If you didn’t know better, you might think Winona is a frothy confection.
You might see a wispy twist of custard, straightforward as a single scoop.
You might. Until you know Winona.
I say “until,” not “unless,” because Winona wants to be known. Winona achieves all of her goals. Winona talks about Winona in the third person, the better to admire Winona from the inside and the outside at the same time.
Without any input of her own, Winona was designed delicately. Her red-hot heart is contained in a body the color of Cool Whip. When she dreams, she sees herself tattooed with lions and falcons, but she wakes up in patches soft enough for Grandma’s quilt.
Winona’s paws are as exquisite as dainty diamonds. Winona cannot smudge her own sparkle, but she fancies herself a geode. The gutsiest glitter is all inside.
You may picture her tiny toes in your diorama or curio cabinet. But you may not trim more than two of Winona’s nails without enough psychiatric medication to woozy a walrus.
(I will not clarify whether the psychiatric medication is for you or Winona. If you know Winona, you know.)
You may know that Winona was adopted, once. We all know that sometimes things don’t work out.
Winona has no knowledge of shame, and her time is too precious for embarrassment. Her return to Tabby’s Place had all the jangle of the ice cream man’s music at dawn, tires screaming onto the scene before the first school bus.
Winona was agitated and unrepentant. Winona was here in her fullness, in full possession of her powers. Winona was caffeinated and exasperated.
Winona had no time for anything short of being known.
This is the place where most of us look for the nearest exit. Known? No, thank you. We slip on our own banana peels, trying to crawl back inside. Meantime, Winona knows the secret of staying whole.
Be a sundae in full, with butterscotch chips right next to jalapenos.
Wear all your favorite colors, even if your paisleys confuse your polka dots.
Wear the world out, until you find the place you can never wear out your welcome.
This — welcome — may be the thing Tabby’s Place knows how to do best.
Winona 1.0, the moxie marshmallow from Beirut, was known for her salt and her light. She played, she complained, and she filibustered for full access to our hearts, all the way up to the secret attics where we don’t invite other humans. She came with a search warrant for our sweetness and our sparkle, no matter how well we thought we’d hidden it under horseradish and prudence.
She loved us, she bit us, and she persisted until she knew us.
And in being so known, we came to know Winona.
Winona 2.0, the same Winona, the whole Winona, is as inexhaustible as ever. It takes three staff members, an emergency reunion of the Backstreet Boys, and an act of Congress to trim all of her nails.
It always takes a bit of time to un-scrunch your shoulders. But it will happen. You will see yourself glistening in the gemstone eyes of a cat who is equal parts Wonder Woman and Grandma, jet fuel and ginger ale, iceberg and ice cream sundae.
You will see yourself known and loved anyway, the knowledge that has no equal.
You may even know what Winona knows.
Sometimes things don’t work out.
But give them enough time, and a wide enough dance floor, and they do.
That may mean getting adopted again. That may mean living at Tabby’s Place until you are the toastiest marshmallow over twenty years old. But love has the means to bend the ends into a smile.
Ice cream recommended but not required.