Transformation

Experience has taught me to never trust the Universe to follow through on her promises. Wasn't it Shakespeare who said, 'Just when we're feeling our best, Fate is sneaking up behind us with a party horn.' If he didn't say it, he should have.      

So when Wonder encouraged me to finish the book I started about 3 years ago—the one about feline preventive healthcare—I conceded. My agent tried to sell the thing before I was even halfway through it, first to a movie production company and then as a stage adaptation. Nothing came of it.

Can you imagine a musical comedy about feline preventive healthcare making the rounds off-Broadway? Neither can I, though, in fairness, cats are responsible for half the Internet’s traffic, and I suspect the other half is devoted to people trying to figure out what the government will do next.

But let’s not get distracted. The important thing is that I finished the first draft of the manuscript yesterday. More importantly, it’s not just a book to Wonder and me—it’s a promise we made to Eddy Peebody back in 2019. If you’ve read the posts, you know the story. If not, let’s just say it involved a cat, a vow, and no small amount of dramatic flair.

And so, with the draft completed, I was on top of the world—floating, basking, celebrating the triumph. But as Shakespeare (or at least my version of him) warns: don’t hold your breath.

This morning, still reveling in my literary victory, I warmed up Wynd Horse and set sail down Blandings Highway toward the Port City. 

John Cougar was singing Pink Houses on the eighties channel, and I was singing along, belting out the line: 'There's a young man in a t-shirt listenin' to a rock-n-roll station.' The next song to come out of the dash was Come Dancing by the Kinks. If you know anything about Genome, you know what that song means to me.

We Genomes are tough stuff, tempered steel as it were, hardened by the slings and arrows. Stalwart. Unshakable. But we have our limits. Before they came to the end of the first line, 'They put a parking lot on a piece of land where the supermarket used to stand,' I was a blubbering wreck behind the steering wheel.

I cried so hard I was a hazard to myself and the road. I would have pulled over, had it not been for a sudden distraction: a man walking a dog, and that dog was a spaniel mix- part Cocker Spaniel, I'm sure.

A Cocker Spaniel was my first dog. I was six years old, and he was 8 weeks when we first met. We became instant friends, and he was my best and only friend for the first several years of my life.

And just like that, the grief lifted. One moment, I was drowning in a sea of nostalgia; the next, I felt like an unseen hand had pulled me out of a dark hole into the light. I felt like I was on top of the world, sitting on a rainbow. It was as though I'd been rescued from a world where I didn't belong and restored to the world that was mine. In short, I was transformed. 

Is it permanent? Of course not. Nothing is. But the experience was so vivid that the memory will be more than just a mental construct—it will be an emotional landmark. Like the scent of cedar and peppermint at Christmas, the memory of this day will bring it all back.

And when I’m feeling down—when anxiety creeps in or melancholy sets up camp—I’ll read this post and remember. I’ll remember Pluto, my childhood dog. I’ll remember Eddy, my cat. I’ll remember my sister, Delores.

Their memories will restore the love and light that filled my world when they were here with me. It's not everything. It's not perfect. But it's enough, and isn't that all we need?