Nicky

The Familiar...

Now for something completely different. Cats. The feline contingent that has been an ally of humans for a few thousand years, on their terms of course.

Yes a departure, but really not that much. I should have another substack coming out later this week, I hope you enjoy this brief foray into the subject.

G

Nicky’s First Day At The Cabin

Cats. I love cats. I've been around cats for a major portion of my life. There's always one cat though that sticks out in my mind of all the great felines that I have known and shared time with.

For the first 10 years of our marriage, we had Miss Mouse as our main cat. (Hers’ is a story for another day.) She just figured into this tale in that we lost her after migrating north from Los Angeles to Olympia Washington. Going from an apartment kitty to living on the edge of a wildlife sanctuary… Several months later, things not turning out as we planned, (economic downturn/lack of work) we decided to move to Northern California, to help take care of older family members, and to get reoriented… Mouse, seeing the packing boxes coming out vanished into the forest. We watched her as she vanished, looking back over her shoulder as she descended to the watershed park. We hunted for her for a day, but our lease was up, and we had to go… I figure she imagined it was apartment time again. We grieved over losing her for several months, then we collectively decided to invite another cat into our lives.

It wasn't an easy decision, we were still upset about losing Mouse, but having another furry companion in our life seemed a good idea and the fact that the cabin we were living in up in that remote part of Northern California certainly had all the signs of a very happy contingent of mice…

We made our way down to the local animal shelter and perused the various cats and kittens ensconced therein. The first cat I focused on was almost a doppelganger for Mouse, which Mary nixed (“Too skittish like Mouse!”) …

Checking around the shelter we came upon a 3-month-old kitten mainly white with orange splashes. He was entertaining himself by dancing around and playing in his cat box. I thought him rather weird, but Mary pointed out that where he had to play as the cat box took up most of the cage where he was residing in.

Before you knew it, we had paid a fee for said moggy, and as we drove off to the cabin, he sat in Mary's lap purring like there was no tomorrow. He had been advertised that day in the local rag… “This Little Devil” …, with a great picture full of his exuberant personality. We agreed on the name of “Nicky”, as Old Nick, was one of the names for the adversary, the Devil in Britain. It fit him perfectly.

Once into the cabin he scouted out his new territory, and before you knew it, he came downstairs with a small stuffed teddy bear about his size, and white like he was… it was seized in his mouth, and he would not relinquish it. That bear was his constant companion until the day he died. He would sleep with it, haul it around daily. He didn't take too kindly to “The Bear” being cleaned but accepted it as part of the tribal rituals.

After the first night he was in his new home he gifted us the next morning with a mouse laid out in front of the stove. He paced back and forth in front of it, and I picked it up in a paper towel and praised him as he arched his back in pride. One mouse became a ritual and within a month he had look out some 29 of the rodent’s tribe. During that time sometimes there was no mice in the morning and other times there were two or three laid out in a perfect row. I discovered that Nicky believed he was gifting us sustenance… to make his morning I had to pretend that I was going to eat the mouse or mice. Nicky would dance around purring like crazy. He was a true delight.

Nicky had a hard time going outside as the local crows spotted him right off the bat being that he was white, and orange and it would dive bomb him. He took to staying inside or on the porch. Nicky never took to hunting birds, mice & rats were his focus.

Life tumbled on and in a couple of years our son Rowan made his entry into the wide and tumbling world. Nicky was fascinated and took to Rowan after a while, not happy at first with being usurped by the miniature human but accepting Rowan into the tribe.

We moved out to the coast to the Eureka and Arcata area as I had taken a job with a t-shirt printing company. There was little work locally, and after all the coast of Northern California is spectacular.

Eventually we moved up to Oregon. That trip north was a bit crazy, Nicky in his crate yowling all the way up Highway 1 while Rowan was repeatedly carsick. It made for quite the journey.

We settled first into Aloha out in Washington County and then moved into NE Portland after a couple of years. Along the way one of the neighbors gifted Rowan a kitty, just as we were moving to SE Portland two years later. I wasn’t happy as I thought it underhanded to give him a kitty without asking, but Rowan was enthralled. He named the furball, “Buster” … Life carried on. Nicky took to training young Buster. They became a real tag team, but Nicky was always the primary in their relationship.

Rowan & Buster 10 years on. Rowan was 14 at this time. The hair finally relaxed!

During that time in SE Portland, we got re involved with Psilocybe Mushrooms. Sometimes weekly we would venture into that space, sometimes just monthly. We did make a marvelous discovery along the way… Usually, Rowan would stay at his friends, and we would have the whole of the evening. If he was staying at home, we would wait until he was fast asleep. The marvelous discovery? The first time we trypped, Nicky came into the house and lit up like a light. He hurried into the living room where we were, wanting to cuddle, hang out and purr, and purr he did. It became quite the ritual, he was our tryp sitter extraordinaire!

On one of our excursions, I was in the midst of a deep vision of a Golden City floating… In many of the visions, there is a visual element that is 360 degrees that one is immersed in and able to perceive… The city was behind me, over/behind my left shoulder. Deep in the vision I opened my eyes, and there was Nicky looking up at where I was perceiving it. My mind was blown. He apparently was picking up on/sharing in the visions, and he was there for the ride as well.

It was obvious that Nicky was a “Familiar”. It became more and more apparent. I totally dislike the concept of “Pet”. Nicky wasn’t a pet, more of a partner, friend, confidant. I have yet to find the word that describes the relationship properly.

Along the way we picked up a stray puppy who was about 4 months old in Eureka while we were visiting my mother as she was passing away (we were at the pharmacy at 11:00 at night picking up meds for my mother when the pup jumped into the car!) The puppy which Mary named Sophie was a Black Lab, California Cattle Dog, and Chow mix. It was love at first contact with her. For the cats, especially Nicky when we brought Sophie home…

Sophie, at around 1 year old

If you can imagine the cats exploded, hissing, spitting OMG there is a a dog in the house! Nicky gathered his wits, taking the situation in stride and ran up and slapped Sophie on both sides of her nose. Sophie yelped in surprise and pain, but her lessons were just beginning. The following weeks he instructed Sophie about her place in the hierarchy. Nicky was well known in her neighborhood for his harassment of dogs on the street and at the bakery next door to us where he chased dogs back into the cars that they came out of.

Still, he had an affection for Sophie, and they would often lie together for hours on end. He really wasn't such a hard nut, but he just wanted to have things his way.

Time marched on, Rowan was then in middle school, Nicky was about 12-13 years old. He started to lose weight and we discovered that he had cancer, I took to giving him a daily dose of cannabis to keep his appetite going. He ate constantly but he went from 15 lb. in a year down to just over 5 lb. It was really heartbreaking, but he kept up being Nicky and he ruled the street as he always did.

During these last couple of years of Nicky's life, he became even closer to us than before. He would sit on our laps, wanting attention and purring away.

As it happened, Mary soon had to go back to Scotland as her father was passing away. She was gone for over a month. During that time Nicky would hang out with me in the bedroom at night as I tried to reach out to her through meditations and entheogenic excursions. Honestly, I don't know what I thought I was doing but it certainly wasn't working as I thought it might.

One day on my way out to work, Nicky came up to me in the back garden and reached up with his paws towards me. I picked him up and he put his paws around my neck and squeezed. I told him I loved him, and I would see him when I got home. He was purring like crazy.

I returned home later that day. I was sitting at my computer and realized I hadn't heard him asking/meowing to come in. I went out to the Back Garden and there he was lying down having died about 10 ft from where we last were together.

Rowan came home and I took him outside to show him Nicky. We stood there crying. Eventually we dug him a grave near to the Roses, burying him with a bit of cannabis, his bear, and a can of food for his trip to the Western lands. He was 16 years old when he passed. A good age for such a wonderful Moggy.

Buster, at this point as always was wandering the neighborhood. He came home a couple of days later (Found out he would hang out with folks and stay in their houses) He came leaping over the fence, saw the mound of Nicky’s grave walked over to it to investigate, and sniffing it, settled down. As he laid next to the grave, he put his paw over it. He was there pretty much for two weeks. I have heard people say that animals can’t think, have no emotions, whatever. Yet here we are with Buster, mourning I posit over Nicky’s grave. The memory of this still moves me to this day, 22 years on.

Buster sitting next to Nicky’s grave.

There are so many more stories to tell about Nicky, how the neighborhood dogs were terrified of him, how he and Sophie would sometimes sleep together, and more. I count myself very lucky in our time together. With Nicky’s passing, Buster assumed many of the roles that Nicky had in our tribe. Rowan and Buster were companions for 17 years.

I still keep him in my heart. Sorely Missed.

Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

Nicky on his favourite perch.