Dear Matthew McConaughey,

How do I get some of your chill?

Seriously, I’m seeking lessons on how to be a bit less me and a bit more…um…not stoner. Nope, can’t do that for so many reasons.

“Chill” and I only go together in that, at heart, I am a snow bunny…er…um…snow kitten. Just love me some good, old-fashioned New England deep winter weather, barefoot through November.

But, that is as far as my relationship with chill goes. My personality type is WOUND UP, and the current “situations” and RTW have done zero, a big fat goose egg, nada, nil to help tamp down that WOUND in me. Coiled spring? YES! Fun, Slinky®-type? NOPE. So, HELP!!!

Maybe Matthew McConaughey’s isn’t the example I need to follow, though. Alright x 3 = not alright enough.

Even The Dude from The Big Lebowski is just not chill enough right now. Neither are his white Russians (tip: go for the black. You’re welcome!).

The world has gone viral, the US is on fire, my office reeks of bleach and discide. Excepting my household, I can’t touch the people or animals I would love to touch, and even chatting with patients’ parents is strictly limited and only on the phone. GAH! So, where do I turn? Who can help me find a way to chill out during this hot mess?

(I bet you know where this is going, fellow fur-lovers. I know you know. Let’s go!)

Walter is Zen artist prime. Oh, yes! Beloved, occasionally truculent, typically lazy enough to barely slip his head over the side of a cat bed in order to eat, wily, wacky, wonderful Walter. He spins me in hypnotic circles. The news has spun me in circles. FB posts from loved ones in Chicago have spun me in circles. RTW has also spun me in circles. None of these concentric, dizzying whirlpools are at all like the fun, fuzzy, purry Walter kinds of circles.

I feel better for thinking of handsome Walter, but I…am…still…WOUND, pulled back tight like the spring mechanism on a loaded crossbow – the old, medieval, hand-cranked kind that takes a full minute to reload. But, the loaded bolt absolutely cannot be allowed to fly. Where to turn?

Rorschach, Angelo, Steven? A little help from the A-listers, please? Pretty please? Miss Mary? Anyone? Wonton? Chewie? Send me your calm, your endlessly washing, your forever napping. Share the love, and the ability to chill.

Our lovable furbies in Suite A are wonderful, but I need even more calming Zen. Sweet Amy, dear Cecil, lolling Louie, lend me your paws, so I can pause, regroup, unwind.

As always and as demonstrated blog after blog, it is to the darling deniZENS of Tabby’s Place that I turn to center myself. Does our Faye remind you most of Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, or Faye Dunaway? My humblest apologies to you for a totally unfair, tangential question. Faye is an expert at calm. Let’s be more like Faye.

At Tabby’s Place, calming goodness flows from cat to person to cat to cat to person to person and all around all over again (well, mostly…muchly?). Calm pours from the charmers, even the hissers (Alfred, you know who you are, and I admire you for it).

EOO – equal opportunity Olive – you too! Olive tolerates everyone until, as with everyone else, she doesn’t. Even with Olive I find peace in consistency and her attempts to control the lobby, her own precious world.

So, here I sit and type, back in the safe embrace of my comfortable, cozy, cushiony, home, across from my beloved, my furbies fed and finally finding their own bit of calm. Well, not Loki. Loki is too busy being Loki to be calm. (She’s a nut, and we tell her so every day.)

Where was I? Right, at home, safe, sound, too wound. Still, finding respite in my loved ones, and finding joy in my heart knowing the Tabby’s Place is there, staffed as well as possible in these strange days, happily less filled for the wonder of contact-free adoptions, churning away, yet stable and serene, always providing proof of the good in the world and the love in people’s hearts.

Anka, enjoy that stroller ride, buddy. Chill out in the breeze.

P.S. BTW, I thought of some more 3-letter abbreviations.
PDA – Not really happening much lately, or happening, but with far fewer witnesses to care.
TMI – All over the internet and news, all…of…the…time
NVA – Business parlance for non-value-added, and bears applying to everyday life now, as we creep out of our caves, cautiously, slowly, curiously. It’s time to take a close look at what activities, places, and things are need-based and valuable vs. those that are want-based and NVA in these precarious moments.
IPA – Heaven in a glass, but be wary of overdoing it if one has IBS (I do!) and too many bubbles are…ahem…problematic.
WTF – Okay, that’s a repeat. But, it really, really, really is my favorite. Also, it keeps coming up again and again and again.
ZEN – Not an abbreviation, but I’m really striving for it. I hope you find yours.

Photos, top to bottom: Anka, Matthew McConaughey, Walter Walter Walter, Abe & Rorschach, Steven, Anka, Amy

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