The temptation of little Meriel. My short story.

OK people so here’s another short story I wrote basing on some writing prompts. Funnily enough, just as my first one, which you can read here,

it also features some yummy food in one of the main roles. As always, sorry about any potential stilistical, grammar or other shortcomings in the quality, I’m only just starting with creative writing in English.

   The temptation of little Meriel

“…95, 96, 97… stupid sheep! Why don’t they do what I want?!” – muttered a 6-year-old girl, tosing and turning in her bed. The girl’s name was Meriel, and her problem was that she couldn’t fall asleep. She was trying to count sheep for the last half an hour or so, but with very poor results. The sleep wouldn’t come, no matter what she did. SHe went to sleep in a very joyful mood, all happy and excited, because the next day she was going to have a birthday. A 7th birthday. Her school friends were invited, lots of fun games were planned, and yummy food was prepared. Only, how can one think of a happy birthday when sleep doesn’t want to come at night? The joyful mood has nearly vanished, and Meriel was growing more and more irritated, and more and more scared every minute. The moon was peeking into her room, and long time has passed since her Mummy kissed her goodnight. Soon after that, she switched off the lights, and Meriel could hear her steps upstairs, and the slight creaking of Mummy’s bed. Meriel knew that she mustn’t wake up Mummy. Mummy was troubled by an ugly monster called Insomnia,

who liked to creep into her brain at nights and make it hard for her to sleep, so that sometimes she couldn’t even sleep at night at all. Even the small white pills that always stood on her bedside table didn’t always help. So when Insomnia wasn’t creeping in her Mummy’s brain, or when the pills were able to scare her away, it was the more important to let Mummy sleep peacefully. That’s what Daddy told her, back when he lived with them. “You are a big girl Meriel, and I know you can understand this” – he said. – And she didn’t want to let him down. She also loved her Mummy, and didn’t want to make her sleepy in the morning. She didn’t know what to think about this Insomnia monster though. She didn’t like her, because she was bad for Mummy, but she also liked her at the same time. Because sometimes, when Insomnia wouldn’t let Mummy sleep, Mummy  would come to Meriel’s room and lie with her, or would just bustle around in the kitchen, making herself a cup of tea, which made Meriel feel safe in her sleep, knowing that no scary monsters will come to her because Mummy will see them first and won’t let them sneak in to her little girl’s room. Sometimes, when Meriel had trouble falling asleep too, Mum would make two big mugs of steaming hot chocolate for both of them, and after that, Meriel was fast asleep, sometimes even before she could brush her teeth and go back to her room and Mummy had to carry her.

But now there were no sounds that could mean that Mummy was still awake, despite Meriel listened really carefully. “Maybe Insomnia didn’t come tonight.” – she thought. – “Good for Mummy. That can’t be nice to have a monster in your head.” And then, a scary thought came to her mind. What if tonight Insomnia decided to visit her – Meriel – instead of her Mummy? Is it her who doesn’t let her sleep? maybe she is right here, in her room? Standing beside her bed? Or maybe she’s already creeped into her brain? “I wonder what she’s like. Is she scary, like a real monster?” – she thought. Dozens of images filled her little head, as she thought what Insomnia might look like, and she barely noticed that it’s making her a little uneasy, more afraid. Just as she thought about that, the window curtain moved slightly. Meriel startled, and could barely stifle a scream. “She’s here! I knew it, she’s here!” – she thought panicked. Regardless of whether insomnia was in her room or not, any chance of sleep was gone now. Meriel hid under the duvet, her imagination flooded with horrifying images that she has just made up.

She spent there a long time, or so it felt for her, until finally she could stick her head out and look around the room. There was no one that she could see. “I should be brave” – she whispered – “That’s what Daddy has always told me. I should try to sleep and tomorrow it’ll be my birthday. I need to sleep.” She tried lying with her eyes closed for a couple more minutes, but sleep didn’t come. She was still too startled. After a while, a thought came to her mind: “If Mummy’s pills scare this monster away, maybe I should take one too?” That seemed like a good idea for Meriel. Very carefully, holding her breath, she sticked out one feet from under the covers, then another, after a while. She put her fuzzy slippers on, slowly got up, and quietly came to the door, peering through. It was dark and quiet everywhere. Only her heart was thumping loudly, and Fluffy – her dog – was snoring lightly on the carpet. Meriel stroked Fluffy’s fur to gain a bit of courage. She didn’t like the dark, and was very afraid of it. As she went through the corridor, the tapping of her little feet seemed loud and eerie in this sleepy house. She almost ran through the flight of stairs leading to her Mummy’s room, trying to be as quiet as possible, stopping in front of the door. She opened them very quietly and peeped in. “Mummy? Are you sleeping?” – she mouthed. There was no answer. Mummy was asleep, all snuggled up warm, and, seeing that, Meriel felt a sting of jealousy. She came closer and listened to Mummy’s silent breath. “Will she be mad at me if I take one pill? Just one? I’m not stealing it, I’ll tell her I took it” – she wondered – “But if insomnia came to me, I need something too to scare her away, I can’t go sleepy on my birthday”. And then, very silently, Meriel reached out for the jar with pills, standing beside her Mummy’s bed. As she did it, Mummy sighed in her sleep, murmured something and turned over. Meriel got startled, again this night. “Oh no, maybe it’s not a good idea, I’ll wake Mummy up” – she thought. And sneaked out of the room quickly.

“So what should I do now?” – Meriel thought, suddenly feeling very lonely and on the verge of tears. “Everyone else is asleep, even Fluffy is sleeping. I want to sleep too!”. she thought about all those steaming mugs of cocoa they’ve drank with Mummy, and how they always made her instantly sleepy. Maybe she should drink cocoa then? The problem was, meriel had no idea how to make cocoa, nor any other hot drink. She was an only child, not a very autonomous one, spoiled thoroughly by her loving, single Mummy, who let her play almost as much as she wanted and didn’t want her to worry about anything, and to whom it has never occurred so far that it could be helpful to teach her daughter some practical skills, so that she could cope on her own in case Mummy wouldn’t be there to help her.

But the next day was Meriel’s birthday, and because of this special occasion, there was plenty of delicious food. Meriel herself wasn’t taking part in the preparations, as she was in school when Mum was making all those yummies, but she knew well all that was there, as it was Meriel herself who made the list of all her favourite things that she wants to be on her birthday party. Another thing that Meriel knew, which would probably surprise her mother, was where all those delicacies were hidden, in hopes that Meriel wouldn’t discover them too quickly. She figured it out much earlier on another occasion, but now seemed to be a good chance to use this secret knowledge. Meriel’s Mummy, unaware of her child’s great detective skills, has always kept everything that she wanted to hide from her daughter – in the basement. –

Meriel didn’t like the basement, it was dark, cold and wet, and she suspected that there might be some mice or perhaps even rats, so even though she knew about this hiding place, she wouldn’t dare go there. But now, as she had already get out of her room at night, and stood there in the dark on the stairs, feeling her mouth watering and her stomach gurgling, she thought that it could be a nice, little nightly adventure, to go down to the basement, and have a little treat before birthday. Mummy surely wouldn’t notice. Nevertheless, she could feel a big, unpleasant knot in her tummy, as she thought about going down there, so before her basement expedition, Meriel popped into her room once again, and took out one of the keepsakes from his Daddy – a small torch which he bought for her for one of their campings, to help her overcome her fear of darkness, as her Daddy was a real enthusiast of travelling, especially all sorts of campings and tentings, and had high hopes that his daughter will one day follow his footsteps. – The torch had been lying uselessly among Meriel’s things for almost a year, and now it was finally its time. As she came back on to the corridor, Fluffy yawned and looked at her, intrigued about what her little mistress is up to so late at night. Meriel felt happier and braver that she’s not alone anymore, and as she went, Fluffy followed her faithfully, as if encouraging this little crime. “At least even if Mummy notices I can say Fluffy ate it” – Meriel chuckled.

She started going down the stairs, down into the darkness. “Hm, maybe I should rather go back? I guess it’s not good what I’m doing. It’s cheating…” – she hesitated, looking down and, again, feeling less confident. “Oh well, but I’m hungry! And I can’t sleep. I have to do something that will help me”. And that explanation seemed to satisfy her, as little Meriel continued walking down the stairs. THe door opened with a creek, that seemed somehow ominous for the little girl’s overactive imagination and uneasy conscience. But she courageously went in, looking for the place where all her birthday food has been hidden. As she examined the contents of all bowls and plates she realised that actually it would be hard for her to eat anything of it not leaving any sign. There were mostly cakes, and Meriel wasn’t the most skiled at cutting yet, she knew she wouldn’t be able to cut an even piece of cake, and even if, Mummy would see that something is missing. But then she remembered. There was one dessert that Mummy didn’t do yesterday, because it the best when eaten fresh. Meringue with ice cream! “So there have to be meringues!” – Meriel said to herself. “Fluffy, what do you think, where are they? Will Mummy be mad at me for eating a little piece of meringue?”. The girl imagined that Fluffy shakes her head, and continued rummaging the basement. “Ohh, here they are! Look, Fluffy! Now we’ll have a real feast!” – Meriel took a piece and gave it to Fluffy. Just like Meriel’s Mummy, and Meriel herself, Fluffy was also a real meringue connoisseur, so she appreciated the treat. But Meriel was more hesitant.

She certainly wasn’t an angel and liked to be mischievous and cunning, which both her intellect and fiery temper helped with, making her quite a handful to deal with for her Mummy, but she was at the same time a good-natured child and lying, cheating or stealing wasn’t her natural traits, even if it was just about stealing from her own birthday table. With her kind and honest heart, she would most gladly go back upstairs, woke up Mummy and ask her if she could eat a little meringue, or just anything, but imageries of her Mummy being plagued by Insomnia monster kept her from doing so, as she felt somehow responsible for her mother’s good sleep, and she just wanted to deal with the problem on her own. She took another, very small piece of meringue and held it in her hand. Suddenly, her heart became very heavy and she felt that she doesn’t feel hungry anymore. Maybe she can fall asleep without doing it? Slowly, she raised her hand with the piece of meringue, and licked it. “Mmmmm…” Only that something still wasn’t right. Suddenly, as if driven by some impulse, Meriel quickly put down the piece of meringue on its previous place and went back to the door. Confounded and disappointed Fluffy followed her obediently. “Sorry, Fluff, not this time. I forgot we need to wait for the guests. It’s too early for feasting. And I think meringue tastes so much better with ice cream. On its own it’s too dry for me.”

She left the basement with a sigh of relief so big that she didn’t even feel disappointed that she didn’t get to eat the meringue. Instead of going back to her room though, Meriel again sneaked into her Mum’s bedroom, as silently as she only could. “Maybe if we will be together, we can win over Insomnia” – she thought. – She curled up next to Mummy on her bed, and immediately felt so much  better. Safer. Sleepier. Fluffy curled up under the bed and dozed off right away. The silent, monotonous sounds of Mummy’s and Fluffy’s breaths calmed down the little girl, exhausted after all her late night wanderings. She snuggled up close to her Mummy, and gave out a quiet sigh of satisfaction.

She was satisfied with herself, and knew that she did the right thing. The next time, she told Mummy about her night time struggles, and Mummy was very satisfied too, that she has such a sensible and trustworthy, mature little daughter. And since that night, neither of them has fought Insomnia on her own. They both know that they have each other, and no scary monsters can change it.

 

Commitmentof a mother.

Hi guys. 🙂

I’ve been thinking about finally writing some other posts, other than my usual series, and looking forward to doing it, and I planned to do some more writing over the weekend, though, quite predictably, I was never able to publish anything as it was my Mum’s and my brother’s birthday, also I had some rather bad anxiety and quite a lot was going on here. Nevertheless, both my Mum, and one of the recent writing prompts gave me an idea for a post. One of the recent words of the day at Word Of The Day Challenge was commit, and recently me and my Mum talked about commitment and dedication in relation to my grandma. I’d like to write about my Mum, and how I admire her, and thus also generally about mothers and motherhood.

There are lots of things that I admire in my Mum, but the one I would like to focus on now is her commitment.

Her commitment and dedication to motherhood, to us, her children, and to our whole family. I really don’t know where we’d be if not Mum, and I’m not just talking about the fact that she gave birth to my siblings and me, but that she is like an adhesive for our family, and keeps together us and everything in our house and family. I am happy to say that I have a good relationship with my Dad, but it has never been as deep as my connection with Mum. And even if I was ony to say on behalf of myself, I also don’t know where I’d be without my Mum.

Being disabled, I need more help with many things than an average person, sometimes a lot more, and my Mum has always been there for me, ready to help me out with really different things. Even when I was away from home at the boarding school, she always tried ther best to find the time and possibility to visit me or take me home for the weekend while she didn’t really have to as there was a rather big distance between the school and my home. She also tried her best to make my life easier there, and when there was a time I was emotionally abused by some of the staff she was the one to notice it despite the distance between us, and she was the one to make it stop. I’ve heard many very positive comments about my Mum at school, both from the staff and my friends, that I am really lucky to have such a committed and involved Mum. Not that other kids didn’t of course, though such situations also happened sometimes as they always do, that some children came from families where they weren’t loved, but because she did so much more than she had to, and her involvement was very visible. I also have mental health difficulties, since years but that both me and some of my family became more aware of only in recent years, and while my Mum doesn’t always understand it, she’s still there for me, if not in any other way than at least happy to help me practically. She’d been helping me to get to therapy, picking my prescriptions, she is my “spokesperson” in all sorts of new or difficult situations when I feel anxious or whenever I’m just not fully able to stand for myself, and I appreciate help hugely. She’s done so many big and little things for me that I probably wouldn’t be able to acknowledge all of them in a single post even if I dedicated it only for such purpose. 😀

My Mum is definitely a type of altruist who gets easily engaged in what she does and is very responsible and caring, that’s her nature, but sometimes I wonder whether all those commitments she has made over the years since she’s become a wife and a mother, whether they sometimes don’t make her feel unfulfilled in other areas, like her professional career for example, or her social life that would extend beyond her family.

My parents got married when she was 22. Mum was learning to be a beautician and after that tried studying pedagogy but didn’t really have a heart for it and didn’t feel motivated so quit it and then, two years after their wedding, they had me. They had to go a long way until they realised that I’m blind, it wasn’t like that I was born and they were told that, my blindness was congenital but well doctors just didn’t notice it and left my parents to figure it out on their own, and as it has turned out there were some other things we had to figure out blindly, pun intended, even much later on, but that’s another thing actually. Anyway, when Mum finally did figure out that I’m blind, soon after Olek arrived so with two little kids and one disabled she didn’t even think about looking for a job, despite at those very beginnings the financial situation in our family was really not the best, and by the way it’s also partly thanks to Mum that now Dad has the job he has and that our situation is much better nowadays. But Mum, even when I went to the boarding school at the age of 5, still was a full time Mum and still is, even though both me and Olek are adults and Zofijka can mostly take care of herself during the day, and so can I for the most part. And we really appreciate her for that, but as I said, I wonder whether she doesn’t feel a little disappointed with her life sometimes, having so many commitments, many of which she really didn’t have much choice about.

They say though that you usually copy your parents in your life choices. ANd that would be true for my Mum, because the thing was very similar with my grandma.

She is a very intelligent, cultured lady, had great ambitions as a young woman, got degrees in such diverse fields as food technology and theology, but she is also a very gentle, sensitive, idealistic and actually naive person, believing that everyone is like her and has the same values. And during her food technology studies met my grandad – also a very intelligent, cultured, strong, manly, fiendishly ambitious and versatile man. – They were madly in love with each other like most couples are at the beginning, the thing was that each of them had their own dreams that were quite different from each other’s, and my grandad was incredibly stubborn and domineering, to the point that in our current standards I suppose we could call it abusive. His dream has always been farming, because of his huge interest in agriculture, so it was clear to him that his wife will have to adjust and live in the sh*thole and dedicate herself to him and breeding hens to help him grow his business.

I love my grandad, have had a pretty close relationship with him, he has always stood for me when I most needed it, even when no one else did, and I always feel very safe with him and like we have a strangely deep connection and understanding for each other, and overall he’s one of the people I admire most in my life, particularly for how comprehensively skilled he is, but although he has mellowed a whole lot in his old age, I feel really bad about him being so bossy and tyrannical to my grandma. He wouldn’t let her go anywhere on her own, he decided what she should do or not do, with whom she can meet, he forbade her to drive anywhere, have her own work or money or any personal life that he wouldn’t be able to fully control. I guess even if she was assertive she wouldn’t be able to resist this and stand for herself, but she wasn’t, at all. He even didn’t let her to go to church on her own, only when it suited him and he would be able to drop her there, which was a big pain for her because my grandma has always been a very devout Christian. Grandad was brought up in a Christian family too, but it was never a priority for them and I guess he was too proud to be able to live through Christian faith where you have to be humble and rely on God rather than on yourself. So he wasn’t really keen on that which was also a big problem for grandma. As the children arrived her life was focused only around the household/farm, selling eggs with grandad and mothering the four kids. Later on grandad started drinking too much alcohol and has once tried to commit suicide, and while it’s no longer a problem and he doesn’t drink at all, it used to be something that grandma really struggled with and couldn’t accept, and tried to desperately hide it from children in which she succeeded as my Mum only learned about his alcoholism when she was an adult. At some point as I told you grandma got a degree from theology and wanted to work as a religion teacher or something like that but then one of my aunts was born and there were quite awful complications and she was a very vulnerable and sickly baby even though now thankfully she’s thriving and perfectly fine.

Now my grandparents’ relationship is less stormy, as I said my grandad has mellowed a lot both to his wife and to his children and all his grandchildren love him dearly, though they’re certainly not madly in love with each other and grandma is still suffering because of grandad’s cynical/haughty approach regarding faith and that he treats her like she’s very inferior to him, but he does appear to love her in some way and cares for her in that controlling, possessive way as some people do since they can’t otherwise.

She has certainly had her fair share of sufferings, but, most importantly here, has been always so very committed, to her husband, children, and every other responsibility that life has placed on her. In a way I admire her for that, but on the other hand, the extend to which my grandma commits herself is sort of strange to me and I feel like I couldn’t do that without feeling frustrated. just every minute. She doesn’t actually have her own life. Her life evolves around her children and grandchildren, caring for her husband, their work, praying, and now there is a little bit of place for gardening, but that’s it.

My Mum is not like that, my Mum is stronger and more assertive, but still has that extreme ability to dedicate herself to others.

It makes me wonder how marriage and motherhood can really change you and your life so much. When it comes to me, I’m happy to help people, but I really don’t think I could commit myself to someone to such an extend and so unconditionally, it feels rather overwhelming and strangling. I still most probably have a fair bit of ife ahead of me and I know things can change, but so far I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to have children, and even if I would want at some point, I most probably wouldn’t be able to be a good mother for many different reasons. But I really admire my Mum in that, and other mothers who do it like this, silently and without shouting how altruistic they are, and I know that if ever my Mum would need someone to commit themselves to her, I will try my best to do it since I owe her so much. I am proud to say that now I can at least listen to her, and that even though it’s usually her who is the listener for others, I often listen to her when she has problems, and I  am the first person she goes to since I got out of the boarding school if she wants to talk about some stuff that affects her deeply. i am happy she trusts me and that I can give her at least that.

What do you think about commitments in relation to motherhood/family life? What are your experiences with your mum, or with your own parenting if you are a parent? Are you deeply committed to anyone, be it in a relationship or whatever? If you’re not a parent, do you feel like you could dedicate yourself to your children full time or is your professional/social/any other aspect of your life so important to you that you couldn’t give it up? 🙂

Bedecking the house.

Hi people. 🙂

How are your Christmas preparations going? Do you have much left?

Our house has been fully bedecked  today. Most of our decorations have been prepared earlier already, but today finally our house has a totally Christmassy feel, as we have the Christmas tree in the living room. It’s a pine, and our Christmas tree decorations haven’t changed much since years. There are some small baubles, but other than that, all the decorations are hand-made by my Mum, including red, heart-shaped sort of pillows that we have on Christmas tree every year, and which always cause a lot of excitement in Misha. He would always draw them down from the tree and then play with them all over the living room, losing them everywhere, biting them dragging them around the house. We usually don’t do anything about it now though, because it’s pointless. He’s got a mind of his own obviously and he knows what he wants, and no one will tell him to do the opposite unless they’d manage to convince him that it’s truly better, and since he’s a big thinker, that takes time. And actually, does it matter? I think it doesn’t. He always looks so cute and funny with those pillow hearts in his mouth, and he never seriously damaged them, they’re still perfectly usable, so I don’t think we should bother, he actually isn’t very playful and I personally always try to encourage him to play when he feels like it rather than turn his attention away from it if he’s not doing any damage, and he does it very rarely, it amazes me continuously how gentle he always (well, almost always) is. Only sometimes he loses control over himself and then things can get a bit messy, but not for too long. 😀

And I should say that Christmas tree in general is of a great, great interest for Misha. Mmmmm this smell, he loves all the natural smells – leaves, feathers, branches, flowers, all the forest smells, he’s maybe not so keen on animals, but plants, ground and such, he loves it all – he adores the smell of the Christmas tree so much that he smells it as much as he can, picks the branches, pats them with his paws in pure adoration and awe. Sometimes when he’s in an even more romantic mood, he climbs up the tree, or tries, as long as someone won’t stop him, and even happily eats the needles when noone sees, which last year contributed to him being very, very sick, at least for Misha’s standards, as he’s normally very healthy.

And so now as we have the Christmas tree put up and decorated, and pierogi in the freezer, Christmas has begun!

 

A description of Misha.

Hey people! 🙂

I thought I would do some a bit more creative writing, I mean apart from my series and other stuff like that, just challenge myself a little bit more, as I hadn’t done anything like this for a while I feel, but didn’t have much of an idea what it could be. So I decided to look at the writing prompt for today at Word Of The Day Challenge, and saw that it is Oblong.

What can you write with this word in mind? What first came to my mind was a short story, with someone who would have oblong face as a main character – I absolutely love describing my characters thoroughly and very imaginatively, from their hair colour to their features to their style – but so far all my short stories are in Polish and somehow I don’t feel ready yet to write any in English, I still read much more in Polish than in English – when it comes to books at least, it’s quite the opposite online 😀 – so I feel like I should read much more before I start writing short stories in English.

So I started to think about all the oblong things in my room to find some inspiration, as I was determined to write something inspired by this – quite cool actually – word. There are some oblong things in my room, but I didn’t feel like many of them deserved any particular attention and a separate post in honour of them, other than my gem stones, some of them are oblong, and I could write a post about them, which sounded as a lovely idea.

But I thought that after all we live in a highly visual world, so I’d need at least some pictures (at least of those oblong stones, if not all of my stones 😀 ) to accompany my post. And right now I am not able to get anyone to take them for me, so, maybe another time, my collection is really big so you really have to have a lot of free time and good will to engage in taking photos of all of them.

So finally, as you may already suspect from the title, I decided to make Misha the hero of this post. Again. ‘Cause if you know Misha (or any Russian cat I’d suppose), thinking about something oblong you can’t not think about his little face.

You can see Misha in the logo of my blog, but there are also people who are blind/visually impaired who read my blog, so I thought a description of Misha should give them some more idea about him, and also, as I said, I really enjoy describing people, nature, weather, places, whatever! So why not Misha.

I am not sure how accurately and clearly, and how much of Misha you can see from the photo on my blog, anyway, I hope that those of you who can see it, will also enjoy this description.

Here goes:

Misha is an embodiment of gracefulness, refinement, charm, class and proportion. I feel tempted to say he’s also an embodiment of feline perfection, but saying that would probably show how blinded and doting I am. All Russian blues are like this, I mean classy and fairly proportional, but being able to know Sasha, as well as my aunt’s Russian blue cat – Flocky – I can easily say that Misha is far more classy and sophisticated in his looks than they are. Misha has an air of gentleness, fineness and calmness surrounding him. He’s not always that calm, he’s often very shy and anxious, but unless he’s not in very significant distress, he still emanates with that calm charm. Yet he’s not only gentle. There is also lots of strength in him – as much his body and his spirits. – He is small, agile, slim, thin actually, and shapely, and has well-buil muscles, you wouldn’t call him “muscular”, at least that’s not one of the adjectives you would come up as first, still though, you can easily see how strong and well developed his muscles are. You can also feel his bones, he’s really pretty thin. He is of rather calm and passive nature but when he has a good reason, he can run very fast, jump and climb high, is very swift and light. But also there is carefulness in his movement, as if he really had it in mind to not knock anything over or not destroy anything, it very rarely happens that he makes any mischiefs like that. He is also really composed when playing with other beings most times, and often finds it hard to actually relax and play and be carefree. When he does play though and feels well, sometimes he may lose his control and really show all his strength and agility, as well as the sharpness of his teeth.

Misha’s fur is grey, but it has a bit of a blue glow, that’s why Russian blues are called Russian blues. SOmetimes it looks like silver, for example in the sun, and it seems as if it was shining and shimmering. That makes Misha easier to find in the wild world if he happens to escape. His fur is also double-layered, and very thick, although really short at the same time. Its thickness though, makes it feel like a coat a bit, and makes it really warm and comfy. It’s also incredibly soft, silky, and smooth. That softness and smoothness and thickness once let Zofijka to the conclusion that Misha’s fur is “like a whipped cream when you touch it”. 😀 You know, in its consistence, sort of.Indeed, I must say that was an incredibly accurate comparison, although rather peculiar, ’cause Misha’s fur truly feels sort of “creamy” when you touch it. Or like a gorgeously soft and fluffy teddybear. We have lots of comparisons for Misha’s fur with Zofijka, as well as all his body parts and other stuff regarding him, we also have a whole lot of nicknames for him, but that’s another thing.

Misha’s head is small and round, and very proportional. It’s a pure pleasure to look at it. It’s just such a little, cute Mishball, soft and fluffy and delicate.

Yet his ears are big. ANd that was a surprise for us, I mean we wouldn’t suppose them to be that big. They’re not like extreme, they’re normal for a Russian blue, but we didn’t know that Russian blues have naturally rather big ears. Sometimes when I have any contact with cats of other breeds or mixed, it feels so shocking to feel how small their ears are in comparison to Misha’s haha. He’s ears are pointed, and very sensitive for touch, his hearing is also very sensitive, though I think it’s true for all cats in a way. He hates loud, particularly sudden noises. But it’s true for his whole little body that it is very sensitive for touch, I guess it’s some sort of nervous reaction, that sometimes he absolutely refuses to be touched, or will immediately lick or scratch himself whenever you touch him in that same place.

Misha’s nose is small and pinkish, another very proportional, little Mishball. 😀 Zofijka loves it. She likes to play with him as sometimes people play with babies or toddlers – puts her finger on his nose, presses it lightly and says “beeep!”. Wonder if it doesn’t piss him off sometimes, we all treat him like a child, but I guess he’s not that childish hahaha. At the same time though I can understand Zofijka ’cause his nose is really cute.

Misha’s eyes are bright green. Like very very green! People always love them, they are so mesmerising, their look is piercing, some people say that it can actually be unpleasant, or embarrassing in a way. But you can also see lots of intelligence in them, after all Russian blues are really fairly intelligent cats and I came across lots of people visiting us and commenting: “Wow, that cat of yours looks really quite brainy, didn’t you think about training him?” or things like that. And if you’re curious too, no, we didn’t think about training him, not seriously anyway, he seems too nervous and squeamish, and way too individualistic to just be trained and listen to our orders, even if he understands them. And we don’t have him to show him off, at least not in the first place, my Mum actually likes showing off with him sometimes haha, and I do too.

Misha’s whole face, as I said earlier, is oblong, but not too oblong, it’s really proportional. My aunt’s cat has actually much more oblong face and it makes him look a bit unfriendly. Misha’s face is just right. And he likes being stroked under his chin, among other places.

As I already mentioned, he’s very shapely and thin. If you move your hand down his spine you can feel all the bones and vertebrae and all. He has a really nice and soft belly, it’s almost always warm and we like to lightly lie on it, me and Zofijka, and listen to all his gurgles and his heartbeat and occasional purrs – as I told you many times before his purrs aren’t really loud and not as common as in most other cats, and his purrs seem to rather be self-assuring than signalising comfort and happiness. He has a little crease a bit below his belly which apparently is a common thing in sterilised male cats, and my Dad is always laughing at him how it’s moving when he is running or something.

His paws are small and oval, they’re really pretty small and cute and rather thin, but strong, they are lavender,so apparently just as they should be in Russian blues. And their insides are very smooth. Have you ever looked closely or touched a cat’s paws with some attention? Outdoor cats always have rather harsh and rough paws, while Misha’s paws are like a little baby’s. It never stops to amaze me, and I really like to touch them and hold them. And they’re so very proportional and elegant as well.

And Misha’s legs are really quite long, despite those small paws. That’s why he runs so fast I guess. Actually, you could generally describe him as “long”. When Misha lies straight, you can really see how long and slim he is, just an oblong shape with head and tail. I like to look at him lying like that, lying on his back, stretched for all his length.

Oh, and Misha’s tail, I nearly forgot about it. It’s also very soft, and nice to touch, and it’s relatively long. And it has stripes, but almost unnoticeable. THey were more visible apparently when he was younger. Sasha also has striped tail, and it’s apparently visible in most Russian blue kittens, and then is less noticeable.

So, that would be my description of Misha, and I hope you enjoyed it and that it gave you some more idea of what he’s like. 🙂

 

Exasperated.

My Mum feels exasperated because of Sasha. We all feel in a way, I guess. He is a cute kitten, but he has a really big flaw, Misha has already mentioned it a lot. He doesn’t know what is the litterbox for. If you’ll watch out for a while or just close him in the loo, he will do his business in the right place, but he’ll never go to the litterbox by himself. It’s almost a month since we have him and it’s always the same. He happily pees and poops on pillows, sheets, blankets, poufs, sofas, wherever, but not to his litterbox. It looks like he knows where he should do it, because once when he was trying to pee on a bean bag, my Mum saw it on time, pulled it out from under him and then he ran like crazy to the litterbox. But other than that, he won’t go there on his own. It’s worrying for us, and, like I said, quite exasperating. My Mum wonders if he has some sort of trauma around the litterbox, but to me he doesn’t look as if he could have, he’s always so very cheerful. It is Misha who acts a bit as if he was traumatised, but rather by humans, not by using the litterbox. He is a very nice kid, Sasha, I mean, but we have to close all the rooms from him to not let him poop somewhere. It would be so nice if he finally could learn where to do it, and could sleep with us at night, but we are simply afraid, ’cause who would like to wake up and realise there is shit on their pillow? Really yucky. If it was up to me, I think I wouldn’t be as thoughtful as my mum, and would sell him. Looking at it from a perspective I don’t think really that it was a good decision to take Sasha. Misha is more anxious than happy and Mum has twice as much cleaning, plus all of us have to be caerful with him. And what is also worrying is that he is still sick. It looks like he had to come to us sick, my Mum is exasperated that the breeder didn’t tell us, or actually didn’t take care of it himself. It’s sad to see him sick. He’s still a very happy child,but is constantly sneezing, has runny nose, watery eyes and breathes very loudly, which sounds cute and funny for us, just as he was a sick baby who can’t blow his nose, but it’s certainly not pleasant for him, and he sounds pretty husky, which is funny too, and my Mum calls him drunkard because of that. 😀 So yeah, it is a very troublesome kid. And it’s only a month…

The purring symphony.

Curled up together, we silently lie

me, and him – Misha, the sweet child of mine

I can hear the beating of his feline heart

knowing that no one could tear us apart.

I breathe in  his smell, listen to his sounds

his delicate paws, his head, small and round.

My hand on his chest, I feel how he breathes

What do you dream of, in your peaceful sleep?

his purring – a comforting

symphony

Puts me to sleep, with its sweet harmonies.

When the day comes, I wake up calm and free

And that’s how we live, my Misha and me.

(Syn)Aesthete, or a brief explanation of some top secrets of my freaky brain.

While I’m blind, so visual value of things around me isn’t always of great importance to me, I still consider myself an aesthete.

A language aesthete. It particularly applies to my mother language, but also in all the other languages I know it is important to me to write and speak possibly aesthetically – which doesn’t always mean very seriously, politely or flamboyantly, but above all just so that it is nice to read or listen and doesn’t make other innocent individuals cringe too much. I also like when other people speak or write aesthetically, and when someone messes up with spelling a lot or uses words like they don’t know what they mean, it often drives me crazy, or close to it.

I am a total language geek and besides being an aesthete as long as I can remember, I am also a synaesthete.

Since my very early childhood, I’ve had some weird connections in my brain between sounds/words and touch, or taste, or something else sometimes. For many years I was convinced that this is just how our brains work, not just my own quirk, and that everyone perceives things the same way as me. That led to many weird, and often funny nowadays, misunderstandings, for example when I tried to describe things to people.

It was not until I was like 6 that I started to see others don’t necessarily think in shapes, textures and tastes and other things like this.

Many years after I got to this conclusion I realised it has to be some form of synaesthesia, although as far as I know this form isn’t very common, that your brain transfers sound stimuli into touch related associations. I know only one person who has it similar to me in some way, and he is also blind, so I guess it has to do with my blindness, and maybe also a little that I still am somewhere on the autism spectrum apparently.

If you don’t know or don’t understand how synaesthesia works, it’s like there is a correlation between two (or more) of your senses. Most people of those who have synaesthesia seem to have auditory-visual corelations, for example they hear a sound, and see it in colour, or see numbers in colours, or even people may have their own colours apparently, or words, or colours may have particular textures/temperatures for them, etc. etc.

For me it is so that if I hear or think about a word, at the same time I sort of feel what I associate with this word. It’s not like a delusion, I know I don’t feel it, I’d rather say it’s like when you hear a song in your head. You know it isn’t playing, but you still hear it in your head.

For me it’s not only words that I associate with shapes/objects/textures/tastes, but also many separate sounds, like sounds of particular instruments, people’s voices etc. And these aren’t always sound to touch or sound to taste associations. Sometimes it’s much more complex and not always on just sensual level. Sometimes, hearing a particular word or phrase makes me feel in a very particular way, or I may even sometimes associate words or phrases with whole scenes or lots of different, unrelated things, etc. Some words I associate with objects that I can’t recall ever seeing, so I guess they have to be made up by my brain or something. I associate many words with edible things, which is quite fun, or with things that have to do with nature. I often can associate many words that aren’t objectively similar to each other with the same thing.

it’s very complicated.

I think it’s also synaesthesia that helps me understand the colours in some way, anyway I don’t know what else it could be. I am blind since birth so have no practical idea about colours, but I’ve always had some imaginary idea about colours, and even many distinct shades. It’s often very hard for me to describe them, it’s hard to put it into adequate words, but when I was in integration school years ago, I learned that my understanding of colours isn’t that far from how they really are as I could think. My classmates were doing something with one of Picasso’s paintings during art class, and since I of course wasn’t able to do the same, the teacher asked me questions about all the colours, just out of curiosity, like very speciffic questions about colours – whether they’re calm or vivid, dark or bright, warm or cold, etc. And both her and me were incredibly surprised when I said all of them right. 😀 Of course I’d already got some basic understanding of colours, like that the sun is yellow or the sky is blue, but no one had taught me about how to actually define colours nor described them for me since it’s rather impossible.

I don’t know any other person who would be congenitally blind and have it like that, people usually don’t care about colours, or have to learn about them from others, like have to memorise what colours fit together when they choose their clothes, but I am lucky and I just somehow get it, despite that I see literally nothing (and no, it isn’t black! It’s just nothing). It’s just so so weird, but I like it. It often helps me with writing for example short stories, and describing people, one of my blind friends told me that “Wow! you write as if you were sighted!” hahaha whatever that means, I guess it was just it, that I can create people and nature that looks naturally and is colourful, some blind people tend to understandably forget about visual details or sometimes make them feel not matched or not very precise.

And yet another thing that my synaesthesia helps me with are languages. So many language learning experts and teachers say it’s good if you associate every word you learn with something. I don’t have to think about the associations. They just come to me on their own. That makes things easier to remember, I guess. And more fun, and interesting. And if you have it like this it’s just normal and obvious that you’re fascinated with words. Some of my associations may be scary or something, but most of them are very positive, creative and quirky. If I’m learning a language that is a bit out there for me (like Welsh was for quite a while, despite my love for it), forming associations may take some time, you need to listen to the language a lot and immerse in it, familiarise your brain with it, and then it comes naturally. Though there still are words – even in Polish – that I don’t have clear associations with, sometimes the shapes I see in relation to them are sort of blurred, or hard to describe, or like a few unrelated things strangely and not very harmoniously stucked together. It is not a perfect strategy for learning a language, because as I said there are many words that I associate with the same things, and I may confuse them. Normal people may confuse words that are similar in sound or meaning or something and it happens to me too, but usually I confuse words because I associate them with the same/similar things and then my statements can seem a bit enigmatic for an uninitiated  person, if the words aren’t objectively too similar. 😀 I’ve had lots of awkward situations in Swedish like that, and my poor teacher couldn’t figure out what I am talking about sometimes. 😀

 

I’m thinking about what example to give you to show you how my synaesthesia works. OK< let it be my Mum.

My Mum’s voice sounds like a piano to me. She has a rather dark voice, and when she speaks quieter/lower it reminds me of black, melted chocolate, the shade of her voice then is just similar, it just feels similar to black chocolate and I guess it is my dominant association with her as a whole. Also when I hear my Mum’s voice I feel as if I was touching the black keys of a piano. The word Mum – in all the languages I know so far, makes me think about a little plastic hat that my favourite and oly doll that I ever played with – named Eliza – had when I was a kid. 😀 That’s very weird. The word Mum as it is written in English, I associate with a little baby sleeping soundly with a dummy, and this characteristic smell of a sleeping baby. The same smell always surrounds Misha when he sleeps or is freshly awake. My Mum’s name is Anna, and the name Anna I associate with a horse – its hair, the sound of a horse galloping, the smell of horses, etc. As I mentioned in a few of my previous posts I also have other types of special associations with names, and looking this way Anna is a pure essence of femininity to me, but I won’t go into details about how I imagine a typical ANna – her appearance, personality etc. that would be way too long, I might write name characteristics some time in the future on my blog maybe. Other things I associate with my Mum are the colour black and the sound of the French language, but these aren’t only about synaesthesia, because my Mum loves black, and was learning French at school, though she doesn’t speak it now.

any other synaesthetes of any kind out there? How does your synaesthesia manifest? 🙂

Or maybe anyone would like to know what things I associate with something? Some people seem to find it quite entertaining for some reason. 😀 Feel free to ask if you’re curious about anything, be it any word/sound or any questions you have as for this thing in general, I know it’s pretty rare and I realise how weird it is, so I’m open to your questions if you have any. 😀