Alice crawled out of the bushes Friday while we were herding sheep with Red. I have never really wanted a cat before, but I wanted to keep Alice. She seemed so smart, alert and affectionate to me. I have never really been that closely attached to Minnie- she is really Maria’s cat, but Flo has opened me up a bit to the world of cats to me, she is my cat.

Today Alice went off to Massachusetts to live with the daughter of my friend Lisa Dingle. She will be happy there, it will be a good and loving home for her. It was an interesting experience in perspective for me. I wanted to keep her, I even argued to keep her, but Maria was sensible and intractable. We have two cats, she reminded me,  they need our attention. It is hard work to handle a lively and curious kitten. She is a white cat who might attract the many predators who roam up here – hawks, owls, coyotes, foxes.

There were other practical decisions. Where would she sleep, did I really want three cats in the house on freezing winter nights along with three dogs? How would we keep her from slashing Maria’s fabric, our sofas or curtains?

Still, Alice got to me, I wanted to keep her.

I was walking to Maria’s studio to tell her that we should keep this creature who had popped into our lives – or more likely, been dumped nearby – when she came into the house and told me that she had decided to give the cat to our friend Lisa, her daughter and son-in-law were looking for another cat and would love her. It wasn’t really a joint decision, it had been made.

But I do not believe an animal should ever be brought into a house where one of the people is against it. It isn’t fair to the person or the animal. So it was over.

All animal lovers know that decisions to take in a stray dog or cat are rarely sensible. None of us every really need another animal, we don’t really need dogs or cats in our lives at all in the practical sense of need. It is often – and sometimes sadly- a decision of the heart. I didn’t need Red, or a 3,000 swiss steer or a third donkey.

When I saw the brave little starving creature pop out of a bush as a dog and sheep and a score of people crowded around, my heart decided to keep her, and it maybe that my newly refurbished heart is not really sensible right now.

I don’t really buy the need for a  sensible life, I’d rather have a life full of meaning. I know everything Maria said was true, but were it left to me, I would have kept this cat and figured out a way to make it work. We do not always get our way in life, and very often that is a good thing. Learning that was a gift to me.

This morning, we packed Alice into a crate and sent her off on a journey to Connecticut, where she will live the life of an indoor cat, freed from predators or the travails and dramas of the outdoors. It was a good decision in so many ways, but I told Maria I didn’t really buy it. It was, for me, a sad decision.

I am learning that if you live long enough and keep your mind open, life will spin around you like a kaleidoscope, it will look different every time you open your eyes.