My kitten Abner, aka Raptor Boy, is six months old, fully vaxxed and recently neutered, and is now allowed outside for short periods of time. This morning, quite early, he expressed interest in such an adventure. I opened the door, and he squatted on the threshold, hedging his bets, until he heard a loud sound, perhaps the changing of pressure inside a fuel drum, and darted back inside. One hour later, he made the same mixed-message request, but this time he girded up his tiny tiger-striped loins and darted out into the front yard. I pledged to myself to come back down and let him in after a few minutes, went back upstairs, and fell asleep in the TV room.

Four hours later, having slumbered peacefully through the arrival of the garbage truck, I woke to the sound of the fuel truck backing into our cul-de-sac. Knowing that my poor baby would be terrified, I rushed to the front door and flung it open. The truck operator smiled and waved, but no sign of my ten-pound furry baby child. I opened both front and back door, and called “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” even knowing he was in no way imprinted on that phrase. My calls, however, did cause several of the neighborhood dogs to demonstrate keen interest in what might be transpiring on my side of the fence.

Wisely, I left the front door ajar, feeling only slightly chagrinned over the fact that I did not also turn off the diesel stove that is right by said door. No, I left the stove to carry the double burden of heating the front yard as well as the house and retired to the dining room for coffee. Sure enough, as soon as I stepped away from the door, I heard a thump. Abner had leapt over the jug of antifreeze I had used as a door stop, and landed in the middle of the mud room, eyes huge, fur extended along his backbone, and tail like a large-sized bottle brush. “Mom!” his eyes said. “Where were you when the monsters came?”

I am reminded of my father speaking about a family friend, a young stay-at-home mother in the 1960’s, whose only child was starting kindergarten. This mother spoke in heart-breaking tones of being separated from her very heart, said heart being driven away over the dusty horizon by the school bus. “Oh,” the young mother wailed, “she will be taken away from me, with her little face pressed against the glass! She’ll die! I’ll die! Oh, I should never have been a mother!”

I have always trusted that the child’s teachers and bus drivers were kind, that the little girl herself navigated school and society to become a successful adult; while her mother, though never loving her daughter any less, gained a new sense of self and of purpose, and got out of the house on her own occasionally. Beyond all our respective front doors lie on the one hand terrible dangers, and on the other marvelous adventures. Let us all gird up our loins and see what’s out there.

For your further edification:

Gird up your loins – Idioms by The Free Dictionary