{"id":299,"date":"2023-11-10T22:26:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T22:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/?p=299"},"modified":"2023-11-10T22:36:51","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T22:36:51","slug":"first-star-i-see-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/?p=299","title":{"rendered":"First Star I See Tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Content warning for discussion of animal death.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A few days after I was born, a white kitten with bright blue eyes showed up at my grandmother\u2019s doorstep. The kitten couldn\u2019t have been more than a few days old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My grandmother suspected that she was a kitten of a stray tortoiseshell cat that she had taken in and named Pok\u00e9mon, because my older sisters were obsessed with Pok\u00e9mon at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My family named this kitten Starlight, and brought home her and I. My mother always told me that we shared the same birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she got older, her deep black, gray and brown fur markings grew in. Her eyes were always big, round, blue and vast, like the night sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would park myself in front of her on my knees while she sat curled up on some piece of furniture, usually the corner of a bed. There we would stare into the other’s eyes for what felt like hours, unblinking, unmoving, inches away from each other\u2019s faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would stay there until I felt sleepy and closed my eyes. Sometimes, I would rest my forehead against hers and we would stay like that for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I opened my eyes, her eyes would be shut tight. Then she would open her eyes at nearly the same rate, staring back at me. I still wonder how she did that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When Starlight\u2019s death approached, my family and I felt it coming. She grew more cuddly at the end of her life. As she slowed down, I sped up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She lost weight, and I wonder if this made her feel cold. My youthful fast-paced lifestyle had no patience for spending what felt like hours laying in bed with a kitty on my lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kick myself for not just spending more time with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day came where she collapsed, heaving strange, shallow breaths. The vet told us that her lungs were filled with fluid, not unusual for a cat her age. Medical intervention would be complicated with a low chance of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We reached a unanimous agreement and took her to the back room at the vet. In her final moments, my family and I gathered around her while she laid on a small table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat in front of her, inches away from her face, staring into her eyes. The vet told us to say our goodbyes. I didn\u2019t speak aloud\u2013it didn\u2019t feel right. I slow-blinked at her instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This coming February marks ten years since Starlight\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Starlight in her old age.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After tracking and observing my dreams for some time now, I\u2019ve realized that there are different types of dreams with their own distinct feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dreams that carry some external contact or interference are the ones that I remember for months and years later after the fact, without even writing them down. Their feeling and impact is distinct, profound and lasting enough to remember (although it is a good idea to write them down anyway).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, I had a dream where I wandered around my house. It was very mundane and nothing memorable happened, until I reached the basement. This part of the dream has stuck with me and is the only part of the dream that I clearly remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I was in the back corner of the basement where we used to keep Starlight\u2019s food, water, and litter box, I saw a window there with the curtains open. A stream of gentle blue light filtered in from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could see dust particles floating in the air. It felt like time froze. Looking out the window, there was no real \u201coutside\u201d area that I could see\u2013no trees, birds, houses, nothing. Just light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stream of light landed on a round, fluffy cat bed sitting atop two stacked cardboard boxes. In this bed Starlight laid curled up, looking at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recognized her right away, although she didn\u2019t look exactly like she did while living. She had more white fur on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She seemed smaller and thinner, more like how she looked as a kitten. However, she didn\u2019t strike me as a kitten at all\u2013in fact, she struck me as being older than I\u2019d ever seen her before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her eyes were the most unusual trait of all, big and blue and endless as ever, but with one major difference: two large white X\u2019s laid across them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt a strange blend of relief, sadness and grief upon seeing her. When I approached her, she acknowledged me the same way she always did. Her presence and her fur felt the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She let me hold my forehead to hers again. We held still like that for a while, but not long enough. I woke up tearful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In my personal spiritual practice, I started visiting a feline goddess. I can\u2019t say much about it yet, but I will say that a part of my initial visit was to stare into her eyes and see the stars in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still remember the relief, the sadness, and the tears in my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Content warning for discussion of animal death. A few days after I was born, a white kitten with bright blue eyes showed up at my grandmother\u2019s doorstep. The kitten couldn\u2019t have been more than a few days old. My grandmother suspected that she was a kitten of a stray tortoiseshell cat that she had taken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50],"tags":[65,66,51,52,70,69,43,68,67],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-spirituality","tag-cat","tag-childhood","tag-death","tag-dreams","tag-goddess","tag-night","tag-reflection","tag-sky","tag-stars"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mpreston.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}