favorite church, The Church of the Cross, as I've spoke about before. We ate at The Cottage and continued to have quite possibly the worst dining experience of my life. I swear people, I am not a complainer! I think it was just not in the cards for us that day! We were sat pretty much in the kitchen. I had to hand dishes to the busboys as I ate my meal. lol But I think if you sat on the porch it would be lovely. I recommend going for brunch and if you have a sweet tooth def get a dessert!

I love this shot, I look like a paparazzi. Those are my parents walking out! lol

I did manage to score a few good things while on my trip!

Saw the 6-8' gator that lives by my parents house. I still love my dad's quote when my nephew Finn asked him if he knew how to out run a gator and my dad said "No, but I know I can out run Grandma." Nice. Wonder where I get my sarcasm from? The answer, according to Finn, is zig-zag's...you run in zig-zags because they cannot. I hope I never have to try.

And I got back to Sullivan's Island in time to drink some green beer with 300 of my closest friends...

We also listened to the Ryan Bonner Band at High Thyme...they are adorable and so much fun! If I were 10 years younger I'd be a groupie.

We installed a custom map art piece/wallpaper I had made of the Charleston area for a client of mine. Since she was still fairly new to the area, she wanted to have a map of Charleston so she could see how all of the islands related to each other and find her way around town better. But since we had just spent a lot of time/money renovating her kitchen/living space, I forbade her (kidding) to hang an ugly map on her wall! So together we came up with a solution we both could live with. I joke as she is the one who lives there but I, in good conscious, could not live with the fact that we had created a beautiful space and then I left her with an ugly map hanging on her wall. Soooo here is what we (along with the combined efforts of A&E Printing and Sign A' Rama) came up with...

The light switch will be covered.

It is so unique and stunning! Much better in person that it translates in this photo.

I got the stomach bug for the third time. Ugh. Really I just wanted to get it in one more time before spring so I could acheive my goal weight! haha But during my two days of being home sick and in between being er, indisposed, I was able to watch Season 3 of Dowton Abbey. So I am getting caught up with what the rest of the world has been hip to but until I am, please don't ruin any more important details for me via Facebook!!!
I. Beg. Of. You.

It is so so so good!

But being sick, I missed ALL of the Charleston Fashion Week festivities and after-parties. Boo-hoo. Oh well, I guess I will have to wait until next year :(

Have a great weekend y'all!

It's curious, isn't it, how in the aftermath of the breakup of a relationship, there is a grief which is nearly the same as the grief at a death. Shock, denial, desperate sadness, horrific pain, numbness, loss—and eventually, with time, acceptance and moving on. The breakup of a relationship is compounded, in many cases, with the fact that it is still possible—or so one hopes, however improbably, to win them back. To make the case. To change everything that was wrong. To be sorry. For them to be sorry. For it somehow, someway, to work. To get back together and for everything to be all right.

It is a loss; in a sense, a death. The loss of a hope. The loss of a dream. The loss of a future. The loss of a friend. The loss of a lover. The loss of time enjoyed in another's company. The loss of all the little things that only lovers know. The loss of what most of us long for above all on earth, the affection and companionship of another similar to us yet opposite, the two shall become one.

That's what I'm going through right now. The relationship with my boyfriend ended swiftly and rather spectacularly nearly three weeks ago. Hence the lack of posting. Those who have gone through this, will know, that it tends to consume almost everything until there is nothing left.

With time, I've gained a healthier perspective. I knew then, and I know now, that it was the right thing to do. That no matter how much we loved each other, and I still love him, that it wouldn't work. That it is healthier for us to be apart. Much as I wish it wasn't so, and ask the futile "whys", that is the case.

I won't pretend it has been easy. There have been times of such darkness that I questioned my sanity, my ability to cope, to ever emerge. There may be such times again. But healthy doses of reality, with help from perceptive friends, and good resources on coping with breakup (try googling "relationship breakup" for some interesting results), have worked their way. Having God to depend on also helps immeasurably, though I won't pretend that I haven't also been angrier with him than at almost any other time in my life, and I also won't pretend it makes the pain any less. It doesn't, though it does at times as your soul breaks the cloud of this perspective and sees the sun of ever-constant love. There's no way around working through the agony that results from the rending of two hearts, the separation of yourself into the person-you-are and the-person-you-still-love-but-cannot-have.

So. Anyway. That's all that's on the plate for now. I can't come up with any amusing anecdotes, any interesting stories, no gutted cows or fish. Just the dark night of the soul. I'll emerge. I'm strong and this will make me stronger. It will have its good results. It already has. I wish I didn't have to go through the pain. But sometimes, that's the only thing that works.

So, this has always been a strictly design based blog. I've never been very personal on here. I find that difficult. I'm shy, private by nature, my sense of humour is bone dry, and well, I'm British. However, I want that to change (not the British part, naturally). Don't worry, I'm not suddenly going to get all over sharey on you (sharey?) but towards the end of last year and now this year, things have started to change with me and while it's a long and complicated tale which I will save for another time, I felt the time was right to try and make a change.
When I started this blog (I had a previous one back in '08) it was to aid my new business and to get a sense of what the community was all about - was this something I wanted to pursue? Could I keep it going etc. Since then, blogging has become more than a way to keep my business going. I won't lie and say it has no place within my business because the truth of the matter is that it is my main source of work and for that I am always truly grateful. However, the more I get to know people through blogging the more I love it for that very reason - getting to know like minded people. The world has changed in the past decade. Ten years ago when I was in my early 20s I would never have guessed that I would be into chatting to be people on the Internet... God forbid! But now with blogs & Twitter etc it's totally normal and I like that. I've met so many great people through blogging, that I feel my world both socially and professionally has changed irrevocably for the better. I've met lots of people in person and formed real friendships. Then there's those people who are too far away geographically to meet, but who I still have real tangible friendships with and who I genuinely know will be in my life for a long, long time.
But the fact remains that I feel as though I need to redress the balance on my own blog to reflect how it has changed as a platform for me and my work. And, how I have changed as a person. One thing it has given me which I will forever be grateful for (and which I continue to struggle with on a daily basis) is increased confidence (which is going to be the subject of another blog post soon - it's all too much for one post).
The thing is, I could go on about this subject for hours. Literally. But to cut a long story short, I intend to make my blog more of a place to come and chat alongside all the design stuff (that's not going anywhere!) and I hope you'll join me, still. I really do love having you visit here and it means so much to me to know you're out there. (See, I'm doing it! But, while it's still a bit against my nature, please bear with me!). After all, your support has made it possible for me to discover a career I never thought I'd be able to achieve... going it alone and freelancing and sustaining myself. The past two years have been unbelievable (both with highs and lows) and a lot of that is because I started this blog.
So, onwards, friends... thanks again and as always, I'd love to know your thoughts.
(I know, how utterly un-British of me! *waves Union Jack, makes a cup of tea, sings God Save The Queen and complains about the weather* Aaaand, relax).

Last night was a really bad night. Feeling utterly exhausted. I want nothing more than to lie down and close my eyes and sleep for hours. . .

Faced with the prospect of a 9-hour solo road trip coming up. . .was going to leave tonight but I don't know if that is a good idea. I feel like a sleeping person propped upright in an awake person's body. Ugh.

I'm moving yet again this Saturday, which will mark the sixth place I've lived in just over a year. It's getting old, this moving, packing up and roving on when something about the place I'm in becomes unsuitable. Or intolerable. On the other hand, I'm kind of getting used to it, paring my possessions down to the absolutely barest minimum to avoid unnecessary haulage.

But this time, I'm feeling a little bad. And some guilt, or sadness, is creeping in.

It's because of my landlady. Shortly after moving in with her, I discovered her issues with serious depression. She's an older woman who trained for the bar and is a recognized lawyer. Or was. That is, until the creeping, overwhelming sadness took her over and forced her inside, living on disability, lying on a bare mattress all day and all night except when she ventures out for therapy sessions or psychiatric appointments, barricading herself around with hoarded possessions as if they could give her the security she craves. She lives all day in her underwear and a sloppy t-shirt or sweater, her gray hair stringy and unkempt, only trudging around to make herself coffee or something to eat. She rarely if ever cleans and dishes pile up in the sink to sit for days. I quickly learned that if I wanted something cleaned, I'd have to do it myself. Even if it wasn't my mess.

I liked her and we got along well; she is a clever and at times funny person, despite the marked slowness the depression causes in her physical movement and speech. I felt uneasy around her at times—the darkness surrounding her is almost palpable; and the bitterness she spewed whenever she talked about members of her family or someone who'd done her wrong was wince-inducing; but all the same she is a likeable person, markedly vulnerable but at the same time appealing. I brought several friends closer to her age to the house for an Indian takeout and included her, hoping she'd make connections. I invited her to church, but anything outside her proscribed circle was maddeningly fearsome.

I knew there were problems when I moved in; but at the same time, I was escaping an intolerable situation and was glad to find something that was within my price range and close to the town I worked in. I figured that because our living spaces were so separate, and the cleaning duty so light, it wouldn't affect me. Coming after the unyielding expectations of my previous landlord, this one's uninvolvement was a welcome relief.

But shortly after I moved in, my trouble sleeping began. I'd never had difficulty sleeping in my life before; I'd drop off within moments of lying down and sleep like the proverbial log till ten or twelve hours later, if duty or an alarm didn't intervene. Even thunderstorms and other loud noises didn't disturb me.

Sleep became difficult to obtain and light; I'd jolt awake early in the morning and have trouble falling back asleep. Formerly a notorious sleeper-in, I could no longer doze past seven in the morning, even on the weekends.

For a long time, I tossed off friends' suggestions that her mindset could be affecting me; but deep inside I knew better. I knew whatever darkness haunted her had somehow made me a target as well; not consciously but subconsciously, attacking me as I slept. The last straw really came when she bought a place of her own and we moved to a town twenty-five minutes' drive away. For the last three months I've only slept there; carrying my possessions in my car like a nomad for my working, church, and social life which stretches from early in the morning till past nine most nights, and all day on weekends.

I could possibly have tolerated it longer were it not for the practical implications. But too many factors are making it unthinkable to be there any longer. However, now that I'm moving out, a guilt and a sadness are creeping in. I think of her coping by herself. I wonder who's going to clean. Who's going to take out the garbage, or bring in the mail. Who's going to remind her about things that she should take care of by herself. Who's going to take care of the cat when she makes one of her frequent three- or four-day stays at the psychiatric hospital, as has just happened again. The poor cat, a desperately social animal, hates being left by himself, and I'm hardly ever home to pay attention to him. He was pathetically clingy and bouncily joyful to see me this morning, though I barely had time to cuddle him a bit and put food in his bowl before my morning rush to leave for work.

So I'll pray about what to do, leave her a note with my phone number, and take her up on her suggestion that we go out for Indian food one day. I can't help but pity her and wish that I could help, somehow, though I don't think my six-and-a-half month stay with her has made any real difference. I wish that it had. I wish that I wasn't forced to leave.

How many other people like her are out there? How many, living desperately sad and alone, without family and with few friends who are mostly there to pity and provide practical help when needed? It makes me wonder.

Cats formed the shape and backdrop of most of my childhood life. The succession of felines who came and went were nearly as much a part of my emotional landscape as my siblings, and became my beloved, and often closest, friends. None of them, however, in terms of sheer influence, scope, and longevity, compared to Fluffy.

Fluffy showed up when I was five years old, a tiny morsel of black-and-white fur found as a stray and presented to my family by a friend. I clearly remember her arrival, the doorbell ringing and the man standing on our doorstep cupping the wee kitten in his hand. My excitement knew no bounds. Some time before, my cat Muffy and her son Tigger had disappeared when we left for vacation and I still mourned their loss. I was thrilled for a new cat to take their place.

At the beginning the baby was so small that my parents were afraid they'd lose her in our enormous house; so they confined her to a wire dog crate they'd borrowed from a friend. This was Fluffy's home for the first few days until my parents grew more confident that she'd be safe navigating the expanses of our home.

I recall kneeling in front of the crate and inspecting my new companion with adoring eyes. My mother asked me, "What do you want to name her?" and I promptly replied, "Fluffy." In my not-so-imaginative five-year-old mind, this was the perfect name for a cat.

When she was released from her cage, poor Fluffy became the object of my passionate and rambunctious love. She was subject from the beginning to being picked up and dragged around heedlessly by whatever portion of her anatomy was handy, at my whim and despite her vigorous struggles. My parents' friends tell of arriving one day to see me carrying Fluffy by the head, her entire body dangling. My mother attempted to teach me better cat-handling techniques, but to no avail. I loved Fluffy, and poor Fluffy was treated in much the same way as my stuffed animal collection.

My mother has pictures of me and Fluffy when we were both kittens. In one, I’m sitting on the couch, smiling triumphantly. Fluffy’s on my lap splayed out on her back, my hands clutching her chest. I’m looking supremely happy. Poor Fluffy was probably feeling anything but.

Fluffy survived, but sad to say, her personality underwent an unalterable warping as a result of my treatment and my father's abusive animal-handling techniques. She became unpredictably vicious, biting and scratching to defend herself from unwanted touch. You could sometimes, very carefully, pet her, but her tolerance would quickly turn and she’d snap. The top of her head was about the only place you could safely stroke her, and that only for a time.

Once when I was about five, I was carrying her bundled in my arms up the stairs; she decided she wanted out and bailed, leaving kick-scars from her back feet on my chest that remain to this day. Matching stitch-shaped scars on both my thumbs still remind me of her. She was doing only what she had to do to survive: learning coping techniques to defend herself from a child who wouldn’t learn anyway else.

Despite this, Fluffy was a valuable and much-loved member of our family. On warm summer evenings, we'd often take walks. Fluffy would follow us, trailing behind several feet and making side-excursions to sniff out interesting possibilities. Despite the fact that she took pains not to come too close, she always tailed us the entire route and home again.

Fluffy was a fierce and inveterate dog-hater, immediately routing any canine who dared to invade our yard. A force to be reckoned with and a no-nonsense defender of her territory, she intimidated even the biggest dogs.

Fluffy grew from a tiny kitten to a large and imposing cat. For most of her adult life, she was rather overweight. When she sat, her tummy spilled over her feet. She was strikingly black-and-white marked, with huge golden eyes; she had presence. When she simply sat in a room, you were aware. We were homeschooled, and Fluffy spent much of the schoolday tramping across or lying on our papers as we worked, biting if she was disturbed. Our childhood friends were rather in awe of her, as were we. She commanded respect.

She was a member of the family, pure and simple. My brothers could scarcely remember life before her; my sisters were born into a family where Fluffy occupied her stately and matriarchal place.

Over the years, Fluffy tolerated with varying degrees of hatred other cats that we introduced. The new cats, especially the male kittens, always tormented her, chasing her and batting at her tail as it hung temptingly off high surfaces. Many of these cats came and went; we didn’t have much luck with the additions, but Fluffy remained.

Fluffy had some rather odd habits; among them, a taste for earwax. She'd frantically and unceasingly lick your ears if you presented them to her, a scratchy and uncomfortable sensation. She also had a passion for green beans, spaghetti sauce, and most especially, Saltine crackers.

As she got older, Fluffy developed a strange quirk that I’ve never heard described anywhere else. She'd suddenly begin meowing frantically, a rapid-fire series of desperate cries that meant only one thing. She'd then rush up to the nearest person and flop on her side for a tummy rub. Normally to touch Fluffy's tummy was to invite death. But in these moods, the harder you massaged her stomach, the happier she was. She'd lie still as her body rocked back and forth and every once in a while utter contented little squeaks. My theory was that she was undergoing some sort of delayed maternal delusion, and the tummy-rubbing, to her, simulated suckling.

But my best memory of Fluffy comes in her most un-Fluffy-like moments. Normally she was a terror, difficult to touch and impossible to pick up. She bit, scratched and hissed when her autonomy or personal space was threatened. There was one exception.

When one of us children was crying, Fluffy invariably sensed it. She would rush to us and lie down beside us, peace restored for the moment. During those times, we could pet and snuggle her without fear. She seemed to understand emotional sorrow, and in her cat-wisdom, was trying to comfort her charges.

Fluffy developed stomach cancer when she was about fourteen. Normally a well-padded and imposing figure, she dwindled to a skinny frame with stick-legs and a sad flap of a stomach hanging down where there used to be a roll of fat. She became weaker and sicker, and the treatments our veterinary clinic offered had no effect. To this day my sister speaks with rage about it. She’s learned that clinic has a reputation for malpractice, and is convinced Fluffy's life could have been prolonged had we taken her somewhere else.

At the age of fourteen, when I was nineteen and just beginning my second semester at college, Fluffy had to be put to sleep.

My mother took her; such was her grief, she had to have her mother accompany her for emotional support. Fluffy was literally and truly a part of our family, and her physical and personal presence had carved out an enormous niche in our home and our hearts. Life without her was almost unthinkable.

I still wish, when I think about it, that I could have been there to say goodbye. At the time, I was building a new life and hardly thought about what went on at home. But perhaps it was easier that way. I don’t know how I could have handled being at the side of my longest-standing friend when she had to die.

When I went back home to visit, something was different. A tangible presence was gone. I kept expecting to see her black-and-white form cruising the carpets or sitting on the table, her favourite perch despite persistent efforts to train her out of it. I would have given anything to be able to pet her and have her snap at me, feeble and few as her efforts had become in her older years. It didn’t seem right; the house was emptier.

That feeling persists to this day. When I visit home, it’s not quite the same. I half-expect to see her, but she’s not there. It’s as if the passing of Fluffy, coinciding with my move away from home and into a different life, symbolized the passing of an era. My childhood life, my childhood home, are no longer. They’ve gone, and the ghosts of memory remain only. Largest among them, and most fondly remembered, is the ghost of a rather portly, rather grumpy, but oh-so-dearly-beloved black-and-white cat. Fluffy.