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I don’t usually like to write easy pieces, lightweight writing that slides down the gullet like a Hallmark card embedded in olive oil and avocado toast. My writing guru says, and often: “Go for the jugular.” With an almost grim purpose most often I do. It takes a reboot for me to write easy.

In the case of rising in the morning at my age and disposition there is nothing particularly easy about rising many mornings. The aches and pains that have been deferred and banked and enfolded into the mercy of sleep, rise before the rest of the body. They ensure that the principal and interest of small agonies are provided billet prior to the marshalling of any other living spirit. The hope of the morning demands the exercise of spiritual muscles against the resistance that wants to squint everything into a jaundiced eye that has “no” as the answer to everything. Grumpy old men make poor explorers.

Untangling the stuporous wrestle can be hard, especially if it overtakes hours of the day, as it sometimes does when I’ve haven’t quite balanced my herbal sleeping draughts quite right. My almost alchemical potions are mild but speaking of lightweights: I am a push over when it comes to any sort of herbal remedy. There is an onerous heaviness, but the solution has the light touch of angel in charge.

The hope of the morning begins with a burrowing cat. “Tachi” which means sword in Japanese, is a blade of cuddlesome joy, seeking to cleave the edge of the bed and I apart. She will explore the understory of the space between blanket and sheet, until satisfied she can rest comfortably against my side. She then bores into me, and makes sure I rub her belly vigorously, looking at me with trusting and expectant eyes. Trusting that the saturnine inertia of my hapless predicament will be resolved in her favor, and I will rise to reward her morning with her most favorite victuals. Another lesson: Such faith.

Tachi was rescued by my partner Anne about 10 years ago, but you would be hard pressed to place her at that age. With Tachi, the kitten gene simply never turned off. She is excited to be alive. And might I add continuously grateful?

They say there are animals that have awareness that you have rescued them, and the gratitude never turns off. If you are so fortunate as to be companion to such a thrilling yet halcyon beast you are in good fortune: exemplary transmissions of wholesome emotion emanate more often than you can count.

Tachi is in constant verbal communication. She purrs vociferously as she lies by my side, waiting in almost overbrimming hope, that I will come through for her yet one more morning. But even more endearing is the trilling that ensues, upon any exercise of motion, trailing from her like to the tail of the comet, everywhere she goes. Anne on Tachi: “Why walk anywhere when you can run instead?” And Tachi does, running with such enthusiasm that she most often overshoots her mark, like a plane needing more runway. A trill will begin this high-speed sprint down the stairs, a trill will end it. There is wonder and triumph in that almost exotic, almost birdlike sound that pierces the air with an almost mysterious excitement.

Tachi’s culinary passion is scrambled eggs. No doubt, historical. She grew up in a hard street scrabble of survival behind a Dunkin Donuts (think East Coast Starbucks). We surmise that she survived off scraps from the moral equivalent of discarded Egg McMuffins for some time, until, at last, rescued. Another lesson: We never lose the love for what has saved us.

I cook eggs. Neither Anne nor I eat eggs much, so they are prepared for our well-whiskered lip-smacking teacher and companion. If I ever need to be reminded of what focused devotion looks like, I watch Tachi eat eggs. When she is done, I sometimes wonder if I have put an empty clean bowl on the floor by mistake.

Throughout the day, as Tachi revels in the warmth of her heated bucket, like some lottery winner in perpetual vacation on a tropical isle, she will roll over, roll around, and trill if I approach. She seems as happy to see me as a war bride on V-E day. Every time.

Every time, it is a “You had to be there” kind of thing. I am there. I am available for the miracle of Tachi. She will accept no less, and I answer the bell, or rather, the trill. The angel’s trill, heralding something importantly there, beyond anything I can tangibly see. In fortunate moments, I hear it, and connect.