Waking up and remembering that it was Valentine's Day, I quickly put myself together and hustled out of the chef's apartment before the idea of having a coffee registered as an obligation to either of us. The air was crisp but not frigid, and the morning sun was white-bright in a metallic sky. I decided to walk the two and half-ish miles home to Jamaica Plain. And in the same breath of invigorated resolve, I also decided that I was going to get a cat that day.
In Celtic folklore, there is a mystical idea of 'thin places,' where one can feel the pulse of energy that exists between two worlds, between two dimensions of existence. I'm most certainly misappropriating a term that has sacred connotations, but at this particular moment in my life, twenty-seven and in between cities, in between relationships, in between youth and adulthood, I felt as though I was living in a more profane sort of 'thin place.' There was another side of my own life I couldn’t see, but I could feel its pull, I could feel it drawing me towards it, an unknown.
The MSPCA was barely a five minute walk from my house. Heading up Perkins Street and across South Huntington, I crossed the vast parking lot behind the hospital towards the adoption center, deserted-looking on a Monday afternoon in February. I stated my intentions and was invited to enter the inevitably depressing kennel where rows of furry orphans waited, also stuck in an in-between place.
I made my way through the room one cage at a time, greeting each cat with cheerful banter like I was at a cocktail party. Some sat resigned and stared at me wanly from the backs of their cages, and others were eager, meowing and head-butting, flirting for my attention. I might've been in there for hours, I had no idea. How could I choose? And then, almost to the end of the row, just before the exit, a black paw with pink pads reached out. A paw with a thumb sticking straight up, extended as though waiting for a handshake.
Here was a dapper-looking tuxedo cat, with a shiny black coat and a fluffy white ascot, a nose as pink as a brand new eraser and big waggly thumbs on both paws. I asked the attendant if I could take him out and hold him. He didn't hesitate and settled gamely into my arms without any resistance. He wasn't a kitten but he was young, maybe just a year or so old. It turned out he'd be found wandering around Logan Airport. Sometimes these guys were called 'Boston Thumb Cats,' the attendant told me, carried in by the ships originating in the harbor. I needed no further convincing. This was my guy.
It was Andy the cat who carried me to the other side, out of the thin place and into the thick of things. I think we split his nine lives between us, divvying them up over our fourteen years together in different places, with different loves, following different pursuits, and dreaming different dreams. Now it's my second Valentine's Day without him and once again I find myself adrift between existences.
According to the traditional notion, the more you experience 'thin places,' the sharper your senses become. If my own reading of things is perhaps less supernatural, I'm nevertheless trying to connect to the power of this transitory moment, even if it feels more like I'm being pushed instead of pulled forward. Being in between implies a state of change, of processing, of transformation. There's another side, I can feel it, but I have no idea what's there.
I just hope there's a cat waiting for me to bring it home.
Changes of Heart
I’m still getting back into the newsletter-writing groove, and now I’ve gone and shaken things up yet again by re-platforming an already shaky operation. But that’s just how I do, I guess. One thing I’m working on is figuring out how I want to put together the various odds and ends of interesting things I’ve read that I think you, too, might like to read. I feel like link curation is sort of part and parcel of the whole newsletter experience. I’ve always liked doing it but I think it was a more successful and compelling exercise when I was putting in the effort to editorialize my selections a bit more. Thoughts?
In any case, I am not there yet today. Next time. I’m just happy I got this far.
So instead, I’m offering you a poem. A love poem, of course, from one of my favorite artists, Stephen Powers. It’s gone now, but his (see above) Love Letter to Brooklyn mural appeared for years on a parking garage downtown on Hoyt Street. Sometime when I’d be walking home on Dekalb, I’d spy a snippet of it and my heart would lift. Happy Valentine’s Day.
YOU TAKE ANY TRAIN
MEET ME DOWNTOWN FOR A FEW EVERY STREET CARRIES US HOME
BORN BUSY AS A BROOKLYN BOUND B I AM MADE TO LEAVE
I AM MADE TO RETURN
HOME
ONWARD UPWARD
I WAS NURTURED HERE I COP FUTURES HERE
LIFE IS A FIGHT FOR LIFE AIDAN SEEGER IS HERE
FROM NINETY-NINE TO NINETY-NINE AND FROM NINE TO NINE
WE COULD SHARE NINETY-NINE STARES ENDURE NINETY-NINE CARES
SAY NINETY-NINE SWEARS
AND BE FINE NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE TIME
I AM NINETY-NINE PERCENT SURE THIS LOVE WE SHARE IS 99.9999999999999999999% PURE
I GREW UP IN YOUR ARMS, RAISED TO TAKE FLIGHTS OWNING THE GROUND I HELD STEEPED IN YOUR STORIES
I AM UP WAITING FOR YOU
DOLLAR HERE DOLLAR THERE
HUNDRED HUSTLERS HUSTLE FOR HUNDREDS
SLEEPLESS ENTREPRENEUR TURNS A BUCK INTO FOUR
BARKERS CALL ME TO SHOP AT STORES SOME ARE SELLING ROCKETS
SOME ARE CHECKING POCKETS
SOME ARE ON THE DOCKET
I WALK UP THE BLOCK, MONEY IN SOCK PAST PITFALLS THAT FACE ME
TO BUY CLOTHES AT MACY’S
Dave at The End of Sixth Grade c. 1980
TURN TO ME
I SEE ETERNITY
EUPHORIA
IS YOU FOR ME
Did you think I’d forget?
You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs.