After a six-week absence, he reappeared last night.
When I first came down this morning, he wasn’t there. Gone again? But then, an hour later, there he was.
Red is something in between wild and domesticated.
Deer in the fields, birds in my yard, squirrels twirling in chase around the trunk of our giant pine, rabbits under the azaleas—any wildlife encounter, close or distant, elicits in me a ludicrous thrill.
Red evokes that same giddiness.
“Red!” I exclaimed last night. “You’re back!” And I rushed to bring him food and cream.
Sometimes he hangs around all day, lounging on our back porch. If we come out, he bolts to a safe distance. If we busy ourselves with noisy yardwork, he leaves.
For weeks in a row, sometimes months, I come down in the morning and he’s sitting by his bowls, waiting. He’ll hang out all day, then disappear at night.
Then, especially following a storm, I won’t find him waiting for food and cream in the morning.
I don’t know where Red goes when he leaves.
Weeks pass. I’m making peace with his absence—he’s lost for good, been claimed or killed—and he returns.
“Red! You’re back!”
And I rush to fill his bowls.
I don’t know where he goes when he’s not here. He seems neither feral nor domesticated. Yet I allow the possibility that he belongs to someone but is super shy around strangers.
The Questions
I know my comfort with unanswered questions and multiple answers is one reason I found my spiritual home in Unitarian Universalism.
We don’t have to answer all the questions. And we don’t have to all answer a question in the same way.
Why does Red go? Where does he go? Why does he return? Why does he stay away so long?
I don’t and may never know.
Don’t think I don’t hear those of you who find singular answers, dark, crisp lines between things, mumbling your “answers” about Red and what I should or shouldn’t do.
I can hold space for you too.
And I remain comfortable in the discomfort of uncertainty. Sometimes it feels like a superpower because chaos doesn’t daunt me. But mostly, it’s a good life practice.
After all, life is uncertain.
I don’t know where Red goes.
I only know that sometimes, he comes back.
What are your unanswered questions? Are you comfortable sitting with them?
©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserves. 2026.
Recent Comments