A Man & His Cat, book 2, by Umi Sakurai. Square Enix Co Ltd

In this second volume of the sweet manga series about an elderly widower and his new cat, they continue to discover each other. Fukumaru patrols Mr. Kanda’s house, day and night, making sure his human is safe. Mr. Kanda learns that a cat can take up all of a bed, or sleep on any part of his body- and Fukumaru is a heavy cat. Fukumaru slowly learns to trust that Mr. Kanda will love him, no matter what.

A Man & His Cat, book 1, by Umi Sakurai. Square Enix Co. Ltd, 2018 

An adorable anime collection! A recent widower, who had agreed to get a cat right before his wife died, decides to honor his promise and goes to the pet store. There he finds a fat, almost year-old kitten, who has been passed over again and again for being ‘ugly’.  He doesn’t even have a name. For some reason, the man and the cat ‘click’ and he picks the cat up- a man who has never touched an animal before. The drooly, exotic short-hair cat sniffles his way into the man’s heart. Once home, they have to get used to each other- ‘home’ is a new concept to the cat. The strip is entirely about, well, the man and his cat. Sweet and engaging.

 

Circle of Stones: Woman’s Journey to Herself, by Judith Duerk (Circle of Stones Series, Volume 1) Innisfree Press, Inc. 1993, 1999.

I picked this book up used because books about women’s issues and spirituality tend to interest me. After I started looking through it, I found that it was part poetry, part meditation, and part workbook. At only 123 pages- and some of the pages are blank or have few words on them- I thought it might be a rip-off. I was wrong; some parts are surprisingly deep for how slight they are.

Even though it says nothing about it on the cover, a surprising amount of writing is devoted to dealing with depression. She looks at depression almost as a normal state- a gift, even, that causes us to look within. Having dealt with depression my entire life, I hate the idea that depression is a normal state. I agree with her that having a circle of women, ones who surround us all our lives, would make it easier to deal with depression, or any mental state, for that matter. (it also bothers me that we are ignoring men with depression)

I do feel it would be good to have these circles of women, good to know we were not alone walking through life. It would be good to have guidance, and to know someone had our backs. Some people are not lucky enough to have that. It’s not an ingrained piece of our society.

Every chapter ends with a line about “How would your life have been if…” you had a circle of women surrounding and backing out. I did appreciate those; I may take the time to at least think about those and maybe even write it down. They are good meditations even if I don’t have a drum circle. This would be a good workbook for a women’s group. And, perhaps most important, I feel these ideas would be equally good for all sexes and genders. We all need someone to have our back. We all need people to explain how life works, and what is happening to us as we grow up, and as we age.