When a cat arrives at Tabby’s Place, our intake team jots down first impressions for the rest of the staff.
“Sasquatch feet. Sweet and nervous. Go slow.”
“Looks like a Muppet. Loud and spicy for handling.”
This is helpful background information.
But one new arrival has no interest in keeping to the background.
After all, this cat has “16 years experience managing a bodega and playing dominos with the boys.”
Meet Musha.
You may think our intake team was being creative. You think this is a metropolitan metaphor, some wry way of telling you that Musha is a brassy senior from the big city.
But Musha’s story is as real as a bacon, egg, and cheese.
And the cat from Manhattan tells her truth in a New York minute.
First of all, the name’s Musha. That’s not Mush, Mushy, or Mushmallow.
The “a” is not silent. The cat is not silent.
She belts out bawdy showtunes in an alto turned scratchy from shouting orders all day. She shouts with her eyes, big apples of opinions. She talks to her toys, her employees, and all the molecules in attendance.
She speaks in snuggles as sweet as Twinkies, until she doesn’t, at which point she informs you that you are a Ding Dong if you think she is merely a mush.
You don’t survive sixteen years in a city of eight million dreamers by keeping your thoughts to yourself.
Between the lottery tickets and breakfast sandwiches, Musha dreamed some dreams of her own. Although she has more spice than an everything bagel (and do not even get her started on New Jersey’s sorry suburban “bagels”), Musha is a people cat.
Living in the bodega, she saw the grand, mysterious panorama of humanity. New York is courage and cacophony, technicolor tenderness and underground dignity.
Musha glimpsed the best of our species. An elderly man, a mother and son, and a woman with a heart as big as five billion boroughs made Musha their favorite subway stop.
A lot can change in sixteen years, but not (a) the price of Arizona iced tea or (b) the way you feel when someone stops for you.
From breathless New York to drowsy Ringoes, New Jersey, rapt attention is rare. We live in a grab-and-go world, where pure presence always seems sold out.
But Musha met people who were not too busy to be with her. They were just as busy as everyone else. They had trains to catch and deadlines to meet.
Yet when one lonely bodega cat cried out — I exist! I am a special order! I was made to be loved! — they stopped everything.
They kept her as warm as the coffee in a We Are Happy To Serve You cup.
They adored both sides of her “Musha moods,” as equally perfect as the halves of a black-and-white cookie.
Over and over, over sixteen astonishing years, they saved her life. Like breakfast and dreams, mercy must be made fresh every morning.
And when troubling news crossed the counter, our gabby tabby’s angels spoke up on her behalf.
There were rumblings that someone was inconvenienced by the convenience-store cat. Suddenly, Musha’s long tenancy was in jeopardy. Once again, her champions stopped everything for Musha.
But, in a city full of strays, there are few cozy corners for an aging cat with a few medical issues and a few million opinions.
They would have to cross the boldest bridge.
I don’t mean into New Jersey, although that is a journey New Yorkers rightly fear.
I mean from love to love.
Musha’s angels had heard of a mushy, gritty “city” right in the middle of the Garden State. Between the dairy farms and tomato stands of Hunterdon County, you will find the Times Square of cats who ran out of time.
Tabby’s Place is Ellis Island for the innocent and the inconvenient, the loud and the little, the ancient and the exquisite, the mouthy and the mushy.
They are the feline dreamers whose stories are all true. And they were about to get a big sister with a big voice, a big personality, and a heart that could outshine the Chrysler Building.
As you read these words, Musha is still making sense of all this. She has gone from being the only cat on the premises to one of one hundred twenty beloved cats the only cat who matters on the premises.
She writes letters to the mayor, asking him to come collect the other Tabby’s Place residents, who she is pretty sure are all fat pigeons wearing cat-ear headbands.
It is entirely possible she will never even smell real pizza again.
But, Musha must admit that, after watching hundreds of New Yorkers scratch thousands of lottery tickets, she’s the one who won.
Not one of her (many, many … many) words falls to the ground.
Tabby’s Place teems with people who may not know our way Uptown, but we will giddily plop down on the floor anytime Musha asks.
We will mush her with gusto when she orders “mushing,” and we will adore her in a non-mushy manner when she says so.
We will fill the years with dreams good enough to come true.
We will “inconvenience” ourselves for the incomparable honor of caring for her.
We will open the storehouses of our hearts and lives.
We will even do our best to learn to play dominos.