It’s a quiet and sunny morning.
Birdsong going wild.
I am at the guard shack.
Basking in the sun rays filtering through the window
like the cat I am.
This past week, I have been pet-sitting a whole menagerie of cuties.
There are two dogs:
A husky mix named Hal and a little old lady in the form of a pitbull named Addie.
Three indoor cats:
Lola, lovely and independent. She likes to be let out so she can watch the world from the porch.
Zookie, a basement dwelling madman who has bit me twice before going back to cuddles.
And Pumpkin, my favorite, a chunky orange gentleman that just cannot be petted enough. He sits on my chest and purrs so loud. It’s therapy.
There are also five more outdoor cats that are just kind of always around. They have names, but I have forgot them. But I feed them twice a day.
I also am to leave out leftover vegetables and etc for the raccoon and possum that stop by most nights.
.
The person I am doing this all for is named Sarah.
She’s a quirky, kind of hippy-ish, woman who has just retired from being a children’s librarian for the last 40 years.
In fact, it turns out she was the children’s librarian in the small New Mexican town where I spent my childhood and went to the library almost weekly. So it was likely her that was reading me the stories.
We met here in Tulsa and discovered this connection after working together at the bookstore for a few months. Small world.
All the animals are rescues. More specifically strays that just ended up at her house somehow, or a cat that the owner could no longer care for, etc
She spent the 90s in Austin, which was quite the time to be in Austin. She waitressed part-time at the cafe where Richard Linklater and Daniel Johnston and all the other filmmakers and musicians from that time hung out before they were famous. She has a lot of great stories and has great taste in art and music and is always very interesting to talk to.
I am watching after the animals as she is back in Austin for the memorial of her recently passed husband. A man I have never met, but the house is adorned with his artwork and I’m in love with it. Very primal, very bright.
She is devastated by the loss.
But moving forward with incredible grace.
She retired from the library last week.
She has enough insurance and social security money coming in to sustain her for a while.
She has decided that she will spend the summer on the road.
And maybe the fall too.
Maybe forever be on the road.
She has the house still, run down but paid off.
And the animals.
But she has plans for a caretaker of both (she has asked me to consider being the backup to that plan).
She said she needs to get away.
She has always dreamed of travel.
Is learning how to read tarot so she can work at renaissance faires and carnivals.
She says she is at a point where she just wants to listen to the Universe
And follow wherever the path leads her.
I want to be like Sarah.
Warm and hospitable and curious and loving every animal and everybody and everything.
I want to listen to the Universe and go where it leads.
I want to relax and surrender to the beauty and agony of the world.
It’ll take time.
That’s fine.
Time is the one thing that I have.
I see myself opening and transforming a little more each and every day.
6:39 p.m. - 2023-05-21
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