Pictures of You: Jennifer Pieroni

“Jump,” by Jennifer Pieroni

 Here I am at the age of four training a kitten.

If I could, I’d invite five kittens like this in today, just to watch what they do. I can’t. It’s unfortunate that in my late thirties, I’m suddenly allergic and also the responsibility of the litter box is a constant back and forth between my husband me, neither one of us eager to own the job of cleaning it. So we have just one cat.

 I have never thought about the earliest circumstances that led me to understand how little control I have of others. My current opinion is: I have none. It’s like if I could have all of the kittens in the world, I wouldn’t condescend to them. I wouldn’t expect them to oblige me, not in any way, because I know they probably won’t. I know they might not ever.

Because I’ve a fresh familiarity with the mind of a four year old, I can begin to imagine what’s going on here. Here I am training a kitten. Jump! I might be saying. Jump! And there’s the kitten, perched, looking me face-on. Nope! Nope! It’s not going to Jump! Maybe I whined, maybe I complained, maybe I felt ineffective and worthless.

Not that I’m wise now, but I think I know some things about what one can expect from another. The similarities between us do not matter. Or the love. Or even the stark difference in our advantages. The cat we have now was bred by a hoarder residing in a trailer park in the seedy part of the closest north-south highway. I would never boss this cat, because if left alone, I know there are more than a few things she’d like to be doing that would give her some pleasure.

You live together with a kitten in the same way you have to live together with a person, with all of the people, relinquishing your arrogance as best as you can. You sit nearby, and you wait, and they Jump! Or they don’t, and you get over it.

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Jennifer Pieroni is the author of the novella Danceland. She studied writing at Emerson College, and now lives on the north shore of Massachusetts with her husband and son. http://jenniferpieroni.com/