memory | Literature and Libation

I spent an hour last night with my hand on her heart, feeling it feebly bump, telling me it was probably time. She’d grown thin from renal failure, but those eyes, they still burned with that distinct feline conviction.

I think people who say they don’t like cats misunderstand their power. While dogs are rarefied ideals of energy and optimism that encourage us to be our best selves, cats are much more humanistic, prone to moodiness and fits of fancy.

Dogs are motivational posters. Cats are mirrors.

Pandora – Dora for short – was my secret therapist of 13 years. I can’t even remember how many personal truths I whispered to her, knowing her judgement was silent, and her silence absolute. I’d lie on the floor next to her, talking about all the hardest and worst things in life, and her yellow eyes would just stare back, gently. My stresses would fall into her fluff. Her powerful purrs reverberating against the rhythm of my heart.

She saved me more times than she knows. Part of the adult I am is the work of that cat, how she healed my heart, and warmed me, physically and emotionally.

She was my first trial at being a “dad.” The first thing my wife and I loved together, outside of ourselves. The first living creature I nurtured and raised from kitten to crone. I’ve loved and lost other family cats in my life, but Dora was wholly mine. My responsibility. My companion. My feline extension. She taught me about patience and temperament, all things I use as I raise my actual human daughter.

An accidental tutor that cat, years of tutelage in hairballs and head hugs.

We cry for the lost because of what they leave missing in us. A brush against the leg in the morning. An after work enthusiastic meow-borne greeting. As she passed today, left me one ally shorter in the literal cold of the winter, I feared one of the lighthouses flooding light onto the darkness of my mind had been extinguished.

In the short term, the shadows close in. But I know Dora’s spirit – those years of white fur and bright eyes – have permanently rolled back the fog on my psyche, and all I need is to think of that little face to arc a beam of light across even the saddest days.

Dora’s favorite song was “It’s only a Paper Moon” (the Bing Crosby version). She especially liked it when I’d whistle it at the highest pitch possible. If I couldn’t find her – inside our out – one chirp through the chorus and she’d come running.

While I know the song by heart musically, I’d never really considered the lyrics much until today.

Love for a pet is reciprocal in so much as you believe it is. Some people might think it a superficial love, or a lesser love,

But it wouldn’t be make-believe

If you believed in me

I’ll miss you kiddo. Until the next time your purrs and my heart meet

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(I missed the last few Sessions due to travel and exhaustion and illness, but I’m back! This month’s topic is “My First Belgian” hosted by Breandán and Elisa over at Belgian Smaak.)

Occasionally, the many moving parts of my writing life line up in a perfect row, like some rare celestial event where arcane energies mingle and a portal to other worlds opens very briefly. As the Session falls on a day I had other writing plans, I can feel the gears of my mind click and sync, suddenly whirring together as one as the clutch reengages. I typically write “Forgotten Friday” posts about places and items that have been lost in plain sight, but today, I’m using the literal definition of my favorite nostalgic infinitive: “to forget.”

This month’s topic asks me to recall the first Belgian beer I ever managed to sneak down my gullet. The problem is, no matter how far I stretch my brain, how many stories I pull from the depths of my hippocampus, how many bottles and labels I recall on the selves of the dozens of fridges of my life, I cannot remember my first Belgian beer. I can remember the first beer; it was a Boddingtons Pub Ale, at the dinner table with my parents, around 7th grade. Although, photo evidence says I probably drank a bit earlier than that (thanks, Dad), that’s my first fermented memory, the first time I remember drinking beer.

I also remember thinking it tasted like bitter instant oatmeal that someone had added way too much water to, followed by a quick internal question, “why would anyone want to drink this stuff?”

Don’t judge, it was the 80s in England. Just look at that red table and white leather couch.

If I had to guess, my first was probably one of the big boy Belgian beers: Duvel, Hoegaarden, maybe even a stray bottle of Delirium Tremens left to age in the back of our family fridge after a party. It’s possible, in all its wasted decadence, that my first Belgian was Trappist; my mom would often keep a bottle of Chimay Red on hand during the holiday season, for reasons I don’t quite understand, because neither she nor my dad drank it. But I cant’ say for sure. It’s a black void in my mental vault, one of those things I never built a place for in my memory palace, that will probably be forever lost in the deep dark ocean of my memories.

I’ll confess; I probably don’t remember because I’ve never taken to Belgian beer. I’ve homebrewed it, tried countless styles and brands, forced my tongue into a steel-cage death match with funky fermentation, hoping to one day emerge bloody but victorious, the Champion of Brussels. While I’ve gotten in a few good punches, I’m still likely to brace myself before taking a sip of saison, clench my jaw when quaffing a quad. I appreciate the artistry and heritage of many Belgian breweries, but something in the bready unmistakable yeast character of Belgian beer is antithetical to what my taste buds want.

While that may seem tragic (and trust me, for years I was convinced there was a fundamental flaw in my mouth), it has allowed me to finally accept a reality a lot of modern beer enthusiasts forget, try to dance around to avoid appearing unlearned or inexperienced: it’s OK to not like a certain style of beer. It’s OK to not like super hoppy, high ABV imperial IPAs. It’s OK if you find the salty sour of a gose a bit too much for your particular preferences. It’s OK to say, “I have tried this, and it is not for me.”

The only thing you’re obligated to do is appreciate that someone else, somewhere, probably does like that style. Maybe likes it so much they’re known to throw “favorite” in front of it whenever it comes up in conversation. You don’t have to like a beer, but always keep in mind: your not liking it doesn’t make it bad. Subjective bad and objective bad are wildly different beasts. If you’re into beer enough to have opinions (and don’t just enjoy it as a drink), it’s on you to be able to acknowledge when a beer is well made but not to your tastes, verses poorly made, and not up to the quality standards of excellent beer.

Memory is tied to taste, and I was hoping that sipping on some Belgian beer would cause a chemical cascade of mnemonic flashes. But it didn’t. It just reminded me of all the ways I’ve tried to force myself to like a style because of faux cultural pressure and personally manufactured expectation, and how, when looking at it in hindsight, that seems like a very silly thing.

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Paper Moons

The Session #91 – Forgotten Friday: My First Belgian