Leaving Lola

I recently returned from driving for six days, 2,500 miles, from my digs on the East coast, to the heartland and back. With me for half the trip: one daughter, a stressed out cat, numerous card board boxes, a beat up desk chair, several road maps, a carton of puppy pads. 

I sat alone in the front seat the whole time.  I drove back myself, but on the way out, my daughter opted for the back seat, so she could comfort her cat.  Most of the time, she kept the pet carrier door open and the kitty, Lola, sat unblinking, drool icicles hanging from her panting jaw, one tiny paw and sometimes two touching my daughter’s knee or hand. I’d steal peeks at them in the rear view mirror, and would catch the both of them napping; my daughter, her head and shoulders leaning on the carrier, long dark hair curtaining much of her face, the kitten subdued for now and half-released, soft front paws and chin on my daughter’s knee,  tummy and back side still trapped within the confines of her puppy-padded temporary plastic home. 

The few times we stopped at rest areas, my daughter and I would take turns running inside to grab coffees and stale snacks.During my daughter’s turn, I’d open the back door and kneel next to Lola. I'd coo that it would all be okay.  Sometimes Lola would blink or mew or move to the back of the carrier. Sometimes she’d attempt to crawl out, head down, ears back, and I’d have to pet her soft chest, scratch behind her ear and ease her back in. I’d apologize and say this wasn’t my idea, bringing her all the way out here. I knew she had issues with traveling. I’d been the driver when we’d taken her from her first home in DC and driven north for eight hours, from one daughter's place to another.  I’d seen and smelled the evidence of her stress, hence the puppy pads. She knew, I hoped, that I didn’t want her to leave and that she was always welcome to come home and that my home would always be her home. 

Mostly Lola sat and stared straight ahead, which is not all that much different from what I did during our twenty-hour drive from the Berkshires through Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, Davenport and then Des Moines. Sometimes I sang, but mostly I sat and listened to music, while I tried to drive fast, a few miles over the speed limit at least, but not so fast that a cop would pull us over. 

On our two overnights on the way west we stopped at pet-friendly hotels. There were few choices in the eastern part of the country, but it seems nearly every place in the Midwest was open to cats and dogs.  We’d release Lola from her carrier as soon as we entered our room.  After being cooped up eight or nine hours, she was eager to escape but tentative too. You could see she was unsure about lots of things.  She’d sniff around at baseboards, would hide whenever we opened the motel room door. Not once took her eyes off us.

She’s not normally a needy cat. At her old home, which was my home when my daughter was away months at a time on law school internships, she’d settle herself at the foot of my bed, curl up like a black and white shrimp, and stay that way until midday or until I shook the treat bag. She spent most of her waking hours watching bunnies from the front window or lolling on sun patches on the living room floor or piano bench, or scratching up the leatherette hassock.  She enjoyed her chin scritchy-scratchies as much as any other cat, but preferred them on her own terms, which meant while she sat on the bathroom vanity watching water stream from the faucet into the sink. She loved ordering me around and would let me know exactly when the litter box was beyond using by head butting my knees or tripping me.

Those nights in the motels, her desire for attention was relentless. In addition to the mandatory petting by the constant stream of sink water, she played ultra runner, climbing us for hours like we were racescapes as we sat on our beds reading or watching television.  She stayed up all night both nights, pawing at our legs, head butting shoulders, licking faces and fingers.  I didn’t sleep well. I knew she was stressed and, being a bit cat co-dependent, I was stressed for her.  

Getting her into the carrier those travel mornings took some careful planning involving one patient human (my daughter), one stressed out mess (yours truly), one frantic, incredibly gymnastic feline, a cramped bathroom with door shut, numerous towels, cat treats, and much readjusting of animal and people body parts.

When we arrived at my daughter’s apartment, Lola’s new home, the kitty took off like a rocket the second we opened her wire door.  We found her several minutes later, flattened and fearful, in a space so tiny it would cramp a mouse, under the leather couch in the living area.  We let her be. She needed the time to decompress. 

Lola settled in to her new home pretty quickly.

I set my backpack and laptop on the floor by the coffee table and took a look around for myself. The walls were pretty bare which is typical when you’re just starting out and you’re in a new place and working all the time. On one wall was a watercolor portrait of Lola, that my daughter had made from a photo I’d sent her months back while she was out here on her second law internship in this city.  Over the fireplace was a poster of the internet meme Grumpy Cat, posed like the Mona Lisa.  My kid definitely has her own unique sense of decorating style. 

There were a couple of homemade mobiles dangling from the ceiling, in the space separating the kitchen breakfast counter from the living room. When I looked closer I had to smile. The last visit home, right after she graduated law school but before she flew back to Iowa, my daughter had spent a day going through a bunch of storage containers loaded with old photos and other memorabilia.  I saw now that she’d taken a bunch of photos from home, taped them back to back, then glued string on and made vertical, twisting memory books. Most of the photos were quite old, taken when she was just a toddler. There were pictures with her sister, her dad, her grandparents, some cousins, but none with me. 

I asked her about that. 

“I know,” she said. “I looked but I couldn’t find any pictures with you in them.”

That night, while Lola explored new window sills and found new box spring holes to call her own, I took my daughter and her friend out for barbecue.  The next day, after a long run on the quiet trails that bound Des Moines, we visited the Iowa State Fair.  We saw a life-sized cow made of butter, mall-sized barns, each one devoted to a particular animal: horses, cows, goats.  We bought lots of fried foods on sticks.  I ate two deep-fried Oreos.  We took tons of photos and I even made sure I was in some of them. It was a wonderful day. Plus, I didn’t have to drive once. 

There's nothing halfway about the Iowa way to greet you. . .

When we returned from the fair the sun was setting and the sky was beginning to cloud up. I started packing my things and mentally getting ready for the next morning, and that long lonely drive home. I stopped to check my email and read that Robin Williams had killed himself.

I looked everywhere for Lola after that, and found her in my daughter’s room, sitting on the window sill, looking out at the traffic speeding by on the access road on the other side of the parking lot. She barely moved when I scratched her chin. She ran under the bed when I started talking to her. I didn’t see her the rest of the night.  

The next morning I finalized my route and packed the car. I hugged my daughter and looked for Lola one more time. My daughter said Lola had slept next to her all night. She seemed really happy in her new home. I found Lola under my daughter’s bed but she wouldn’t come out when I called. I lifted up the bedspread so she could see me while I talked. I told her I didn’t blame her. I figure she thought I was going to try to put her in the carrier and take her on another long ride. I told her I understood what she was going through. I hadn’t enjoyed the trip much either, but the only thing constant is change. I said I wished I was staying.  I promised I’d come back to visit soon. I told her I loved her.

I pretty much said the same things to my daughter before I drove away.  

Des Moines is a beautiful city. As I drove on the highway that took me through town and then to Route 80, over the Mississippi River and into Illinois, I thought about what I’d seen during my short visit: a clean downtown area, pristine streets and sidewalks, shaded running trails that border horse farms and pure, bubbling streams. My daughter has no immediate plans to move back east, which she sees now as dirty and crime-ridden.  She’s made that clear. 

I remembered other separation times similar to this. I remember moving her in to her first apartment, a rodent-infested, ridiculously overpriced studio near the Brigham on Mission Hill. I remember her first college move-in. That had been a horrendous weekend. Both daughters and I packed the car up after I’d taught all day. Then the three of us drove in to Boston that Friday night of Labor Day weekend, in rush hour traffic, alongside all the tens of thousands of other parents and college students.  We stayed long enough to move her in but then had to say good-bye, drive home, repack the car . The next morning, my older daughter and I drove another eight hours in order to get her to school and settled in for her senior year, then I drove back alone. That had been a dreary, lonely drive back but not nearly as bad as that first drop off, when she was a new freshman.  

That had been eleven years ago, that very first freshman move. I was a stressed out mess that whole week before. My mother finally had enough of me and shut me up with some sage advice. I still remember what she said. I thought about her words as I drove home last week, making my way past rolling fields of corn and soy, past Motel Six billboards and advertisements for mega churches, all-you-can-eat buffets, adult video stores. I saw distant silos and sprawling farmhouses, one great lake, then another, meandered through pine forests and over fairy tale hills, then finally finished on the rutted crowded, ill-mannered highways of my own home state.

My mom had reminded me to put things in perspective. I was moaning and groaning, whining, because my oldest, still my baby, just a young recent high school grad, was moving nearly five hundred miles away and I’d hardly see her for the next four years. My mom told me I needed to snap out of it. “She’s not going to Afghanistan, not dealing with chemo, not headed to jail. She’s going to college.  A great college. Don’t you know how lucky you are?” 

I kept thinking of that time and my mom’s words as I headed east. I thought of her and my dad and how I'm so glad to still have them. Sometimes I’d block everything out, and concentrate on listening to music and singing along. Sometimes for variety’s sake, I’d search out the comedy stations. I got to hear one of Robin Williams’s stand-up routines. I laughed so hard I started crying and then I just cried. Then I avoided the comedy channels for awhile. Instead, I spaced. I sang. I pictured butter cows. I admired corn fields. I planned my next visit west.

My first butter cow.