I knew I smelled it this morning: cat pee. When you are the guardian of three cats, there’s bound to be cat pee, especially when one of those cats is old and knew you before your husband and even though he loves your husband, he insists on letting your husband know that you love him (the cat) so much that he can continue to pee on said husband’s things and almost nothing will change.
So of course the first thing I inspected was anything belonging to my husband.
“We’re going to sniff things!” I announced with glee to the baby as I put him on the floor. It’s important to imply something even better than being in mama’s arms is about to happen when you are putting W3 down. He is not a fan of being put down unless something very cool is about to happen. And in fact, he did find me crawling on my hands and knees sniffing various things to be quite cool. He loves my sniffing face.
Ben and I are having an ongoing disagreement about where things that are “headed for donation” should sit in the house until they are donated. I think they should be down by the laundry on the table there. Ben says we can’t have them there because that’s where we put laundry, and to prove his point, he folded laundry as it came out of the dryer for the first time in his life. He says we should put these things in the front hall, which I immediately disagreed with because anytime we put a pile of things in the front hall, Finn pees on it.
So there was a pile of things in the front hall because I’m willing to let my point be made by external factors rather than arguing it.
I sniffed the shoes, I sniffed the broken bassinet, I sniffed Ben’s boots, I sniffed the bag of his clothes heading for donation. Surely it was going to be on the bag of clothes, but no. No wetness, no cat piss. At this point, I just started picking things up and tossing them out onto the stoop as they proved themselves clean. Then, as I tossed the final free bin item into the fresh air, Finn sauntered into the front hall, right to the front door, where he sniffed the corner and then looked at me.
There, wedged in the moulding of the door where the logs meet the frame, was a petrified mouse covered in pee. Not petrified as in scared, but petrified as in ossified. A relic of itself. And since the cats could not eat it, it seems they chose to desecrate it. We all have our hobbies.
So I am on the stoop organizing all the things I piled up out there when a car stops. They stopped because Jibs ran directly in front of their car, which is what he always does when he wants to assert that this is his house.
Except that’s what the woman in the car was also saying.
“I grew up here!”
It was the previous owner’s daughter. Great bangs, great glasses, great jewelry, great attitude. Great front stoop of her former home, covered in detritus.
The whole gang was outside: Ben’s parents who are pet sitting for our neighbors, that pet (Dash), Jibs, Ben, W3 strapped to Ben. Ben and I were like shelter dogs at her car window, desperate for her to feel at home in her home that is now our home, asking if she wanted to see the house, that she could stop by whenever, that we’d be happy to host a reception in the house when she held the memorial this summer. We’ll be here! Anytime! Just saying!
She said she could see the monstera, still enormous, thriving through the window. She asked about the hoya, gripped tightly to the fireplace. Oh yes, still doing well.
“A girlfriend actually gave that plant to my dad, and he was sure she was a witch. That thing rooted so deeply into the fireplace that he was always like, I told you she was a witch, now I can’t risk taking it down.” And he never did. The hoya is blooming now, creating her wax stars of pink and white at the very top of the fireplace.
When I went inside to clean the bones of mice and pee of cats, I looked at the fireplace.
“Witchcraft, huh? Well.”
I can only assume that if Dick believed her to be a witch, that he dated, and accepted gifts from, and then tended to those gifts for decades due to genuine belief, that the only right thing to do is to also believe she was a witch and this plant wasn’t merely a plant, but a promise. In some cultures, the hoya carnosa is a climbing symbol of prosperity, attracting wealth. In others, it’s known as a guardian, warding a space from negative energy. And in witchcraft, it’s suggested to be grown in the house as protection.
Sort of a curious gift to give to a suspicious boyfriend, but still a kind one. Its star-like flowers are said to align all your chakras, and doesn’t that sound nice? When your chakras are properly balanced, you are meant to feel deeply at peace and brimming with vitality.
I can tell you right now that is not how I feel.
But I did feel something when I heard the witch tale about a climbing plant from a beautiful girl who once called my home hers.
Two new plants made their way to me these past two weeks: an angry gold dust croton and a very proud coleus. One was given freely, leaf bare, looking for a place to thrive. The other was given more reluctantly. It had outgrown its home, and its keeper was sad to see it go. She knew it needed space; space she was hoping I had.
I’m reading a book about witches right now. The characters have been gritting their teeth the entire novel with dogged tiredness and determination. They are both fire and ashes, steam and soot. But if there is a moment to welcome kindness, that is a moment they always offer.
That. That is what I am feeling. Perhaps the hoya does not offer protection of you, but to you. Here it is in buckets, it says, here it is in droves. May you offer it in every moment there is.
Ben and I looked at each other in W3’s room the other evening, ragged. At nearly 11 months, we are still at least a year away from a real vacation away from the child, if not longer. Every day it feels like I am digging into the same hole, but the height to toss the dirt gets higher and higher. And yet, I take the plants. I look at kittens online. I tell Ben we should get a black one. Black cats have a harder time finding a home, I said.
We have one of those, a home.
We have some of that, protection.
We have a witch who wards the logs, who builds the fire, who welcomes them in.
She is writing spells of abundance. She is writing to welcome more.
May our home always be a sanctuary to whatever, whoever, finds themselves in need.
Can confirm: Your home is a real sanctuary.
"We all have our hobbies." what a great line!