The years in Cambridge drove my need to escape to wild places, I explained.
Goose, “I was born into the wild so getting close to it makes my fur feel alive.”
Me, “Does your fur feel alive when you go out on the screened porch?”
Goose, “The outdoor air smells different. Sometimes I can smell other animals like foxes. The wildest thing I have ever smelled is that long-haired cat that sneaks around the house. That puffs up my tail.”
Me, “I have always had to travel a little to my wild places but the reward has always been far greater than the effort.”
Goose, “Going to a place where you can focus all your senses on what is around you is very rewarding. If you close your eyes, you can imagine the place you are visiting in a different light. The screened porch in the morning is not a screen porch at all. It is a hill overlooking a grass-filled meadow filled with little creatures and the occasional larger creature that causes my fur to stand on end.”
Me, “Does you mind let you wander the meadow?”
Goose, “Even better, my mind absorbs the meadow environment so when I nap, I am actually out in the meadow hunting in my dreams.”
Me, “That’s very human-like. The older I get the more my dreams try to pull together pieces of places that I have been. I often find myself in a problem-solving situation that I never quite have enough time to finish.”
Goose, “We all try to solve problems in our dreams. I am always trying to open a can of pop-top cat food. My dreams have never figured out how my two paws can do that.”
Me, “You are very talented with paws, I have seen you take your paw and wrap it around a knob on a cabinet door and pull it open.”
Goose, “Yes, my paws are big enough to do that, It is easier if one of my sisters is there to use their paw to hold the door open while I change positions.”
Me, “I haven’t been to my special place in the park here in a while. It is a bench among the tall oaks with a tiny brook nearby. I am hoping that as warm weather returns, I will get back there. I know that I need it.”
Goose, “Hopefully you still have some of those wild places stored away in your mind.”
Me, “Yes, I have written about my special wild placesmany times. Those posts and the pictures attached to them are a great help.”
Goose, “We all need to pull ourselves out of our daily live to get some perspective.”
Me, “I agree. Once I did it so successfully that in my dreams I was flying fifty feet above my life. I still remember how vivid those images were. I could see things I never imagined. This was in the eighties, well before drones. It was very different that any experience in my real life.”
Goose, “Our brains work in mysterious ways. Mine is telling me that I need a nap.”
Me, “Yeah, I think you are overdue.”
Our technological infirmity 