Having been on the road for 487 days now, I am starting to feel a distinct tension between the constant restlessness that is part of my very nature and the desire to hold on to something more constant. Our home in Oakland is one of the most lovely of the entire trip, however, I can not stop thinking about the uncertainty and joy of our time on the road.
As a cat, I am naturally curious. Anything that’s novel piques my interest right away. For example, the endless barrage of nighttime noises that drift into the window of our Oakland abode remains consistently fascinating. As does the large, bald one’s slowly devolving taste in television programming.
Each day I make my rounds and find new smells and morsels of discarded food. I can never quite seem to predict when the warm air will start flowing from the floor vents, which is always a sweet surprise. One can find novelty in any environment, you just need to look at it through the eyes of a cat.
But then, there is the Big Novelty too. Like the time Michele put me on a boat for 5 days, without discussing it first. At the time I feigned indignance, but if I’m being honest with myself, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. Or there was that time that all the birds fled for the winter, and I was left watching the slow, silent drifting of snowflakes for nearly 3 months. I did not want to live that way forever, but the experience taught me to appreciate avian lifeforms in a way that had never occurred to me before.
As I reflect on past experiences, I drift into a light slumber. I dream of a new home, just over the horizon, where the grass is a little bit greener.