The older of my felines has become more of a lap cat than ever. She will contentedly nap there for an hour or more, if I don't disturb her, and will lie there quietly even when she is wide awake, staring at whatever it is that cats stare at with such intensity.
When she was younger, she enjoyed making a game of entering the house. When I would go in, I would hold the door open for her and she would pause, and pretend not to be interested, and then, as I closed the door, she would sprint toward it. I would open the door a bit wider, and she would stop and look at me, then glance away, waiting for me to begin closing it again, then dash through at the last minute. Then she lost interest in the game, and seldom played it for years. Recently, she has revived it, but with a variation. I invite her in, she takes a few steps toward the door, then stops and sits. I close the door completely, but looking out the window I can see that she is still waiting, looking at the closed door. I open it again, and she gets up and takes a few more slow steps, then stops again. She will go through this pattern three or four times before she finally consents to stroll in. Every once in a while, she will still make a quick dash, but mostly she moves very slowly. Yet I can tell that she still enjoys the game. She always purrs a bit afterwards. Even very old cats are playful.
Through the window I see that the clouds are thickening, and the bright light is intermittently displaced by a gray shade. A slight breeze stirs the broad leaves of the mulberry tree, so that those at the ends of the branches gently move up and down. It is as though they were waving good-bye. It won't be long before my window view consists of bare twigs and sky and, from time to time, a hawk or two, wheeling and soaring above the aspiring pines.