How Our Cat Got Us Through 2020
And a few recs.
(Edited to add: he’s still alive, don’t worry!!)
Four years ago this week…
…we packed a whole bunch of stuff and our new pandemic pet into the minivan and drove from SLC to the SF bay to live in two small rooms inside a school for the next 18 months. Well, 26 months for Gordon, whose job had been in CA since school year 2018-2019 while our home base was still Salt Lake. I’d been dividing my time between the two, and in March 2020 when CA shut down, Gordon came home and finished out the school year teaching remotely.
The 2020-2021 school year was an unknown. His school (a small private school not subject to the public school guidelines) planned to play it by ear with a combination of remote, hybrid, and masked in-person teaching. It was not clear back then if travel between states would even be a reliable possibility, and I didn’t want to leave Gordon on his own dealing with being a teacher in such chaotic times.
So into the school we moved.
The apartment was in an old building not in use through the week, and it was strange to live in a small corner of this large old school house. Some nights, neighborhood teens who thought the building was abandoned would climb the fire escape to hang out or try to get in. I definitely terrified a few of them (and myself) by suddenly coming out of the side door to shoo them away.
We gave the cat exploratory time in the building so he wouldn’t be stuck in those tiny rooms. Evenings, we’d take him across the hall to a large abandoned classroom and play chase-the-string and watch the sun set over the Pacific. We’d stand on either end of the long hallway and roll his little wool ball back and forth for him to chase. He liked to disappear into the maze-like rooms of the bottom floor, though, and occasionally (as we discovered later) use a large potted plant as a litter box.
The cat was truly our emotional support animal. He hated the 14-hour drive to get there (I mean, we all hated it), and at first was very anxious and finding hidey holes and high up places. But he adjusted quickly, and so did we, and the unfamiliar damp and chill of Pacifica meant he was always game for laps and snuggles.
Most importantly, he was just funny. Cats are funny. Every day he made us laugh. After we replaced the air bed with a Casper mattress on an upholstered platform, he’d often wake us up by digging his claws into the fabric and pulling himself around the entire circumference of the bed, ruining the furniture while dusting the floor. He kept us grounded in daily routines dictated by him: food, cat box, play time, nap time, repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat…
Every night, when we went to bed, he jumped up to join us for reading and podcasts and sleep. During heavy storms, water would seep in through the walls and wind would blow through the cracks in the windows, and the cat would snuggle a little closer. He was getting to know us and we were getting to know him, and we all needed each other.
Eventually we started just letting him be outside on the campus to enjoy monitoring gopher holes, watching the chickens and goats, and attempting to climb trees. I’d leave the school door propped open and he’d periodically come and check on me, or cry from down the hall for me to come out and do nothing with him.
When I—like so many other full adults that year—got on TikTok, my 5 p.m. routine was to get into the beanbag chair with my airpods and watch an hour of the app while the cat provided the “weighted” part of my throw blanket. Even though Gordon was usually a few feet away, this felt a little like getting some alone time in our close quarters.
I was writing A Song Called Home, relaunching my podcast, and experimenting with some premium audio that ultimately turned into the This Creative Life book. G was navigating zoom teaching, then hybrid teaching and heroically going back to it every morning. We were taking lots of coastal walks, masking at the beach (who knew?), and I think we cooked every single meal at home for the entire time with the exception of one Thai food delivery for our anniversary. We watched movies on the computer screen in our camp chairs, the cat in a lap or nearby.
In September 2021, I was done living in the school. Kids were back and seemed to always be screaming right outside my window, or there would be building demolition going on downstairs, or other groups in and out of the building with no warning. I missed home, furniture, space, peace and quiet.
We packed up my stuff and the cat and did the drive back to SLC. Even though the cat had only lived there for a few months before we left for CA, when we turned onto the street that led into our neighborhood he came to full attention and put his paws on the dashboard, head up like a meerkat. His body language said, I know this place.
It was so fun to watch him explore the condo that night (which now felt like a mansion to all of us) and remember his home. A day later, Gordon flew back to CA for one more school year in the little apartment, not only wifeless but catless. He was thoroughly burned out and we had plans for transitioning to an entirely new phase of life that we’re now in—the end of his classroom teaching, the beginning of my figuring out how to take up the reins of employment—we just had to get through this one last school year first, and I had another book to write.
While alone in SLC, I regularly woke up around 2 am to ruminate on all my anxieties about the unknown and imagine shadows in the condo. But I’d reach my hand over and find the cat’s solid body somewhere in the bed with me. He’d stretch against my touch, tuck his head, and I didn’t feel so alone. (Gordon would have appreciated having this, too, but there was only one cat to go around.)
To be totally honest, I miss the freedom (and freedom from cat hair) of the pre-cat years. I miss a lot about the pre-cat years, things that have little to do with cats. That probably goes without saying in this current moment.
It’s hot this summer, and the cat doesn’t like to come to bed with us. He prefers to stretch out in the living room where he can stay cooler. But I admit that some nights that’s not okay with me, and I heft up all 20+ pounds of him and carry him down the hall to put him on the bed with us, so that when we have our 2 am wakeups, our anxious questions about the unknown, we can reach over and find him right there where he belongs.
Some recs
Stax: Soulville USA. This HBO docuseries has incredible footage, tells a compelling story, and is important musical history.
The Path to Paradise: A Francis Ford Coppola Story by Sam Wasson is a fascinating history of Coppola’s American Zoetrope project. I think a lot about whether it’s better to have “life balance,” like we’re always told, or to be so obsessed with one single thing that it frames and drives your every act and decision. This story shows the amazing highs and possibilities of obsession, and also the fall back down to earth.
In light of Chad Daybell’s death sentence and the general research I’m still doing on cults and religions for a book project (2 book projects, actually), I re-listened to When the Moon Turns to Blood by Leah Sottile. It’s as good or better than anything Jon Krakauer has written covering similar territory. It’s not an easy book but if this topic is of interest to you, it’s an excellent one.
Hearing my colleague Kyoko Mori read from Cat and Bird: a memoir at the Lesley MFA residency last month might have inspired this edition of the newsletter. And now I have a copy signed to me, Gordon, and Mr. Donut.
This is a few months old now, but this piece on Robert Cormier (one of my major influences) as a framework for talking about the current state of book banning is worth a read.
The Inbox Variations is the monthly-ish newsletter of author Sara Zarr. Find out more about Sara and her books at www.sarazarr.com.
I was bracing myself to read that the cat has recently died because this piece reads like a memorial. Glad to know he's still with you!
Perfect cat content.