
A rare moment of peaceful contact in the kingdom this morning, Topaz and Wren together for a few seconds, almost a minute, on the stone bench beside me. Wren was so nervous she jumped down shortly after, and once Topaz had made her point she didn’t need to be up there anymore either. Oh well. I’m grateful for occasional signs that maybe these two will one day get along with sincere friendliness — but I’m not attached to that outcome.

Topaz continues to join me at the patio table during morning coffee. Her contentment with this new time together, while Wren chases grasshoppers or wasps or basks in the sun, seems to give her some reassurance that her place in my heart hasn’t been usurped by what she still thinks of as ‘that interloping puppy.’

Who, by the way, could not be cuter, even when I ask her to please try. I’m grateful for living a quiet life with a fragile truce between cats and dogs, for the opportunities I have daily to give comfort, help, or support to others, and for the occasional feeling of being enough just as I am. Why is this such a challenging equilibrium for so many of us? Our culture conditions us to demand more of ourselves and of each other than is reasonably possible, and so we strive or suffer, robbing ourselves of the simple joy of contentment.