Artemis

Letter to a cat I knew

Dear Artemis,

With this brief epistle, I wish to let you know what has passed since those months we shared at 244 4th St., Jersey City, NJ 07302.

It has been over 16 years since I saw you eating flowers, since I put milk in your water, since I never bothered to clean your litter.  At the time, as you may remember, I was a fictional character.

You were a beautiful and intelligent cat.  I never had a complaint against you, nor dared I -- who would complain about any of cat kind?

Perhaps you would like to hear that I was able to maintain a degree of intact functioning, that I was able to reach for some sort of success.  I feel, sadly, that I can only claim a minimum result on either count. 

You were I believe there the first time I was hospitalized at Bellevue for a mental condition.  In retrospect I have no doubt that what I needed most was love.  I was under severe stress, as you know, because my desire to change surgically had particularly taken over my thinking, and I was undergoing a stressful self-examination whose end result, I felt, must lead to my accomplishing what I had set out to do (before we met) which was to become a female, following what seemed to me incontrovertible needs.

Kristianna and Shaida were both no doubt unhappy about my dysfunctions:  not eating, not working, being disruptive of their possessions (hallucinating, projecting, impinging on their routines, expectations and sensibilities).  But given the consequences of my decamping from the world of the noncommitted to the isolation of the rejected -- some 20 additional hospitalizations, a dose of ECT -- and so much else, I do not today think this was the best action to take.

Now, before I go about converting this into my usual letter to "everybody," let me remind you that I loved you, that I have hope, and that you are still strong in my memory.

Perhaps someday I will explain in detail WHY I managed to keep myself over an edge that I don't believe I had to approach.  Only part of the explanation is a fascination with danger.  I also did not trust myself to approach others in whom I had a true interest; I made terrible mistakes by doing drugs and alcohol without attention to the consequences; and I thought it was my job to free others by sharing in the troubles they underwent.  This is all old hat.  What I haven't admitted before was that this was all partly an adventure for a very privileged person who had choices. 

I really want to be very careful how I state this.  I am extremely glad and grateful to be alive.  I owe so much to so many. 

Remember how I wanted to become a pet as you were a pet to others?

As a very hopeful and strong person, I wish to give you all the respect you deserve for knowing so well that I made no peace with dreams.  Instead, I attacked them, denied them, routed them.  Perhaps when you understand that kindness and beauty are freedom -- as probably you already know -- then there will be a possibility for me to be loving as I felt I was when you were a cat and I was a human.

I denied myself a life as a lesbian; I denied myself a relationship with Andetrie out of bigotry; I failed to love home while being free.  You will only know these things if we still have that mental relationship that previously was in effect between us.  I send this knowledge to you with a wish that no one ever pretend that their misfortunes give them the right to act badly toward others.

I stroke the top of your head -- without hovering -- I remember the way that Shaida used to dance with you, and I send my best to those readers who wished me safe and happy.  Kristianna:  belief is a way to make hopes that are alive.

I was going to make this a book, but I'll post it instead to those who are kind, and if not kind, willing to soften their gimlet eyes with a thought for a flower-eating mistress cat and the world of 1995-96.