Six years ago I signed and started my new lease on life. I didn’t have much to put in it but it was a place to call my own. Our own. For a while it was just a mattress on the floor but with years, hope, growth, a whole lot of challenges and wonderful, she’s brimming with magic and memories.
Sometimes the universe throws you the biggest gift when you need it the most – and fuck did I NEED this one. A win that came in the form of vaulted ceilings, glorious sunsets, art and echoes of music and laughter. It encases my evolution, journey and brought me back to versions of me I didn’t know I had. I’m so grateful for my little slice of the world and everything she has shown and given me. She is sanctuary.
These days I am more about looking forward, but sometimes it is also good to look back, if anything to remind me how far I have come.
While Summer is technically not over, and the evil heat orb outside certainly keeps reminding us of it, in my heart she’s done. It starts with R going back to school and Bee going back to Japan. While the time was nowhere near as long as I wished it could be, it’s always a blessing to have Bee back for laughs, her checklist of gluttony and just getting her energy gracing our home. The timing of this visit wasn’t lost on me since she was here for us when Judas got sick and having her support was a fucking gift. It’s almost like she waited for Bee to be here. Despite the lack of time, it was great to do the things we would usually do if she was here: a weekend in Baja, a tasty dinner at Cesarina (a new personal favorite), the traditional pilgrimage to In-N-Out straight from the airport.
R started her Senior year and it’s wild to think she will be 18 in a month. She’s already registered to vote! Where did the time go? That cusp of adulthood is a weird but also an enthralling thing to watch. It has already been a flurry of senior year “things” which will no doubt ramp up as the year progresses. Even seeing her in the cap and gown for her senior portraits was a punch in the feels. I don’t think she truly realizes or knows, despite my telling her, how proud I am of her. How grateful I am to even get to be a part of it all. To be present as much as I have in her formative years is a gift I could never get back. Yes, they came with a lot of turmoil and hardship, but it also has taught us both a lot about perseverance, accountability and what truly matters. Time is the greatest of thieves and I try my best not to squander it. I look forward to what the year to come brings for her. Parenting comes with no manual and I’d like to think I did good thus far, all things considering. I can only hope I have helped arm her with enough weaponry to navigate the next wave of life.
Summer was all about reunion and… departure. Truth be told, I miss my familiar. A month has gone by since Judas left us – not very long and an eternity all at once. I have my days where I make peace with her departure and it being the nature of things. Sometimes we don’t get all the time we hoped for. Her remains came back and holding what is left of her in my hands was gutting. Sometimes all it takes is something simple, a sound, a photo and I am a flood of tears all over again. Her absence is felt. I see it in the spaces that she once filled, now vacant. The stains in the door frames from where she rubbed her face remain. The box she last slept in, still sits on the bathroom floor – her brother is usually seen in it now. I can’t bring myself to remove them just yet. She is missed and it’s palpable. Entering a spooky season without my black cat and friend is just something a bruja should not have to endure. I am very lucky to be shown so much care and support in this process: the messages, notes, gifts, downpour of flowers. I am not sure what I have done to merit the abundance but I try not to question it and just embrace it.
I decided to take a break from the monarchs. It is a lot of work, milkweed is expensive (and they ate A LOT) and after losing Judas, my heart kind of needed a break to tend to me. I successfully hand reared and released a good 40 monarchs! Some didn’t make it that far, sadly. That said, it was a really rewarding and joyous thing to do. Especially taking care of Lt. Dan. All things considering I learned how to do something new! Definitely something I will be doing again when the time and season align.
+/- + Picking passion fruit in the front yard with my t-shirt as a basket + The smell of freshly cut grass + The way He says “Miss Garcia” that will never get old and daydreaming of our next convergence + Laughing and talking shit with Bee + Liz + Shopping with R and Mai and how R’s pants fell down at Joanne’s + The frequency of having Dinah so close + Mini-verse potions with R + Trying new things – and it working out + Parting ways with things that don’t serve me and just take up space – Not having travel plans this year + Plotting a Baba Yaga house for an upcoming art show + The looming possibility of very large change – Change can also be scary and nerve-wrecking – When people you haven’t seen or spoken to in years are still festering and gossiping about shit you supposedly did. + The flurry of colors the sky has been giving as of late – The unfairness of it all + Strolls through Home Goods stacked with Halloween loot. Free serotonin! + How good a liberal use of the block button feels +/- Optimism, even when it’s cautious + KAOS on Netflix was great – made want to do more Greek Mythology art + Lady Gaga + Bruno Mars duet. Talk about caliber vocals! + Ethel Cain and Chappell Roan on heavy rotation. + Plotting Fall, Halloween and birthday shenanigans (18+50! the. fuck.)
She was the runt of the litter and only black kitten in a group of tabbies and her dingus brother Gomez. Found in the wall of a mechanic shop in Philly some time in November and carefully fostered by this lovely girl Rachel, who trusted me enough to take them both. Truth be told, I needed a friend. When you move to the other side of the country, have no local friends and you’re home alone a lot? It made perfect sense and my heart wanted a little shadow. Better yet, needed it. I named her Judas.
This is the thing about Judas, she took YEARS to come around. Many years of routine, trust, treats and it wasn’t till much later she finally decided who was hers. That’s how it is with felines – they don’t give it up so freely and make you earn it, that’s how they know you’re a real one. In any event she slowly but surely became my desk statue, art supervisor, serial kitchen beggar, work supervisor perched on my desk chair and rib cage warmer.
Judas loved to bask in the sun, grip my finger with her claws, would never let me pee in peace, waited on the bathmat for me to come out of the shower, smacked her lips when I was preparing food in the kitchen, waited to christen that cleaned litter box, had the fastest poo-phoria zooms and hated a closed door. Frequent were the times she woke me to the song of her people because her food ho-dom knew no bounds, where the purrs carried over into the messages I sent others because she was that loud. There wasn’t a box she didn’t love and claimed before her brother did. She never attacked the Christmas tree, was the queen of side eye, loved to try and eat all kinds of weird shit – especially tape + adhesive, respected our Ofrenda altar and was just this intuitive little beast who always knew when my heart needed mending. She was so quick to offer it with her companionship gold that filled the cracks and fractures. She was there at the end of the day when I laid my head down and one of the first things I saw when I opened my eyes.
She was the quiet one. The one who never gave problems, she was mannered and dainty, drank water from her paw, covered her shit and never needed emergency vet visits. I truly thought she would be the one that made it to legendary status. Everything was leaning that way until it didn’t. I wasn’t expecting to hear lymphoma and when it got to the point I noticed the changes, it was all too much too late. I always promised myself that if we arrived to the big C, I would make the call because prolongation of suffering is not an act of love. Cancer and time are some of the cruelest of thieves.
I spent a weekend mourning her diagnosis. I was grateful Bee was here from Japan when I found out, I needed that more than I could have ever thought. The decline was rapid and in fairness to her we made the call that this needed to be sooner than later. I wasn’t going to watch our mamas struggle more than she already was. So I made it a point to bathe her in love, light and all the treats she was willing to have. We sat outside in the sun and I thanked her. It only made it harder because there were glimmers of her former self there for a moment. She had chosen to hide out in the bath tub of all places which considering my connection to water, feels almost poetic that she found comfort in it just as much. That night she came out and climbed up in bed and rested her head on me, as she would. I’d like to believe that was her way to say she was ready. It was her last departing gift between us.
On the morning of August 5th, I felt my best friend take her final breath underneath the palm of my hand. She was surrounded by her family, in her home – and one of her favorite spots to lounge. It was and is one of the most difficult but beautiful things I have ever had to do. It was the very least she deserved. It was loving, gentle and quick. She was ready. Afterward she was carefully wrapped in a little purrito, Reza and I took turns holding her before I carried her out to the doctor’s car to have her remains ascended into another form.
Judas was the best familiar I could have asked for. She healed me so many times and in so many ways. Rescues save you just as much, I truly believe that. She saw me go through adventures, challenges, poignant moments of my life: moves to new cities, friendship losses, divorce, insurmountable heartbreak, pandemic quarantine, new alliances and connections, surgery, you name it… she was there. A constant in a world where not a lot of things or even people are. And now my friend is gone. 12.5 years was not enough time.
I thought we would have had more time michen. I wasn’t ready. How I would have loved to watch your whiskers go white and turn into a baddie feline crone that owned the house (pssst, you already did). It just didn’t work out that way. The other day I saw your shadow in my bedroom window where you always perched and it was a heart wrenching comfort – like you’re still here in some form or fashion, watching over me. You are so terribly missed.
I look forward to the day we meet again. I will be the one waiting by the water.
I was once told that being with me feels like Massive Attack’s “Angel” – There are compliments, and then there are compliments. Some people just have that kind of gift, the kind whose words reach right into you and hold you from the inside in the most memorably sincere way.
Simple culinary pleasures in the form of: soft boiled egg + toast + salt. *chef’s kiss* How quickly she jumped to band-aid my bleeding finger. Feeding watermelon to our pet disabled butterfly, Lieutenant Dan. Sitting at my art desk and using it for what it was intended. A jar of plastic molars & mini desk critters. Dumplings with long time friends & their progeny. People who always go out of their way to make time for you amidst a flurry of plans. Garden roses. When you can say “this has nothing to do with me” with certainty. Nursing, hatching and releasing monarch babies. Disneyland day with Reza and Mai. It was hot as shit but it was a fun time! Dark chocolate covered pistachios. When the pain/headache finally subsides. When your kid tells you they “believe in you” Getting to hug my Sister again, soon! 4 years of one of the most remarkable, delightful and handsome humans I get to know and love. The absolute delight in her face when we road tripped for Italian Ice and getting to scratch an itch to a piece of her childhood. Worth the drive, 100% Finishing and delivering art I am pleased with and watching it get promptly adopted.
When you know with certainty there are people who will always have your back in rooms you’re not physically in. Swapping photos of flirty handwritten notes. Releasing our first emerged monarch butterflies with my girls on a stunner of a day. I’m so glad they waited to hatch for when they were here because it was so special. 3 more emerged today! That makes 5 8 total so far! Inside Out 2 movie & In-N-Out date with R and our mutual gush over the same Disney trailers. Homemade hot fudge sundaes. Driving home at night, her recording the Sea World fireworks as “just like honey” plays in the car. Scoring a killer deal on good skincare. I am such a ho for a good sale. Being referred to as a “demon with the face of a pretty girl”. Crispy cross breezes on sunny days. You have never truly lived until you’ve cried in front of THE original piece of art you’ve always loved in a museum. Gratitude for our San Diego roots. Yes it’s expensive and also very worth working to be able to keep calling her Home. We are really lucky. “I missed your driving”. Summer sunsets. Jacaranda blooms. Trees filled with red-headed conure giving me Barcelona flashbacks. His audible delight in my ears. When your therapist has nothing but good things to say about your growth and progress. Farmers market flowers, Vietnamese coffee and oversized samosas. Mmmm. When Dad calls to gossip. An unlikely butterfly alliance with an 80-something handyman. Laughing with chosen family/friends who I’ve known for more than half my life – the fact that I share quality longevity with anyone is an immeasurable fortune. My summer playlist When an overdue haircut and color touch-up align on the same day and the results make you feel like several Benjamins. Compliments from random women. Lady compliments just *hit* The excitement in early Halloween merch drops A hometown gig for Blink-182 + Pierce The Veil at Petco Park with my girl – who got to check off another of her favorite bands off her list. Her excitement + our subsequent mariachi gritos + a really great firework and pyro filled show in the San Diego skyline = magic. I will never tire of doing these kinds of thing with her.
A steadfast embrace in an airport terminal. Happy is the moment that she comes home. I love my solitude mind you, but our home and space just isn’t the same without her wild and laughter echoing in the walls. The image of our puzzle is only good enough when all its parts are there. Welcome home, baby. It matters where you are. Looking forward to our Invincible Summer.
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