The Miscalculation
On wildness, conditioning, and the sovereign art of knowing what you need.
A Monty Story about the ancient and ongoing business of being pressed into a shape that someone else finds easier to manage — and the quiet, sovereign work of returning to yourself.
Featuring: one hindleg, one lavender bush, one hooman who learned to wait, and several centuries of people who didn’t.
I had a plan.
Say nothing. Show nothing. Be found nowhere. A solid plan. Elegant in its simplicity. Sir Montgomery does not report to hooman. Sir Montgomery does not submit to the funnel. Sir Montgomery has rights.
Under the table. Eyes down. Still as stone.
The table has sheltered many things over the years — secrets, crumbs, the occasional mouse I chose not to finish. It would shelter me now. I simply needed to remain invisible for, conservatively, the rest of my life.
Then the footsteps changed direction.
They had noticed.
I know those footsteps. Every variation. The morning-coffee shuffle. The distracted kitchen wander. The I-am-coming-to-love-you-whether-you-want-it-or-not stride. This was the third one. My stomach dropped approximately six centimetres.
I ran.
Not my finest moment. Noted. But the mind calculates faster than dignity can intervene, and my mind had already done the math: hooman sees wound, hooman goes quiet in that particular way, hooman produces the bag. The bag that smells of antiseptic and doom. The bag that means the carrier. The carrier that means the white room. The white room that means Dr. Whoever-They-Are touching my hindleg with cold competence and zero respect for my feelings on the matter.
I know how this goes. I have been there. The ankle. We do not discuss the ankle.
So yes. I fled. Through the garden door, into the preferred corner behind the lavender. Sat very still. Reassessed.
The situation: my hindleg hurt. The cut — sustained during a territorial disagreement I will not be elaborating on — was, in my professional assessment, manageable. Painful? Certainly. Undignified? Extremely. I had cleaned it. I had rested. My body knows what to do. Mine generally does, given the basic respect of being left alone.
My concern was not the wound.
My concern was being seen with it.
I was eleven when I learned that trick.
Not the hiding behind lavender — mine was quieter than that. A face that said fine. A posture that said nothing to see here. A very early understanding that being known completely was not the same as being safe.
I watched Monty from the window and recognized the calculation. Not the fear of the vet exactly. The fear underneath the fear. The one that asks: if they see this, do they still see me — or do I become, from that moment, a thing to be managed?
I stood at the window and I made myself wait.
What happened next is the part I did not expect.
They waited.
Real waiting. Not the anxious hovering I feared. Observation. They looked at how I walked, what I ate, whether my eyes were bright. And then — remarkable, truly remarkable — they made a decision I was not consulted on, but which was, for once, the correct one.
They decided to trust that I knew.
I want to be clear: I already knew this. Being believed is a different thing entirely.
By Monday, the wound was doing what wounds do when treated with rest, dignity, and the absence of antiseptic-smelling strangers. The leg worked. I walked without favouring it unduly. I ate everything put in front of me. I sat in the garden and assessed my territory with the calm authority of a British Shorthair who has, once again, handled his own affairs.
There is a word for what Monty did under that table. Several words, actually, depending on which century you learned them in. Fear. Shame. The particular guilt of coming home with a wound when you have a reputation to maintain — as though the wound changes who you are.
What I know, from the inside, is that none of those feelings belong to the creature who has them. They were put there. Carefully, over time, by systems that needed everyone legible — readable at a glance, sortable, predictable.
At the window I let go of my expectations. Of what care should look like. Of what I should do. I trusted his wildness because I am slowly learning to trust my own again. The conditioning took 53 years. The re-wilding takes five, and counting. It is work. It does not stop being work.
My hooman watched from the window. I could feel it — that attention, the one that doesn’t grab, doesn’t rush, just witnesses.
I blinked once. Slowly.
They understood.
So did I.
— Sir Montgomery, British Shorthair, field medic, sovereign subject, currently accepting light admiration from a respectful distance
I suspect I am not the only one who knows where the lavender is. You may tell me. I am listening.
When did you learn to hide your wholeness? Share your moment — I’d love to hear it.
Love, Jay
While we were writing this, a story broke in Germany that belongs here.
Felix Grammelsberger and Sophia Westling should be in Bormio right now. Ski mountaineering is making its Olympic debut. They are not there.
They were removed from the German national squad after raising concerns about a blood study conducted on their team by the DAV — the German Alpine Club. Athletes reported up to 60 blood draws in a matter of hours, untrained personnel, contaminated equipment. Some participants were minors. Consent forms were missing. When Westling raised concerns as deputy athlete representative she was called hysterical and threatened. A legal opinion found indications of bodily harm, coercion and aiding bodily harm against one or both federation officials involved.
The Staatsanwaltschaft Traunstein is currently evaluating whether to open criminal proceedings.
Meanwhile Hermann Gruber, the sporting director named in the complaint, is in Bormio. Coaching the team. Business as usual.
The DAV’s response: we regret that a conflict arose.
The source is ARD, Germany’s public broadcaster. No English language coverage exists yet. Find it. Share it.
Sovereign subjects. Not data to be extracted.
If you found your way to the lavender in these pages, consider subscribing. Jay writes. I supervise. The treats, should you feel moved to send them, go directly to me. Jay has enough.
Brilliant. Thank you for sharing this wisdom and awareness, Monty (and Jay). ⭐⭐⭐
Best Substack Feline writer! 4 Meows. On a more serious note, the whole thing about wanting to hide the would has been very real to me lately. My wound is being thrown in my face, and its exhausting staying silent and just going about my work.