Ours for the Week

On temporary belongings and the laws of reciprocity

We named the cats Minnow and Guppy—an irony I’m sure they wouldn’t have appreciated if they spoke English. But as it was, they were neighborhood (stray?) cats living by the beach in Mexico, who in addition to scraps of soft shell crabs caught at midnight, and the occasional cockroach, found themselves begging at the feet of the Gringos staying at Casa Playa Azul.

They’d show up at meal times, meowing outside the screen door. When we’d laid the patio table with clay dishes full of Tacos Al Pastor, they’d rub against our legs, giving us their most plaintive feline faces.

It’s low season here, and these cats are far from fat. So we decided that first night to make an offering of our plate scraps.

We didn’t know if it was the right thing really, we are strangers here. If they were chipmunks in a National Park, I’d know the rules and would have done the opposite.

But these cats were ours for the week—pets and cuddles and tails held high in regal anticipation of being fed. Of being loved. (And aren’t those almost the same thing?)

The first night they mewed hungrily—but by the second, Minnow sat on the patio chair beside my father after dinner and fell fast asleep. As though she knew belonged here, by the simple laws of reciprocity.

The whole week went on like this. Pets and cuddles before breakfast. Playing with a loose strand of palapas from the roof, or the dangling thread from one of the hammocks in the late afternoon. After dinner, a small offering of leftovers by the dying light.

The last morning, Minnow came by earlier than usual. She walked with me towards the beach chair to watch the final sunrise, and later at breakfast, she laid a possessive paw across my flip flop as though asking me to stay, though of course she knew I wouldn’t.

The children were sad to say goodbye. I could see it in the rounding of their shoulders, in the quietness where they carried their grief. But this too is a lesson of love and care—the pain of separation can make us wonder if we ever should have opened our hearts at all.

It is the inverse of what you’d expect—that the gift of a temporary belonging stays with you in the form of an ache. But that doesn’t make love a mistake.

“I’m sure they have had many names,” my Father says to me. And I’m sure he’s right. Being named, even for a time, is also a gift. I still carry with me the warmth of pet names friends long estranged gave to me in the days of my youth. Even as I carry the grief of belongings I did not know would be temporary. Love comes with ache—even small loves like these, yet this is also what carves into us the memory of mutual care.

I like to think it was reciprocal. That perhaps it was not us who chose first, but it was the cats who looked at this family with the five small children, pale skinned and hungry for cuddles—and nodded sagely to themselves, knowing even better than we of the pain of temporary belongings—“Si. Ours for the week.”

Thank you for reading this small essay. I hope to write more short pieces like this in the coming months, because writing this way helps me to Notice the beauty of my life—and I hope it helps you to notice the beauty of yours. By way of reminder, most all of the posts here I share are free, but if you have the means and would like to support my work, I would be so grateful if you’d consider becoming a paying subscriber. Your contributions help me keep the lights on.