Ode to my long-term partner

I am not sure whether I can call the Mim my "possession" - isn't that the geratest thing about cats, that you cannot possess them? They possess you, actually. They educate and direct you, you are a puppet on a string, indeed!

Mim and me have known each other for 10 and a half years now. I got her because my sister took care of her whilst the owner was in hospital. Only that Mim wouldn't come out from under the bathtub, she disliked my sister's other 2 cats.

Mim came to me instead and owned my flat immediately. She got toy mice, favourite spots where to sleep, favourite food - nothing else, beware! Mim stayed.

Mim is special, no one must touch her, approach her and make strange noises. Apart from me. We were one team right from the beginning. I always sense how she feels. That she has this ability for me goes without saying. I feel honoured that she trusts me the way she does. Sometimes I am even allowed to put my face into the fluff of her belly.

Mim has 20 thousand faces - always the pretty face, but then smiling, grumpy, very fluffy when cuddling up, very young and slim when in play mode and all the faces in between.

Mim can sing. Mim sings when she wants to get cuddled.
And Mim sings, but a different tune, when she wants to go into the garden.

Mim is my treasure. I could not think of anything else when I saw the question.

To capture the unseen life

In an arts lesson in school we once spoke about that photographer which I do not manage to remember ( a fantastic introduction to my answer). I think it was something like Moretti, some Italian name.
Anyway, we saw pictures taken by that woman which were indecipherable close-ups, disregarding the limits or shape of the object captured. They were fantastically aesthetic and riddles alike. You kept staring at the image to discover what is depicted, yet, even without knowing it was a wonderful picture to look at. I remember one that showed the strings of a guitar, a still life arrangement.
To me such images, such intense close-ups, slow down the world, the haste, the superficial race which overrun details, special, individual features.
The time taken to contemplate is soundless rest, eventually. The fine hair discovered on a midges back, the structure of rust on a blue pipe, the ladybug looking at you through a drop of dew - those are the small things waiting to be discovered. Their present is a new grasp, a new admiration for things never seen or long forgotten.