You can learn a lot about someone in a solarium or a Starbucks.
But some secrets are only revealed at home.
You wouldn’t know your grandmother if you didn’t know that corner cabinet where she kept certain Santa Clauses out twelve months a year.
Your friend became “best” the day you first glimpsed her forty-two stuffed animals, elaborated across five rooms, each with its own name.
You forgave your mean aunt the day you saw how she curls her legs under her on that yellow chair and suddenly looks eight years old.
And you found a soulmate the day you found your way to CAT’s home.
You had always loved CAT, of course. Every righteous creature does, whether they are grandmothers or grit-yard workers or aging mean girls or raging red cats. CAT has the champagne gift of uncorking your comfort the moment you meet him. One pirouette around your legs, and you’re at home.
But you’re not yet in CAT’s home.
In a sense, every cat at Tabby’s Place is “at home.” Until or unless they’re adopted, their suites (or offices, or Lobby, or Community Room) are their ranchers and Cape Cods and condos and apartments. (CAT3 thinks of SUITE as Clownton Abbey. CAT4 envisions SUITE as a shiny silver Airstream on its way to California to see the walruses. I just write what they tell me.)
They are, without exception, exceptional at making themselves at home. Even the cats who seem a little lost in space have a sturdy sense of place. Witness CAT5 commanding her cubby as staunchly as any chef ever ruled a kitchen. (Heaven help us if she learns to wield a wooden spoon.) Witness CAT6 decorating the ramp with his weight and his fears like a white picket fence. (One that conveniently grows barbed wire if CAT7 gets too close.) Witness CAT7 planting himself like a tulip in the solarium tube. They know their addresses.
But there’s the address, and then there’s the home. And there are truths that only home can tell.
Home is invitation-only, even for a cat like CAT who lives his life as an invitation. You may think you’re in CAT’s kitchen, but actually be standing at the garden gate. You may feel like you’re in the living room, but actually be out on the porch swing. (CAT insisted on a porch swing. There’s also a tire swing, a treehouse, and four Slip ‘n Slides.) CAT is so expansive and so expressive, he makes even the mail carrier and the garbage man feel like they’re snuggled into his inner sanctum, all the way from the street.
(Let the reader understand that every single cat adores every single garbage man. The vocation is an automatic invitation to their hearts and hearths and highest honors.)
CAT is simply so generous with his coziness, you can know him only very casually, and feel quite known and homed.
But then the day comes when you know.
You’ll be digging little vegetable gardens in his fur with your fingers, surrounded by other cats.
You’ll be yammering about what you saw on HGTV last night, wondering how 23-year-olds employed as potholder weavers can afford $8.6M villas in Maui.
You’ll be worrying through your pores about your Dad or your diagnosis or your mortgage or your meaning.
And all of a sudden, you will smell cinnamon, as distinct as in your grandmother’s kitchen.
You will hear the faint sound of “Here Comes the Sun,” your brother’s favorite song.
You will see CAT’s face transfigured, and you will be transported, and SUITE will be transformed into the heart of the heart of a home. CAT’s home. And, in some mysterious way, your home.
Because when someone lets you into their home, the whole world turns safer.
CAT shares his sweetness with everyone, sprinting onto the lawn with ribbon-wrapped plates of oatmeal cookies. No one is excluded from his nurturing neighborhood, where the block parties boast live performances from CAT8 and CAT9’s acrobatic troupe and everyone lends everyone their favorite books. (No one lends anyone a spare cheese stick, but “spare” cheese sticks do not exist in all-feline neighborhoods. This is one of the first things you learn in municipal planning.)
Yet even a soul as sweet as CAT has an inner sanctum. It’s the safest place on earth. It’s only open to those who make CAT feel safe.
But here’s the secret: the best way to make CAT feel safe is to feel safe with CAT.
You do him a great honor — far better etiquette than bringing flowers or wine; far finer than complimenting his French Country decor; almost as gracious as bringing a bouquet of cheese sticks — by assuming he’ll home you.
Most of our lives, we assume that our loves will house us. We expect them to provide the basic shelter of sympathy and inside jokes, hot coffee and cool Netflix recommendations. But we stop short of expecting the scent of cinnamon. We fear disappointment too much to take off our shoes. We share just enough to stand on the threshold.
When, all the while, there are cats and people who would love to home us.
To home us: to take us in, like the beggars and ferals we are. To home us: to whisk us into the kitchen, where the mess and the meatballs and the meaning live. To home us: to hear our stories all the way to the hearth, and to haul out the knick-knacks. To home us: to remind us that we’re safe whether or not we’re adopted, whether or not we ever get to see the walruses in California, whether or not our address changes every year.
CAT’s address has changed at least three times in his YEARS years. CAT may never find the “forever home” that is our formal goal for each cat. But CAT is already home, with the forever-force that no one can give or take away. CAT has taken up full residence of all his rooms. No creature so en-homed can ever feel lost.
And, if you trust CAT enough, if you take the time to look at his photo albums and sit on the sofa of his stories, you’ll find that the invitation is always open.
If you come to my house, you’ll learn a few things: it takes two liquids to keep me alive (insulin and Cherry Zero); books and pastels make me feel safe; and everyone who has ever loved me has given me a ceramic cat for every occasion from Christmas to St. Frumentius’ Day.
But if you come to my home, and I come to yours, and we both go to CAT’s, we’ll learn the secret: we’re on this planet to home each other.
Forever.