Minnie has a new friend, the sunflower growing in the garden, she rubs against it several times a day. Minnie is always trying to make friends, often gets rejected. Simon chases her away, Flo chases her away from me, Frieda will take off after her once in awhile. I have an ambivalent relationship with Minnie, I have to be honest about it – honesty upsets people, I’m sorry. I could pretend that I love Minnie, and write cute stories about her but the truth is I don’t. Several people have angrily pointed out that I don’t take many photos of her, and this is so. I take photos of things I am drawn to, I never force it. And I am not drawn to Minnie. I am fond of her, I treat her well.
I got Minnie from a waitress in a local restaurant, she was a feral kitten, Maria and I were friends at the time, we went together to pick her up. She and Minnie bonded from the beginning, Minnie and I never quite did. I was much more drawn to Mother, our ferociously independent barn cat at Bedlam Farm, and Mother was drawn to me. Minnie hovered in the background, loved to slither around my legs (I don’t like it.) Still, Minnie thrived, she loved our rooster WInston and sat with him as he lay near death. I think she thinks she is a chicken sometimes.
If you study attachment theory, as I have, you come to see that the way we love each of our animals never occurs in a vacuum. It has to do with us, our emotions, our earliest attachment issues with our parents. Most people don’t want to see it that way, but I do. With animals, we replay the earliest emotional attachments of our lives, the birth of our emotional consciousness. We do what was done to us or what we wish was done to us, you can see it clearly through or relationships with pets and other animals.
Minnie’s problem for me has always been her neediness, she is constantly in need of attention, constantly looking for connection. My mother, as it happens, was just the same way, and it frightened and disturbed me, as she often sought to fulfill her great needs in the wrong places.
Minnie gets a lot of attention and love. Mostly, she finds that with Maria, increasingly with Flo and from the first, with the chickens, with whom she constantly hangs out. Lenore is the only dog who pays attention to her, the donkeys generally won’t abide her, Simon tried to stomp her once or twice.
I don’t love all of the animals here equally. I do not love the sheep. I love Simon more than Lulu and Fanny (and I love them very much.) I have never loved Pearl in the way I love Lenore, I love Red in a different way than I love any of them. I have only so much love in me, and I have never pretended to love every animal here in equal amounts. I don’t think it is possible, I don’t even think it is healthy. I am rarely drawn much to other people’s dogs, donkey or cats. Perhaps something damaged in me.
Some dogs – Clementine, Homer – I have given to people I know will love them more than I could, and that is a gift to them. It is not loving and humane in my books to prevent an animal from getting the love they deserve. Minnie gets a lot of love and attention – Maria, the fount of love and affection – loves her very much, and the two are often cuddling here or there. Minnie has sensed my distance, she comes around once in awhile – last night she and I sat on the porch together and watched the rain.
But I am much more connected to Flo, she is affectionate without being needy in my mind, independent and self-sufficient. I loved Flo from the first, the way she showed herself to us and took over the place. We can rarely separate the feelings we have about our animals from the feelings that came our of our earliest years, our of our relationships with our parents, our siblings, the world beyond.
I will always be honest in my writings about my animals, I will never pander to cute or to the notion that I love all animals in the world equally. When I hear people say they love all animals indiscriminately, I always think that is about them, not the animals, it is about their need. I rarely hear anyone other than Jesus Christ and the Dalai Lama say they love all people in the same way. I can’t love all things – people or animal – equally. I am not so blessed, at least not yet. To me, that would mean I don’t really love anything.
But Minnie gets more than enough love here, and is secure and healthy. That’s enough for her, I think, and enough for me. Accepting a relationship and letting it be is somethings a profoundly loving act for me.