Unpacking Debiver's Travels - a prologue, maybe?
I came home from this road-trip to find my cat Noori hiding, crying, in the closet. She was so well-entrenched that I couldn't even find her in the closet at first. Finally she came out and hid under the bed, still complaining. By morning she was walking on me and yelling for breakfast as usual. She went out briefly earlier to eat some trumpet vine, and then I made her come back in. She's sitting at the front door now, telling me to open it. I want more , she says. "You can't go out there. You're getting too brave. I need you to not be brave," I tell her, and then immediately I re-frame those words as if she were a human-child, and I feel a tinge of something akin to regret. I don't care , she says. "There are things out there that will EAT YOU." Again I flinch; but this time I know I'm telling the truth, not setting up unknown dangers to bind the child's spirit. "There are owls and foxes and stuff." There really...