Unavailable for Adoption

We don’t use the word “unadoptable”. A Memoir by Angela Townsend

Photo by Kabo on Unsplash

My cat has a malformed heart, but I’m the one who is unadoptable. We don’t use the word “unadoptable” at the shelter. We have seen practical people besotted into high-risk love. We have seen undergrads and attorneys hogtied by newborn bonds.

The best-laid plans of adopting a young, healthy cat cackle into a carrier with an elderly diabetic. Careful arms unfold. Calculations collapse. The old, the cross, and the gastrointestinally challenged find families. No one is “unadoptable.”

I have intentionally removed myself from the roster. I have erased my name from the website. I am on the management team. I have the authority to do this. We make a cat unavailable for adoption if it is in her best interest. She may be terminally ill and peaceful in our window seats. She may be delicate, turning catatonic for days after we rearrange the furniture. She may be divorced, the ink still wet on her name.

We say we will only adopt a cat into a home that is better than the shelter. This is a tall order, an Eiffel Tower of expectations. The shelter is Paris and Brigadoon. The shelter is Shangri-La and the courtyard of Eden. The shelter is a cage-free experiment in the unconditional. No one has ever succeeded in losing love.

This is not for lack of trying. We have harbored four thousand fugitives. We specialize in the condemned. We are not known for gingerbread tabbies and sugar plum calicos. Our cats are gnarled with need. They require insulin every twelve hours, no matter whether you have a breakfast meeting or a date beneath the stars. They require something older than forgiveness. They cannot control their bowels or their gnashing fears. They would return “control” to the store if they received it as a gift. They are marbled with contradictions and declare themselves mountains.

The cats do not contemplate adoption. They know their friends and nemeses are seen no more. They do not tell us their interpretation. They return to the day itself, the shelter within the shelter. They occupy every inch of the hour, ambling the perimeter. They shelter in place.

Some cats are adopted and returned. I do not believe that a home is better than a shelter. I walk the Seine alone, allowed to linger over lights in the water. I live with a cat with a malformed heart and a Partridge Family shag. She was born with mutations and vainglory. We stay up half the night writing. We listen to folk songs our adopter called “puerile.” We underline good paragraphs in pen and eat Temptations. We wear colors the adopter called “embarrassing.” We sleep through the night. We read Psalms. We collect sticks shaped like the letter “Y” and decide they mean “Yes.” No one shouts in the shelter.

In the shelter, I am allowed to keep kinetic company. I open the cages and let out my contaminated friends. The adopter said I was too easy on people. He said I was a magnet for oddballs. He could not find a veterinarian who would excise the stars from my eyes. It was for the best. I do not want to leave the shelter.

I do not want to leave the elderly who streak their hair with “faery lights,” iridescent extensions that reveal their true identity. I am safe to bare my belly with vegans and pagans. We jump like pintos for the joy of mewling in the morning. We give thanks for the word “bandicoot” and the UPS man’s woolly knees. My friends listen to Kazakh hip-hop and write op-eds against the death penalty. They call me their Jesus freak. They hide crystals in my lunch box for my heart chakra. They attend Board of Directors meetings in hoodies that say, “My Illness Is Chronic…My Boobs Are Iconic.” They rescue praying mantises with three legs. They are bodhisattvas and bandits. They say “bonjour.” They are chaotic and uncanonized. They say too much. They are adoptable.

I celebrate adoptions. I leave the Vacancy sign on for mysteries. I clap my hands and fold them in prayer when a cat leaves in a swinging carrier, chosen. I go home to a cat with a malformed heart and unconditional hours.

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Angela Townsend is the Development Director at Tabby’s Place: a Cat Sanctuary. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Chautauqua, CutBank, Lake Effect, New World Writing Quarterly, Paris Lit Up, The Penn Review, Pleiades, The Razor, and Terrain.org, among others. Angie has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 33 years, laughs with her poet mother every morning, and loves life affectionately.