juushika

And then I discovered this, and now all of my complaining seems so very silly.

For my birthday the wonderful reddogdied drew an illustration of me-as-cat (that's my long fur, my fluffy tail, my little face and wispy ears, my paw, my coloring as best anyone knows, my small sleeping curl) asleep on my bed (that's my squishy green modal pillow, my beloved baby blanket in the bottom corner—Dev will love that you can even see the fraying tendrils).

There are no words to describe a gift like this. I can muster words—wonderful, beautiful, perfect come to mind—but at its heart this is a thing without language. It is me-as-cat, wordless and furred and sleeping. I fell in love with reddogdied's art for the conflation of sensation and spirit in his work: the texture of fur, the communication and expression in body and face, that each animal feels real: feels, the thick fur long whiskers sharp teeth sensation of it; real, as in authentic and individual and true.

I experience dysphoria rather than phantom sensations, and so my sense of physical self-as-cat is more absence than presence: it's the fur I should have, but don't; the size I'm not, the movements I can't make. I'm sure that phantom sensations come with their own benefits and drawbacks, but I'll admit I tend to envy them because I want to feel that connection, that sensation—I want to feel that much closer to being animal.

And so something like this—a visual of me as cat, something so personal, so me, yet so textural, so much about fur and body and shape—is invaluable. It is precious. It is so beautiful.

I am desperate for sleep and so I should try to get back to that. I think it will be a little easier now, having seen this. I'll end with two more pictures—the fullsize version of the above, for a closer look at that rich beautiful fur, and a fullsize of the beginning sketch, because I'm in love with it too. By while you're at it, go check out reddogdied's gallery.

(Typing with my new headphones on is so bizarre—I can't hear the keys click at all.)