Thoughts follow summer clouds in their lazy run over the sky.
Suddenly I remembered a quote of a fairy tale writer, Hans Christian Andersen, it was hidden somewhere in a corner of my memory and suddenly it popped up without any apparently logical reason.
“Just living is not enough... One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
Freedom, a word full of responsibilities, also in its definition.

Freedom doesn’t mean to do all what one wishes, it’s illusory and then it can condition others’ freedom and if we don’t respect others’ freedom and autonomy, indirectly we spoil also the essence of our own freedom.
I think freedom means having the possibility of choice.
Being free is to be responsible for one’s own choices and to have the faculty to examine alternatives and to accept what one chooses, including the possibility to change.
I have chosen to spend the summer my own way and I feel free and rewarded by this possibility.
Suddenly I perceived a discreet presence, I looked over my book and I found the serious glance of a furry visitor.
It was a very enjoyable little moment.
Cats are, in my opinion the most free among all domestic animals, for this reason I like and respect them so much.
Cats don’t belong to anyone and they are always in balance among their own choices.
I fell like paraphrasing the quote:
“Being on holiday is not enough... One must have moderate sunshine, freedom, many books and a cat visiting on soft silent paws”
(Just to satisfy a possible curiosity the cat doesn’t live with me, she is an independent cat who has decided that my parent’s in law’s neighbourhood is her territory and she comes always to ask for fish - not to beg, to ask – when my husband cleans it.
Usually he cleans the fish where I was sitting to read.
The cat thought I might supply her for fish as well and was very annoyed to see me with a book in my hands instead.
This is the reason of her interrogative and haughty look.
She graciously gave me the time to take a picture in a hurry, and then she left with dignity.)