Love the One You’re With?

For some, this holiday serves up only unpleasant memories of the unrequited and the solitary. But they forget that Love manifests in all shapes and sizes, to all types of creatures. Love travels on Perception, and sometimes there’s no easy explanation for how and whom it touches.

Take Precious, my first animal companion of my very own. Her first love was a black version of the sculpture she’s photographed with here. She cooed at it, nuzzled it, slept with it, cooed more, pawed it, cooed from afar, cuddled it … you get the picture. There was a whole lotta cooin’ going on.

As you may have guessed, her efforts were never reciprocated. But she persevered, and when at last she met a real black cat (my husband-to-be’s female Burmese), Precious simply transferred her campaign to the living specimen. She must have thought her perseverance was being rewarded.

Sadly, the Burmese thought otherwise. She tolerated Miss P’s advances as long as she could stand it, then arched her back or hissed or screeched or left the room. This went on for years. (The Burmese was the ONLY feline to ever gain my cat-loathing mother’s sympathy. “Poor thing!” my mother said. “My God! How would you like to have somebody stalking and crying after you all the time?” She had a point.)

I just saw my lovestruck kitten for the brain-damaged but charming spirit she was. The world she inhabited was always a bit to the left of the one the rest of us understood. She couldn’t help how Cupid had entangled her. And frankly, I couldn’t argue with her taste.

Love, be loved, and honor Love today, for as Nikki Giovanni wrote:

“We love because it’s the only true adventure.”