CAT'S CRADLE

A recent discussion on Nextdoor, our grapevine, concerned a cat that had stranded itself in a tree, wailing for days, a difficult problem. Call the fire department, call Davey Tree, animal control, a contractor with a ladder for a tree three stories high, but the weather was foul and no one wanted to try. One suggested remedy was to get a high pressure hose and blast the cat down. Others offered pity. There was an offer of money, an offer of physical assistance for the rescue mission. Interest intensified when a picture was posted showing the cat's branch was in a palm tree. A pithy comment, echoing out of our former orchards, made sense: “Have you ever seen a dead cat in a tree?” I am tempted to call that comment good horse sense.

To speak of a grapevine is to risk an anachronism. Yet whether or not your branch is in a glass tower, the countryside is becoming legendary. A shared history created during hayride days is becoming unintelligible. Families with ancestors, with parents and children having a home in a place on the earth – all this is being uprooted.

Undisturbed, layers of the forest floor cycle life, growing unobserved. The canopy above weathers storms and wars, stupidity, recalling galactic reaches that outpace time. And this has so far escaped a middle school vegetarian lunch line. All the components that we have forgotten or don't want to think about are sharing nutrients, feeding each other. It's a gone gumbo. The unacknowledged back beat of musicians. I think about this once in awhile, a kind of seasoning for ramen noodles. Nothing worthwhile escapes this kitchen.

Not so long ago the term worthwhile skewed towards units of production, or tonnage of national defense. It commandeered an almost religious halo: progress is our most important product. Millions of air bag recalls.

And the climate roiling. By now unheeded warnings have turned to bitter soup. Certainly there are still diehards proclaiming a hoax. But even the media have stopped referring to an inconvenience.

Watch the tendrils grow. They corral space, as in a spiral staircase. What does a grapevine know?

On paper, a spiral starts at the point of a pen and sweeps out until reaching an edge. The mind operating the pen doesn't have to confine itself to a sheet of paper. Above and below, two other dimensions exist. If, as the mind explores, the limits of the spiral schematic are ignored, no limits are encountered. The spiral stops nowhere. Infinitely and infinitesimally, it is unbound.

When the pen and paper world is superseded, its denizens may decry speculation, unprovable. But this view will yield to experience. The grapevine finds its way.

And that's the cat's meow.