A few weeks ago I had a nightmare. In it, I was that person I’ve been running away from my whole life. You know the one. The person you don’t want to be, the one you dread lives inside you, the one you don’t want anyone else to see. The one, in our worst moments, we’re terrified we might end up becoming. The “failure” who looks back and sees a pile of regrets. That is the person, the nightmare, that I was living in this dream.
I was in some drab, dark house with vague people around me and a long hallway. The feeling was that I was a “loser”. (To me there’s really no such thing, but nightmares take no prisoners.) I had zero self esteem, hated my job, myself and my life. (If ever there was a time to be confronted with our worst fears, a Pandemic fits the bill).
Someone asked me to foster a litter of newborn kittens, just for a few weeks, then they would come back for them. All I had to do was take care of them until then. I said yes and put them in a room at the end of the hall.
In the next moment, it was three weeks later and suddenly I realized “oh my God, the kittens!”. I had completely forgotten about them the entire time, as soon as I’d shut the door. In that moment was the most heartwrenching pain and realization, they had all starved to death, and now I had to go see what I’d done. I ran down the hallway crying and screaming “Nooooo! I’m so sorry!” I opened the door, horrified at what I would find. There were large pillows and sheets and blankets everywhere. I didn’t see any of them and started frantically throwing the pillows off and looking under the blankets.
And one by one, they each crawled out from under, toward me, alive! Tiny little malnourished meowing things, but oh Holy Glorious Day they were alive! I swooped each of them up, smothering them with kisses, “oh god my dear little one I am so sorry, thank you for living for me”. Then I woke up, crying tears of joy and relief. Relief that they survived, that I didn’t cause their deaths, and of course that it was all just a terrible nightmare. I wasn’t that person after all, who was so ashamed and guilty. Thank you thank you thank you. I had another chance.
We’ve been battling our worst case scenarious throughout this Age of Quarantine, in a limbo between worlds. The time has come and we can feel it, something huge is being birthed. It is now upon us. Yet Quarantine is our holding pattern, between the old self and the new.
In real life, there has been a stray kitty showing up on occasion around my block. I hadn’t seen it, but about six months ago my housemate had been woken up every night for a week with scratching at her window. She caught a glimpse of what she thought could be a kitten, as it was small, and it would run away each time she’d open the window. We had to get the landlord to install little animal resistant rubber spikes to the roof tiles near her window. After that, the kitty did not return. When I mentioned it to my neighbor, she said it sounded like the same cat that she occasionally sees on her back porch. It would run whenever she got near it.
I secretly hoped I might come across it myself sometime and try to rescue it too. Well, a few weeks after that nightmare, I was in my living room about to do my exercises. I’d resolved to have this daily practice during the lockdown, my dancer training, my yoga, my rituals, and had brought my computer to the dining room table for the videos I use for inspiration. When I opened the computer, I was facing the front window to the lawn and trees out front. And when I looked out, I saw a cat in a tree! I instantly went out to it, doubting it would come down, could this be that same cat I’d hoped to see?
I walked towards the tree, I called up to it, “hello there sweetie” and it meowed back at me. Then, lo and behold it came running down the tree and right over to my feet. A scrawny, and quite exotic looking little thing. It reminded me of a lynx, it was gray and black, with white chest and paws just like my own cat, and a white streak on it’s forehead. I picked it up and it did not struggle but instead just let me hold it. I thought, “ok, you’re coming in with me”. I had a feeling it was a she.
She jumped up on the kitchen counter and looked around, but when my housemate’s cat suddenly screeched and lunged at her, she ran into the pantry closet and hid in the corner behind some grocery bags. She had turned her back to me, facing the wall, and hissed and growled at me when I got close. “I’m sorry, I know you trusted me, and now you think I’ve betrayed you”. I put my housemate’s cat upstairs in his room, put water and food down next to kitty and closed the door to let her relax. I texted my housemate a picture, “oh yes, that’s the cat!” she said. I then put ads on Nextdoor and Craigslist and asked a bunch of neighbors if they were missing a cat. No, I waited overnight, nothing.
I’d gone back several times to check on her and she later stopped growling and let me pet her. I felt bonded to her already and was starting to feel a sadness that I couldn’t keep her. If my housemate’s cat wasn’t here, my own cat is a gentle soul, I likely would have. The next day I took her to the Humane Society, who’d assured me they’d check for a chip, and if nobody claimed her she’d be put up for adoption. They said they wouldn’t euthanize.
I put her in my cat crate and we got in the car. As we drove, I talked to her and sang to her “it’s all going to be okay”. When I parked, before going in, sitting in the car, I let her out of the crate and took her in my arms. She held on and nuzzled into my neck and shoulder, while straightening up and looking out with bright eyes at the big wide world; comforted yet dying to explore it.
I took her in and put her on the counter. They scanned for a chip, there was none. I filled out the intake form and asked if they could let me know what sex it was. They’d take her inside and the vet would check. “And do you think she’s a kitten?” I asked. “No, she’s fully grown, she’s just small”. I then said goodbye to her, and let her go, into a protected world of tameness. Now she was safe, but I’d taken something sacred away from her. They came back to say, “she’s a girl”.
The next day, I saw they’d posted a picture of her on the website, under ‘lost and found’. There she was, being taken good care of by loving humans. I’ve looked at her photo a lot since then, wanting to absorb her fierce, adventurous, mysterious energy into me.
My lucky number, the number I constantly see in moments of significance, and my birthday number, is 22. When I got back to the car that day and looked at the receipt of her intake form, on the top right corner there it was. She was number 22.
I rescued her from the wild. But did I? Is that what she wanted? I’ll never know, and part of me wants to take her back and set her free. She rescued me, from a fear I no longer need. Thank you sweet, beautiful creature, for showing up just in time. For leading me into the new wild, the new frontier, with grace, innocence and strength. Your spirit lives in me now. I will need it. And I promise, I will use it.
Lia Wilbourn 