Half a Baby Bunny

I'm going to cheat now. For whatever reason, my thoughts today turned to an event and a subsequent  post from a blog I wrote in 2014. That year, I challenged myself to fall in love with something every day and write about it. And I did. Every damn day. For a year. The blog was called "Falling on Purpose."

One of the things I love about writing is that when you begin to write something, you don't necessarily know where the writing will lead you. That was true in this case. I decided to fall in love with half a dead bunny. I wasn't sure why. But as I continued trying to sort it out through writing, I discovered something figurative lurking behind the obvious. And I don't know why this post came to mind today, but it seemed worth sharing with you. So here it is:

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Half a Baby Bunny

Let me take you back to my first post and the Billy Collins poem that was my inspiration.  

In the very first stanza, Collins falls in love:

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

Let me remind you, too, of my June 15 post, in which my killer cat took down a pesky chipmunk.  I could hardly be angry with her for her murderous instincts, as I was the one who commissioned her to do so.  But I was able, nonetheless, to forgive the tiny rodent for the damage done in my garden, and to fall in love 

with him.

But this time, Cassie the Killer may have gone too far.  Last night, I woke to that terrible sound 

of crunching bones, and figured that Cassie had caught another mouse.  When she devours 

her prey, she usually cleans her plate except for the carefully removed stomach and 

maybe the head, so I felt no need to get up in the middle of the night to clean up.  Imagine my 

surprise (and my scream) this morning when I stepped into the living room to find the back half 

of a baby bunny on the floor.  Not a pretty sight.  (I am sparing you a picture.)  The stomach 

had been removed, but there was blood, and (forgive me for being graphic here) 

the poor little thing must have pooped his pants in fear, because there was that, too, 

minus the pants.  And, of course, there was the whole back end of the bunny, little legs and tail.

I admit, I was pissed at the cat.  Pissed at her for killing a baby bunny and pissed at her for

leaving me her mess to clean up.  But you remember that my mission with this blog is to fall 

in love, not fall in hate.  So I forgave the cat again, and considered falling in love with the 

half a bunny.

The question is, "Which half?"  Did I fall in love with the furry back end, the tiny legs, the fluffy tail, 

the isolated tummy, the blood and the poop?  Or did I fall in love with the half that disappeared?  

The half that was settling in my cat's belly and lulling her into a morning nap?

Do we fall in love with what is present or what is missing?  The seen or the unseen?  The known 

or the unknown?  The reality or the memory?

I'll let you think that one over and decide for yourself.