part 2
Honesty, honestly. To myself, to others to the truth that cycles around me and everything I know. I am utterly amazed at what transpires in life when we live in the most present place. On my first weekend home after my grandmother's death something amazing happened. Gustavo, meu amor, meu gato, meu amante came home. I have had Gustavo for almost 3 years. I have never like cats before, but I met him and he convinced me to be more open minded. To be open to love in a new way. This may sound crazy, but I don't know how better to describe this. He belonged to a friend of mine and was almost 3 years old when she gave him to me. She wasn't looking to get rid of him, but she felt as though he was mine, that she was supposed to introduce us. He is brilliant. For the first two years I had him I lived in a small apartment in the second story of an old victorian home. Gustavo is happy outside. He lounges in the grass, he climbs trees and fences and jumps from roof to roof. He makes friends of other cats, and friends with other humans. He has introduced me to 5 people that find him charming. He is a Brazilian by nature. Some nights he stands at the door and cries to be let outside, but like a Brazilian, he can be coaxed with the promise of affection. In the way water responds to gravity, without choice or thought, he responds to touch. From him I learn to embrace my internal need to be touched. It is not a choice I make, it is a natural need that calms and quiets my soul when I want to escape outside.
In June, Gustave left. He left for 5 nights and I found him at the animal shelter. Sick and exhausted he came home. I bought him a tag and kept him inside, and then I left town for a week, and he left again in July. And this time he wasn't at the shelters, and he wasn't on craigslist, and he wasn't in the neighborhood and no one called about him. Days turned to weeks to months. And I missed him. I wondered where and what happened. Every friend I talked with told me that he was somewhere with love. He was too irresistible to not have charmed someone into caring for him. So I began to let go and be happy for my time with him. And then I went home to be with my grandma as she left the world. On the Saturday of my weekend I woke up thinking about how he cuddled with me in the mornings and missed him. I got up and went to a movie and on my way out my neighbor called out to me and said how sad she was that Gustavo was missing. We spoke of the greatness he was and how we may never know another one like him. And we were thankful we did know him.
That very day my heart missed him more than ever, and he came home. I asked him over and over to tell me where he'd been and what he'd been doing, but he refused. He only wanted to come inside and eat and relax and touch.
We don't have the burden in life to choose the paths of those we love. We are often tormented by our desires to hold on to the ideas, the memories, the happinesses. We have only the present and the amazing possibilities of tomorrow. The amazing possibilities that we might just make our way home.