Socrates

Socrates has been with me since the fall of my sophomore year at UGA. My flatmate Tessa had her cat living with us and we had talked about my getting a cat as well. When we saw some people giving away kittens from a cardboard box outside of Walmart I picked out the small peachy fluff ball the other kittens were stepping on and brought him home. He greatly irritated her stately, proper, and also peachy, German-speaking cat Ketelbey by pouncing on him and gnawing his ears. Ketelbey would ignore this as long as he could and then finally swat the wild kitten off of his head.

Socrates has been with me through 8 moves, the addition of another cat (Penelope), the addition of a husband (John), and two kids (Virginia and Horatio).

Unlike some other cats (*cough cough* Penelope) he used the litter box to a fault. One time I tried to train him to use a toilet. I was too cheap to buy the trays that go in the toilet and used a disposable aluminum baking pan instead. I put the flushable litter in the pan and hung it in the top of the toilet bowl. He used it. I cut a small hole in the pan. He still used it. I made a bigger hole. He was supposed to start moving his paws to the toilet seat. He did not. Finally the pan lost structural integrity and Socrates fell in the toilet. He pooped on the floor to drive home the point that he tried things my way and the experiment failed.

When I lived with Socrates in a small studio apartment in Tuscaloosa he was my protector. He started getting up on the counters, which he had never done before. I scolded him and made him get down. He gave me such a look! Then I found mouse scat on the counters. I had never seen the mouse because Socrates kept scaring it back into the walls. We went home for Thanksgiving and without cat or people food around for the mouse to eat it relocated. Maybe to another apartment. Sorry, neighbors.

Socrates made this last move with us to Whitewater, Wisconsin. He and Penelope rode in the back of the Subaru in the largest dog crate that would fit. I saw him a few times in the rear-view mirror, stand up on his hind legs to look out the window or over the seat.

He was already suffering from kidney disease (and, we suspect, cancer) when we moved and his health continued to decline. Over the last week he has mostly been living in Virginia's room, the only one with carpet, which gave him better traction for his failing hind legs. He died at home with his family around him. We buried him in our yard (the first yard we've owned) under a bird hotel, so he'll have lots of birds to watch. Life won't be the same without him, but we have been so glad to know him.

Where Are You From?

Horatio right after earning his green striped belt in Ninjutsu.

Horatio is in summer school for the month of July. On the first day he said that the teacher had the students introduce themselves and say where they were from. He wasn't sure how to answer. He was born in Georgia and lived there for two years. He's been in North Carolina for the past 5 years, but is about to move. And he can't say he's from Wisconsin when he hasn't lived there yet. 

I have struggled a bit with regional identity throughout my life. Growing up in the South, I didn't feel like a Southerner. I was born in Buffalo, NY. Both my parents were from New York, so I wasn't exactly steeped in Southern culture. I lived in the suburbs of Atlanta with many other transplants and never developed much of an accent. 

As an adult I finally decided I could maybe call myself "Southern" just to learn that "true" Southerners aren't having it unless you are born and bred in the South. A friend here in North Carolina said I was part of the "New South," which I think I might be able to accept. 

But now I'm leaving. As a child I dreamed of leaving the South - a place I didn't really think I belonged. I wasn't sure if I was a New Yorker. Or if maybe I fit better in a place like Texas (another state I lived in briefly as a child) which wasn't really North or South. I actually swore for a good long time that I would move back to Texas because I started elementary school there and moved mid-school year, so that extraction was particularly difficult for me. 

The Atlanta area does feel like home to me. I know that for sure now that I've spent some time away. And I've gotten pretty comfortable in North Carolina as well. I've accepted the South, and I'm moving away, not to get away, but because of a job (a job I'm very happy to have!!!). I look forward to figuring out how I fit in, in Wisconsin. 

I'll admit that I've worried about moving my kids around the country. I've worried they would feel that same lack of regional identity that I felt. Not being able to say with conviction where they are "from" or feeling like they truly belong to a place. 

Horatio told his class that he was from "America." I think that pretty well sums it up, actually.