Young Writers Project, an independent nonprofit based in Burlington, engages young people to write and use digital media to express themselves with clarity and power, and to gain confidence and skills for school, the workplace and life.
Check out the most recent issue of The Voice, Young Writers Project’s monthly digital magazine. Click here.
Each week, VTDigger features a writing submission – an essay, poem, fiction or nonfiction – accompanied by a photo or illustration from Young Writers Project.
YWP publishes about 1,000 students’ work each year here, in newspapers across Vermont, on Vermont Public Radio and in YWP’s monthly digital magazine, The Voice. Since 2006, it has offered young people a place to write, share their photos, art, audio and video, and to explore and connect online at youngwritersproject.org. For more information, please contact Susan Reid at sreid@youngwritersproject.org.
“Cats are a man’s best friend,” they say. (That’s how it goes… right?) This week’s featured writer, Orin Paxton of Burlington, learns to find small, special moments of peace in a hectic world by pausing to nuzzle and observe a feline friend.
The wonders of having a cat
By Orin Paxton, 16, of Burlington
Now and then, I am struck with the epiphany that I am not the only consciousness in this world. This realization does not come when I talk with other people, but rather when I am with an animal. It happens most often with my cat, and I am always amazed by the realization that he is right there, in that moment with me.
Our interactions are somewhat peculiar. He refuses to sit on my lap, and barely tolerates being held. But if he is lying on my bed and I lie down next to him, he becomes incredibly friendly. He will get up and start rubbing his face against mine, purring loudly. After several minutes of this, he will lie down next to me, and I have the privilege of watching him.
The level of detail and similarity is astonishing. The fur on his face is soft and fine, with intricate patterns on his nose and under his eyes, which are not a solid color. They are green, unevenly tinted with copper, and remarkably similar to mine. And when he yawns and closes his eyes, I yawn too, and lay my head down next to his.
I know this moment will not last. Eventually, he will grow bored of sitting next to me and wander off to find somewhere else to sleep. But I know this will happen again. I’ll come into my room to find him on my bed and I’ll lie down, both of us enjoying each other’s company without needing to say anything.
In a time when I am always rushing to finish any old thing, or start a new thing, these are wonderful moments that make me feel as though I have all the time in the world to just exist, right here.
