This was the first recording of the Spanish poetry I read. This sweet behind-the-scenes moment reminded me of how my late kitty was always by my side, keeping me company and reciting poems of her own.
Meow Meow was the first feline who chose to befriend me. After months of not-so-secretly stalking me, she left a neighbor and moved in with me. She was around three years old when she did that, making it perfectly clear that this was a gift she was bestowing on me. From that moment on it would be my honor and privilege to get to have her around. Since she clearly knew what she wanted out of life, we kept an open-door policy leaving a way out for her to come and go as she pleased for the rest of her days. I fell fast in love with her and did my very best to make her want to always return. It worked.
Meow was incredibly vocal, never holding back her opinions. She all kinds of yowls, meows, side-eyes, and the equivalent of kitty grunts. On rainy summer days, she'd rant about getting wet during evening strolls. When she didn't know if I was home, Meow would call out in a haunted voice. One night I stood in the dark next to her while she talked with another cat on the opposite side of a wooden fence. Because I was next to her I knew that she was calmly lying on the cool pavement, just like her neighbor kitty-friend, gossiping. But it was dark out and in the footage I got, all you hear are war cries claiming violence in the pitch black of night.
She was a Queen and she lived to be nineteen. I miss her in ways that may not resonate with you but at least she lives vibrantly in my heart. I miss her voice tho. It was rich and real and she taught me how to use mine.