I am propped up in bed in the middle of the day, because we have a new kitten, and I am told that I should spend as much time as I can with him.

These are early days, formative moments to bond with the little feline.

He loves this bedroom with the small adjacent dressing room. They are the only two rooms we have made available to him, to keep him safe and help him feel secure.

I’ve been reading about cats, and apparently they need to have lairs – private places to retreat and rest.

He loves his lair.

So, too, this is my lair.

I watch the little critter as he bounces and flies across the rug, rolling felt balls across the hardwoods, and swinging at feathery toys.

He is an arc of movement, flinging across the bed, needing very little rest.

But when he does decide to retire, he tiptoes to the end of the down duvet and curls in the one streak of late afternoon sunshine he can find.

He is still. A small black patch of smooth fur.

Often, after exhausting myself of play options, lair time for me can begin to feel tedious. The housework and errands I need to do pull at me. I just want to move.

Sequestered like this, I try to sink into a discipline of observation.

I observe my impatience and when it arises, I use my ears.

I hear the tiny thumps of paws underneath the bed. The teeny wet licks of a tongue on food bowl.

The scratch of claws against a hanging chenille bathrobe.

He is watchful, tail flicking, when he hears the dog climbing the steps.

He has his ways of letting me know what he needs – walking up my supine front and delicately sniffing my face.

Such graceful, silly things.

We have taken him downstairs a few times to get oriented, and he shows only a bit of interest. When he’s done with the home tour he scampers lightly up the stairs.

Back to his lair.

I think we all have our lair-like places. The rooms we feel safest, where we can let down, curl up and lick our wounds.

For all of the isolation we endured during the pandemic, one thing rang true: there is something essential in having a room of one’s own.

A place to cultivate silence, or quell worry, or entertain ideas.

A place to rest, to snack, to rub creamy lotion into dry elbows.

To read, and read some more.

To make a list in a blank book of all of the books I have read that year. And I will highlight the best ones, and grade them A-D.

But time in this lair is time slowed down, distilled, stretched and folded over like salt water taffy.

But time in this lair is time slowed down, distilled, stretched and folded over like salt water taffy.

I love this lair time and just when it feels too tiresome and boring, a pair of black batwings will rise above the pillow just to see what’s up.

And once, he came up from under the bed, with dust clinging to his head and mouth, like he’d been lathering in a shower.

He sneezes, the tiniest sound I can imagine.

And then there is a scratch beneath the tiny collar, and my two fingers stroking a plump belly. And I am refreshed.

And all of this will pass the time.

But these activities, I will eventually discover, will be the time.

A lair is the place and the time to give over to the quiet, the inactivity, the nothingness, even.

The lair will bring me back to myself, to my breath, to my slowed down pulse, to my slowly ticking mind.