A little blog about how a secluded, people-averse woman is finally opening up to her community — secondary progressed Aquarius Rising chart finally making its mark. Shocking shocking! Let’s go!
Right. If you read this blog enough you’d know I’m that weirdo who doesn’t really like people. It’s ironic that my work consists of helping humans when in my everyday life, I’m hissing at them. I spend my days mostly alone, studying, cooking for myself, breakdancing for my cats, and once in a while engaging with a gay man where we throw insults at each other as sport. Every morning I go off to feed my pigeon boyfriend, Dovey, except I’m no longer his girlfriend because he now has Peaches.
Seriously. One day I’m feeding a single white pigeon, next thing I know there’s two of em. Like, where did she come from? Is there like a pigeon dating app that I don’t know of? Anyway. It was these two lovers for about a month and a half. And then this happened:
Michael Bolton is their part-time friend who sits with them for a few hours a day, eats and chats, then flies off to wherever. The jogging path gardener has supported me in this weird ass journey of suddenly having winged children, rallying on and claiming that sooner or later the path would be full of pigeons and I’m gonna need to buy sacks of bird feed.
Which gets me to the point I was trying to make: Me? Talking to the path gardener? For about a year whenever I’d go out for my walks I’d have my earphones on, listening to podcasts so no one would talk to me just in case my Resting Bitch Face wasn’t enough. But as the last few months have gone by, I started leaving my earphones back at home with my mouth suddenly open to having actual conversations. With actual people.
It started one day in early April while I was feeding Dovey. A newly dumped adolescent cat was making its way to attack my winged child when I intervened. Intervening meant getting scratched. Getting scratched meant blood. Thankfully, I saw the community cat lady (can you believe I no longer am the community cat lady???) nearby and asked if she would be so kind to share her water (for the cats, not for human consumption) with me to wash off the blood. She obliged and when I said thanks she even offered alcohol, wet wipes, and her husband came rushing in telling me I should have a rabies shot. I brushed off my new cat scratch saying I’m a professional cat lady and even if getting an anti rabies shot was a logical thing to do, I am also Brit Mikagami. And Brit Mikagami is like a cockroach who never dies.
What’s interesting is that just like that adolescent cat trying to hunt my child, I realized that I too am an adolescent human thing learning what it is to live in a community. Like, really live in a community.
Anyway. So that’s how I met Joy.
My gay friend and I were having breakfast (delicious breakfast might I add. absolutely scrumptious) when we were discussing solutions to our melancholia. While my case is temporary (a long case of temporary), his is a little bit more long-term and at times, debilitating. He suggested volunteering at a school to teach elementary kids, and I suggested an animal shelter instead.
Although I have a fulfilling job where I work with humans for pay, I would rather devote my free time and energy to animals as I had done all my life. And since he is a dog lover, he agreed that that would be a good way to give back.
However, as per usual, things happen and time passes and we never got back to this discussion.
As days turned to weeks, Joy and I would pass by each other daily, waving small hellos and exchanging chitchats about the cats. Just as I found a reason to walk daily because I’m delusional and think my three pigeons would die without me, she too would never miss a day, feeding the jogging path cats, cleaning their bowls, making sure they had clean water to drink and all that jazz.
She’s a cat lady newbie, so occasionally she’d ask my help on how to care for a sick newly dumped kitten, or what to do with the macho cats who got into a fight and have scabs on their faces. She’d watch me lure my three pigeons down from their ledge and she’d look up if I pointed at a colorful bird or the crows that appeared out of nowhere.
But what changed everything was the day it started to rain. Philippine summer starts March and ends by June. But by May, it usually starts to rain and on one particular Sunday, it rained really hard.
So off I went not one bit dissuaded by the whooshing of the heavens above in the boots I never wear because who the fuck would wear boots in a tropical country??? The rain was torrential but I carried on, delighted to have the path all to myself and singing under the protection of my umbrella. I was highly motivated to feed the winged children even if I could get blown away (a true fear of mine, i am dainty).
But I wasn’t alone. I found Joy crouched down, crying under her umbrella, feeding her favorite path kitties Jaja Mae and RC (the adolescent cat). So once my own children had eaten, I went up to her and asked what was wrong. Apparently she’s never been so moved by animals before, that she couldn’t bear the thought of the path cats being tormented by the rains. I laughed at her sweet reason, and in a surprising move, I actually patted her back. So there we were, two ladies in their 40s with their umbrellas helping each other feed the strays amidst the bellowing winds.
Since then, Joy had introduced me to volunteer work at the local community cat shelter @homebound.ph. An invisible volunteer, I help feed, clean, and on occasion, medicate the cats in need. I have also since then met a few other community cat people both local and foreign. I recently learned that my favorite Russian Instagram cat illustrator duo @lingvistov is part of this community!
From talking to one path gardener, a few are learning that I’m not as scary as they thought and are now greeting me good morning during my walks. The pigeons have started getting more and more attention and people running have once in a while slowed down to make remarks about them to me. An older woman who is absolutely fascinated by the winged children makes sure to thank me for feeding them whenever she sees me.
And as I was talking to the Cat Leader Marcel about adding a pigeon house for my kids aside from the cat houses they have started putting up, I realized that gone is the girl hiding behind her scowl and earphones. I have become the pigeon lady who chitchats on the side of the path with other volunteers and a bunch of cats by her feet. My fanny pack which only had my phone and credit card now carries pigeon feed, syringes and a wound spray for the felines in need. (dude, i rhymed)
Of course not everything is fabulous. I was recently told that I looked great, and while I genuinely accepted the compliment, I was quickly disappointed when I realized this woman was trying to sell a me a weight-loss product —- to gain weight. She immediately realized her mistake when I obviously didn’t look like I needed to shed any more weight at my frame. And while she tried to save her marketing spiel, my face went back to Resting Bitch Default Mode, completely understanding her praise was fake.
Anyway. Although I am happy to slowly be showing up for my community, I also know that I’d rather still work behind the scenes, almost invisible, never fully integrating. As a healer and empath, I know my compassion has its limits, so I make sure I have my little pockets of joy before I head to the solace of my home to be silly in the company of nobody.
All right y’all. Off to tend to my winged offspring.
sayonara bitches,
brit and matthew the crow
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