My day started in a bit of a funk. I don’t know where it came from but when I woke up, it was in my face enough to make me close my eyes again. I began thinking about what our home had been like in the years past when my hubby and I shared our bed with our cat Schatzie. She was our bestie beastie, our forever furry. She had been with us exactly 7 years when she passed this Summer. The first month after she died, I missed her terribly. Then I picked myself up and have been scooting along in my new normal. But today, my heart was aching.
A few years into having her, we discovered she would come to me when I was singing. Honestly, I think she thought that sound coming out of me meant I was hurt, and she was checking on me! I developed a song just for her after the Ritchie Valen’s song, “Oh, Donna”.
I have a kitty and Schatzie is her name,
Once she loved me I would never be the same.
I would sing it, then announce her arrival with my best emcee voice….Ladeeeez and Gentaaaaaahmen, please welcome to the stage, Mizzzz Schatzie Payne! She would hop up on the bedroom pillow, and we would all fall asleep in a pile.
So this morning as I was thinking of her, I began to sing it for the first time since her little memorial service. But I got choked up enough to stop, knowing she couldn’t come to the big stage in our bed if I sang. And….I fell back to sleep.
My dreams were wild but felt beautifully magical.
I awoke to quick, hard footsteps coming up the stairs to my bedroom. Running. And then they stopped outside the door. I was on alert. No body runs in our house, really.
The door opened and my husband excitedly approached me with his cell phone in hand. He was sharing Alex Rekk’s Kickstarter Video for the Fifth Edition of her book Stolen Sharpie Revolution. This book has been with us about as long as Schatzie had. Eric is a Zine maker, and I bought the book for him one of our first Christmas’s together. Alex is a household word ’round Creativity Tribe Studio!
I wiped the sleep from my eyes, sat up, and set my grief aside. The video started with energizing music, narration by Alex, and pictures of her book in different scenarios. And then…there on the screen, from the World Wide Web, was our own Super Star Kitty, Schatzie, sitting with our copy of Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2. Mizzzz Schatzie Payne had come to the stage after all!
Alex had asked for images of her book being used in every day life. As it happens Schatzie loved to sit on Eric’s zine collection.
After watching the video, Eric and I marveled. We had both been missing her especially hard today. And she found a way to affirm ……what? (as I am typing this, I am trying to put my finger on what she was trying to affirm….that we are still connected….that life goes on after death…. that what we had was as important to her as it is to us. And through my headphones that were meant to block out the noise of the tv in the next room, comes a song by India Arie….I Am Light. I have never heard it, but it is blowing my mind in this instance.)
And she found a way to affirm we are light…and we are more than the body, more than than cat and human, one life form “owning” another. We were light together. Divinity defined, God on the inside, a star, a piece of it all. Light.
We are joining the other SSR lovers in supporting Alex and dedicating our support to Schatzie. Seems fitting. If you would like to see Schatzie and/or support Alex, head over to her Kickstarter. Schatzie is the first cat in the video….among many cats who make an appearance.
And to Alex, if you happen to be reading this, we just never know what our message as Creatives is going to say to another or how our daring to share what our heart has to express will touch the heart of another. Thanks!
