one week

It's strange, and somewhat difficult, to have taken in a new cat, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet.

Llama is adorable, small and furry and nimble, jumping to places that Nova rarely, if ever, ventured. She is sweet, and will sometimes come dashing across the room for a little head rub. She is playful, chewing on her fishing-pole toy in the hopes of drawing my attention to it for a game of catch-the-cat.

Llama is much more talkative than Nova ever was, and seems to crave more vocal interaction with me than Nova ever wished for. It is entirely possible, though, that I am misinterpreting her yowls, her funny little chirps and squeaks that come across as queries and demands.

And I like her. I am already fond of her. I look forward to going home in the evening and seeing her newest favorite spot. Her first few days it was under the couch, collecting dust bunnies and unplugging the cable cord. Then it was on the desk, curled up into a little black ball behind my computer. And always there is the living room window sill, grooming herself in the sunshine or staring down to the little triangular plaza below.

It's impossible not to like her, but I do not love her. I do not love her, and I feel almost guilty about this.

Here she is, this sweet little creature, purring and prowling and yowling around my little apartment, and I want Nova, with whom I had an understanding.

After eight years together, three apartments, seven roommates, and finally this last year of just the two of us, just us girls, with no outside forces to speak of, we knew each other well. And once Nova was gone, there was this empty space, both emotionally and, more practically, in my physical environment.

I spent these last two months going home at night to a home filled with silence. I sank into this silence a bit, went days at a time without speaking, would find myself taken aback when my cell phone rang, not always knowing how to slip back into the world again.

I am not writing of depression, or even of sadness exactly, but just an intensity of aloneness that I have not experienced before. And I didn't mind, for the most part, though I knew it couldn't continue forever.

And now there is Llama. Not Nova, but something new. Not yet adored, but beginning to be loved.

I guess I've figured out how I feel about it after all. And besides, as Ms. Maia pointed out, Llama and I, we have a certain affinity for black, and being the well-matched pair that we are, we can't possibly go wrong together.