If I didn’t know better, I’d think Simone had a side hustle.
There is increasing evidence that our lithest tortie is selling handicrafts.
I know what you’ll say at this point. If cats were to enter our economy, clearly it would be an international installation of 24-hour pepperoni vending machines. Everybody knows that.
But Simone knows more than most bodies.
A one-cat casserole of color, Simone’s beauty shouts while her spirit whispers. One milky eye winks at the weather within, cirrus clouds cavorting through thoughts. Her hues are loud, but her heart is as soft as a good answer.
Simone doesn’t let on that she knows the answers.
While Shaggy waves his tail to be called on and Juel sits in the front row, Simone waits. Waiting is the privilege of the peaceful, and behind those clouds is a satisfied mind.
This was not always the case. Simone has known chaos, and she has looked it in the eye.
Not long ago, past and future stormed, silverbacks colliding over a wrinkled present. Simone boggled along outdoors, known to no one by her real name.
I don’t mean “Simone.” I mean “famille.”
Simone needed family, the kind that transcends blood.
When past and future storm, the need hits us all. We may be prone on the couch like Jabba the Hutt with an empty sleeve of Oreos. We may be running a shareholders’ meeting with apparent excellence. We may be on the wrong end of the midnight call. We may be right where we thought we belonged.
Everything is in question except the answer: we need a love that never ends.
It has to start with ourselves at peak Jabba.
We must welcome the most infuriating creature we know, the one we can’t escape.
Simone, feline and spiritually French, did this well. You might say she arrived at Tabby’s Place as her own cat. She had submitted the adoption paperwork; she had approved the applicant; she had taken herself home to the little cottage under the moon, where peace cannot be lost.
Simone loved Simone, so Simone could love.
This was the recipe for success.
Simone loved enough to risk cayenne and paprika, dicey and spicy with no fear of rejection. She expected us to accept her, a speckled stray with no resume and no apology. We would take the hiding and the hints of huggability, the hisses and the blinks, the stratus scowl and cumulus cheer.
She knew this. She knew the way of family.
Simone loved enough to love in the dark. She brought no letter of reference, but neither did we have certificates on the wall. Why should the little freckle cat with the ladylike name trust these Tabby’s Place people?
(One excellent reason: her former outdoor neighbor Vinnie, who dreams in pepperoni and preceded Simone by several weeks, had written 177 Google reviews of Tabby’s Place: “Cheesy melty magic people! Ninety-layer lasagnas of love! Good sign for literal lasagna!”)
She knew how to read us, blinkered and bumbling and hissworthy though we are.
Simone loved enough to summon her sunshine. At home in herself, she could lower the drawbridge. Unafraid of love’s end, she could begin.
She would begin with us.
She would call us by our real names.
I don’t mean “Jonathan” or “Vinnie.” I mean “famille.”
Everybody felt it.
Subdued though she was, Simone began building bonds as deep as the Seine. Everyone walked in wonder. “I love that Simone.” “There’s something about Simone.”
“I feel deeply, deeply bonded to Simone. I can’t explain it.”
That’s family talk.
When you are a cat with a satisfied mind, you find family everywhere your courage goes. There is no lock on love’s door. You do not need to bite your tongue. (You may need to bite people, but family has many things in common with pepperoni.)
You can accept the gaggle of goofballs you’ve been given as your goofballs.
You just might start painting signs, which are lately ubiquitous: “Family: Where Life Begins And Love Never Ends.”
I’m telling you, kittens, this phrase is turning up everywhere from the craft store to the hardware store, from cousins’ condos to Pinterest. (Vinnie has a Pinterest board called PEPPER RONIES OF THE WORLD. I promised I would tell you this.)
I swear I saw it tattooed on Vin Diesel’s arm. I swear I saw it at the gas station. Test me on this: now that you’re thinking of it, you will see this sign everywhere.
Actually, maybe that’s the thing: to have our eyes open for family everywhere.
When we make ourselves at home in our own speckled skin, we make family everywhere we go. Life begins again. Love never ends.
One little stray’s life has begun anew in Ringoes, New Jersey. It could have been Paris, or it could have been a forever home, but the recipe poured Simone into Suite D.
Having chosen herself, she’s calm enough to choose us.
She knows she can’t lose us.
That’s worth a few hand-painted signs on the wall.
Oh, and here’s one last sign for you: ADOPTED. Yep. Simone painted that one on her way out the door. Bon voyage, nous choupette.