Both/And

A little over a year ago, my cat Chibi came into the world. I welcomed her home when she was a ball of fur so delicate she needed to be bottle-fed for a while and I didn’t know if she’d make it.

I’ve loved seeing her change and, looking at her photos, can hardly believe how much she has! Her blue-gray eyes, for one, have turned olive-green-ish and learned to show defiance. Whenever they soften again though, I recognize the kitten she used to be.

Some things have stayed almost the same, like her way of sticking out her chest to see the things high up in the kitchen.

Speaking of the kitchen, it’s the room that comes to mind first, when I think of the new habits that came with sharing a living space with a cat – pouring cold water in pans, pots, and baking dishes, and putting them on the still-hot cooking zones so she doesn’t get burnt; doing the dishes without delay; covering food she’s not supposed to eat or putting it in the fridge; putting away pointy utensils and cutlery.

Also, I’ll warn her when I’m about to use the blender: she’s highly sensitive to sounds, and to movements – her senses are very finely tuned. Her ears, eyes, tail are all involved when she reads her environment. It’s also primarily through body language, rather than through vocalizations, that she communicates, and I try to correctly read the cues.

We’re still getting to know each other, and I love discovering her latest things. She’s fascinated by everything, from washbasins, water running and drainage pipes, to plants, buttons and birds. She’ll swiftly take rubber bands from the kitchen drawer. She loves balls, pompoms, sink drainers, sticky tape rolls – well, anything that rolls… and invariably ends up under furniture.

She loves crumpling the bathroom rugs and using the yoga mat as a tunnel. She’ll chew my pen, when I get lost in meandering thoughts. Pets are masters at cheekily interfering with our plans, having us pay attention to the here and how, and repurposing objects!

The awkwardness of her rummaging through the laundry basket and carrying around a bra or a sock makes me laugh. I find it funny, too, when she gets the zoomies.

Sometimes though, watching her breaks my heart a little.

When at my desk I look over my shoulder, and see her on her cat tree slowly drifting away from her window gazing and reverie, her face still uplifted, my heart swells with tenderness and joy, and I can’t help but, in researcher Brene Brown’s words, “dress-rehearse” tragedy and think about the impermanence of it all.

Chibi loves cuddles upon waking and at bedtime – my favorite way to start and end my day – and she’ll nap on me, when I’m having breakfast or am reading cross-legged or knees to chest.

She’s disarmingly sweet. Yet she can be the opposite of that: one minute she’s suckling or kneading a blanket or another fluffy thing, the next she mercilessly catches a pretend prey or a fly. Sometimes graceful, sometimes terribly clumsy, despite her petite frame she contains multitudes.

Perched on the armrest or, say, lying belly up in the shower, she’s always around, and I’m so thankful for her presence. The promise of seeing her after a long workday is a great comfort, too.

Chibi and I live in a small, gardenless apartment. I’ll let her go up and down the stairs and explore the hall, and she’ll come back to our door by herself or stop at some point. I’ll pick her up, wearing her against my chest, her curious eyes soaking up our surroundings. She seems content with her life and to want for nothing. Still, I can’t wait for us to move to a bigger place with access outdoors, a catio, and a dog.

A dog will join us someday – Chibi is used to and fond of dogs – but the time’s not ripe yet. My future dog will choose me when the time is ripe, just like Miyo and Chibi did: they both came into my life as complete surprises and changed it for the better.

In the meantime, I get to care for my sisters’ dogs when they’re away.

I first heard of “dog borrowing” and of the BorrowMyDoggy app through one of my April reads, A Year of Nothing by Emma Gannon, and understand the why behind it: dogs bring tremendous joy. I can’t imagine life without these wonderful beings.

When Umi stayed at my place for about two weeks in February, I hadn’t taken care of a dog since Miyo’s death many months before, but deeply ingrained habits quickly came back – navigating pedestrian crossings and the hustle in the city with a dog on a leash, always carrying dog poop bags on walks, and so forth. And, even though they couldn’t be more different, I found myself calling her Miyo a couple times – old habits die hard indeed.

One day I met again an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in what seemed like forever. We both lost our dogs and were walking other ones. I’d often bump into her in different parks, in another neighborhood. It was a bittersweet encounter, a reminder of how small the world can be, and of how the sadness of losing a dog never goes away but you can’t do without them.

I pet-sat Umi again in April, and Aloha and Rocco. How to stop our hearts from melting when we see them so hungry for affection and so generous with it? How not to take into our hearts any dog we spend but a day with? Dogs are antidepressants on four legs. When they’re here, joy invites itself and fills up the space. When they leave, their absence feels so loud as it reverberates through the now empty space.

Another April read was Mayumi Inaba’s Mornings without Mii which had me bawling my eyes out at the end. The sting of grief is still sharply painful, and I know I can’t go on living stuck in regret after losing my beloved pet while preparing for my still-alive pet’s death.

I consider myself both a cat and a dog person. Why pick? I believe we can have a special bond with any animal we spend enough time with. I love both the boundary-mindedness and hard-earned trust of cats and the boundless love and unquestioning faith of dogs; how canines greet you with expansive, unbridled joy and the quieter way felines say hello, their soft rubbings against you. I value both the momentum brisk, first-thing-in-the-morning walks give to our days and the peacefulness of a slower-paced life. Both dogs and cats enjoy strokes, though different kinds, both nurture you and let you nurture them, and I can think of few things that fill the heart the way our pets’ love does – and continues to do when they cross over the rainbow bridge.

Chibi’s exact birthdate is unknown, but April 15 is the approximate one recorded in her vaccination card – Miyo’s birthday. He would have turned thirteen this year. Miyo visited me in a dream that night, as he did at other key moments. The first pleasant visitation dream I had when I finally started the work of forgiving myself for being so often absent-minded when he was right here and then for letting him go… I still very much sense his presence through the clear signs he sends me, the moments of ease or inner knowing.

April 15 also became the day my sister’s dog, Miyo’s dear friend Rocco, passed away. So, this date came to mark a triple anniversary. Nothing embodied the both/and-ness of life, its beauty and the crushing heartbreak it can bring, like mid-April did.

April is my mother and my eldest sister’s birthday month, too. Luckily, I belong to those for whom close family gatherings are balm-to-the-heart events rather than a source of dread.

This month had us holding grief, sadness, joy, gratitude all in the same palm.

With my own birthday next month and the twenty-fifth anniversary of my dad’s passing, May, too, promises to be full of muddled thoughts and emotions – not unlike life.

—

How was your April? Are you a cat or a dog person, or neither or both? Is there a date for you that marks a double anniversary, or even multiple anniversaries, that stirs up conflicting feelings all existing in the same breath?