Lost cats in Noe Valley and a Trip Back to Alaska

I'm house-sitting my cousins' apartment in Noe Valley. It's sunny, the wind is blowing, like an animated conversation between the trees and the hills. Back and forth, the swishing sounds and gestures of agreement (swaying this way) and disagreement (swaying that way). Everything is moving outside. It feels alive.

Inside I am working on my Alaska story. I will include its beginnings at the end of this post.

I almost had a heart attack this afternoon when I couldn't find the cat. I walked around the house, here kitty kitty....Micah....Micah where are youuuu? Micah, come out...I want to give you a treat... treat treat treat.....Micah...

Nothing. No sign of her. Went upstairs and looked all around the bed and the cushions on the floor, trying to suss out her secret sleeping places...Micah..I looked for her perched atop the bookcase or some other sneaky high landing...Micah come here girl.....

nothing.

I swallowed my panic. It was not going to help. First, I had to comb the house. I looked in the bathroom, in the shower, behind the curtains, under the sink. I looked in the spare bedrooms, even though the doors were firmly shut. My eye gravitated uneasily to the wide open window. My stomach rolled and I felt sick. I walked over to the window and looked down, holding my breath. I did not see any blood, any fur, any signs of distress- no limp and lifeless cat two stories below on the concrete. I kept pacing the house, kept looking back at the window, pacing the house, calling out her name, looking at the wide open window, cursing myself for leaving it open, and thinking, how the hell am I going to explain this? I lost your cat. I fell asleep for 15 minutes and when I woke up your cat was gone. Poof. Honestly, just like that....

Just then, out of nowhere, Micah strolls up beside me. Purring. When cats purr it's like there's a little engine inside their bodies, the whole thing whirring, the thin rib frame of it containing this warm emitting buzz and purr...and she looks at me quizically like, "Oh me? Were you looking for me?"

I can breathe again, and pour myself some juice.
And get back to work.

And here is what I'm trying to do with my Alaska story beginnings. Please excuse it, it's very rough. * * * * *

As I reached the designated gate at the Anchorage airport, it hit me- like the shattering thin glass of an exploding lightbulb- that I had given almost no thought at all to the reality of this little adventure that was in store.

The gate area was small, dingy, and gave a bad first impression. While the rest of the airport was rather new, slick, and allowed sweeping views of nearby mountains, the gate area looked like a community rec center that lost its funding years ago, but continued to leave its doors open for vagrants to wander in off the streets, and find respite from the cold. There was free coffee. A man who looked like he was battling a meth addiction was downing packets of splenda (also free). I counted the open sores on his face. A number of people looked like they had definitely done time. It’s a different crowd when most people prefer to be lying down and sprawling out on the unvacuumed carpet instead of sitting in the seats.

The only neatly dressed person was a girl in her late teens. Pouty lips painted a light glossy pink, hair smoothed into a ponytail, skirt short but not sluttily so. She had a stern aloofness that felt distinctly Eastern European. It took several seconds to realize that among the ex-cons sat a mail order bride, about to meet her Alaskan bushman for the first time. She made a regal effort to look only straight ahead, nonchalant. She crossed her legs at her ankles. With her air of forced superiority, I thought she seemed to be doing a good job steeling herself for what was to come. Perhaps I should figure out how to steel myself for what was to come?

I felt a wave of commiseration. A soft glow of realization began spreading through my mind- Maybe there was still time to turn back. Despite already dreading what I was about to get into, and having no idea of the nature of my work contract, I turned to the age-old comfort of relativity: a stint of factory work was surely child’s play compared to marriage. With her small hands tugging on the hem of her skirt, and my inability to think through my actions, who between us was the child anyway?

I took a deep breath and poured a cup of lukewarm coffee. I sat down. I felt pretentious reading my book. I watched the second-hand do its slow sweeping rounds, brushing back time from the face of the clock.

We boarded a tiny plane where we could choose our own seat, I sat next to a man covered in tattoos- sometimes I see auras and his relaxed me. It turns out he was petrified of flying, and I had to talk him through the turbulence as we suddenly saw nothing but the thick pillow-stuffed clouds tearing apart in the grey sky around us. When he gave me his phone number in Seattle, where he was going back to after several months of working on the crabbing ships, I pushed the scrap of paper down into the seat pocket in front of me when he wasn’t looking. Later, I felt guilty, and realized now was not the time to accumulate bad karma.