The color of presence

Yesterday, when my daughter and I went for a walk in the afternoon, we were followed by a presumably non-domesticated cat.

It wasn’t a tentative following. The cat walked with us like a dog off the leash: at times running a few meters ahead, at times trailing behind. Sometimes stopping to investigate a particularly interesting scent, but always looking to us for cues on what was safe and what wasn’t. I am not talking a short walk around the village either. I am talking a 2 mile hike to the next town over.

It became kind of like a game: how long would she stay with us? How far could we go? As it turns out, pretty darn far. She navigated massive puddles with us. She evaded an unknown dog, but found back to us. She got slightly nervous about a stretch of field with no large trees or scrubs to hide in, but decided to chance it to stay with us. She finally put her paw down when we reached a populated area. As we moved towards the houses, she sat down in the middle of the path and meowed until we turned around and walked back with her.

It may sound random, but I remember everything about this walk: the intense purple of the sky, the full-on rainbow, the almost hyper-green of the winter-crop. It somehow felt like we had descended into a parallel universe where animals talk and actual pots of gold await at the end of the rainbow (we contemplated following one, for real).

What does it take to see this kind of magic every day?

Honestly? Presence. That’s all. The cat didn’t create the natural beauty that was all around us, but she helped us truly see it. Maybe that’s all she meant to do. I’ve seen her hang around the garden today, catching mice, cleaning mud off her belly. I don’t know that she’d follow us again, but I also don’t necessarily need it.

I know now: presence enhances the colors of pretty much everything. Presence is the magic we need.