Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
On the first of each month, Catching Days hosts a guest writer in the series, “How We Spend Our Days.”
Today, please welcome writer
YAEL VALENCIA ALDANA
In the morning
I have been waking up about seven thirty. I could go back to sleep, but this morning I decide to get up. Miss Spicy, my small black cat, is mewing determinedly on the other side of the door. I open it, and she rushes over my feet and onto my bed, followed by her brother, a larger tabby.
Beyond the open door, the remaining council of cats stares at me, disgruntled. A still larger gray and white tabby, an orange tabby, and the distinguished Russian Blue mix. They only gather like this when my son hasn’t fed them the night before.
I wander out to the kitchen to feed them. I didn’t mean to have five cats. I was content with one. Then my son brought home an orange kitten he found at his high school. Then after my sister died, I inherited the Russian Blue. Then a family of cats appeared in the back yard, led by a frisky black kitten I named Miss Spicy.
Next is fresh espresso, an egg over easy, and toast. The previous day still lingers. I was driving to work when I saw a small brindle dog, alone, limping down the road, one of his hind legs tucked tightly against his stomach.
I wanted to stop and scoop up that dog. Take him to the vet if he needed it. But I couldn’t, I was heading to my new job, and I had to be on time. As I drove, I thought, what has happened to my life. A main life goal was always to stop and help if some animal needed it. And I couldn’t do that. I was heading to work to be a small cog in a larger corporation’s wheel. That isn’t what I wanted or thought I would be doing at this middle age.
Leaning against my kitchen counter, sipping my coffee, I am still frustrated, but a new idea is working through my mind. A year and a half ago, I lost my partner in crime, my son’s father, Geoff. If he were still here, I would have stopped, called him, and told him he had to meet me and get the dog. He would have groaned but come. I would have continued to work, and he would call to let me know what was happening with the dog. Did he go to the vet? Was he putting up lost dog flyers? Now there is no Geoff, and the dog and I are on our own.
I sit down on my couch and survey the living room. It’s like Geoff never left. The room is full of his collectibles accumulated over decades: African masks carved for ceremony, a stylized Aboriginal painting of a turtle, a lacquered mother-of-pearl screen, and a standing world globe he got from who knows where.
My life feels like a wind chime for the dead. Two years ago, we lost my older sister, then Geoff, then early this year, another close friend passed. I stopped asking what was happening. I was numb. Every day, I focused on dealing with what was in front of me. The goal was just to make it through the day.
On my writing desk
Percy, my sister’s former cat, is sitting, resting against a pile of poetry books. I rub his soft head and open Julie Marie Wade’s collection Skirted and read the poem “Ekphrasis.” A beautiful, layered work that is both simple yet knotted with ideas and meaning.
I pick my pen with turquoise ink. I will work on some poems from my new collection, Cruel Childhood, for a while. Until my Zoom meeting in the early afternoon, to talk about my brand-new idea with a friend. I work on a well-deserved poem about Miss Spicy.
Noon
I watch the sun’s shadows shifting into noon sharpness across my desk. I glance at my phone, and it’s twelve minutes after. I’ll make a quick lunch before my Zoom call at twelve thirty. I throw some creamy dill sauce on chicken and udon noodles, my new obsession. (Why didn’t anyone tell me they were this good?)
My friend
Erik pops up on my computer screen with fake Hawaii beach waves rolling behind him.
“Hey, hey, hey.” He smooths his long hair over his shoulder. He looks like a misplaced hippie from the sixties, but here he is in 2026, not looking a day over thirty-five.
He squints at the screen. I can tell he’s reviewing the email I sent him. “I think this could work.” He pauses. “Yeah, an animal shelter that’s also a writers’ retreat. I think people can get into that.”
He’s the friend I trust with my most crazed ideas.
I say, “I mean, writers are always posting about their pets, right? There is built-in love there.”
He says, “I see it. We need to work on a plan to bring this thing together step by step.”
Miss Spicy jumps up on the desk and peeks at the screen as if she approves. I flick my pen between my fingers. “I thought we could start a newsletter about writers and their pets, start gathering a community. Maybe work in some fundraising?”
Erik nods. “It won’t just be you contributing, will it?”
“I talked to a few of my friends. They are willing to write about their cats.”
He says, “Damn girl, you are moving fast.”
“When I have something on my mind, I get moving. What do you think about the name Pens and Pets?
“Sounds good, sounds good,” he replies.
I scratch out some notes in my journal. We talk about next steps, and we end the meeting.
Miss Spicy is now prancing behind my laptop screen.
“What do you think, Miss Spicy? Do you want to work at a writing retreat?” At the sound of her name, she zips into my lap for a cuddle.
In the evening
San Diego is cooler than expected in April. The temperature is hovering in the sixties and cloudy. I throw on a flannel jacket and venture out the door for a walk. I feel like I am just emerging from the shell of grief. I am finally able to think and make plans outside of survival mode.
People are coming home from work, and the street is choked with parked cars. In some places, the road is just wide enough for one car to pass.
I take a deep inhale and finger the face mask in my pocket. Are my allergies acting up? No. I walk on. Is Pens and Pets really a good name for the sanctuary? Maybe just Geoff’s House? We were all safe at Geoff’s house.
As I walk by the house on the corner where a small tan Chihuahua constantly escapes, I think, What makes you think you can make this work? I repeat a mantra that has served me well: I don’t know how it’s going to work, but it’s going to work. After all, Erik and I started a press from nothing that is still going strong.
I stride past a fifties-era stove with a sign that says “free.” What should I write about for the newsletter? Maybe about the first time I saw Miss Spicy in my backyard by the shed. Her mother and her two littermates stared at me warily. Miss Spicy was tiny, maybe two and a half years old, the runt of the litter. She held my gaze unafraid as she skipped and strutted in front of her mother. She was supposed to be a tiny stray cat with no hope, but she didn’t know that and didn’t care. She was too brave to notice.
I reach the end of the block and turn toward home, pulling my collar closed. I should make a poster, “Be like Miss Spicy.”
~
THOSE SAME 3 NEW QUESTIONS…
1. What one word best describes your writing life?
- Erratic. I have tried for years to have a writing routine, ala waking up at five am with a steaming cup of coffee and writing for a few hours. Invariably, I wander off schedule without noticing. I tend to write to deadlines, even if I have to make one up.
2. Is there a book you’ve read over and over again?
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I read Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye almost yearly. It’s the first book I read that inspired me to be a writer. It’s still one of the best books I have ever read. Her writing is poetic, and she breaks many rules. Her protagonist is annoying, complicated, and passive, but it works. Her audacity inspires my own.
3. What is your strangest obsession or habit?
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I eat salads without salad dressing, which seems to drive people crazy, especially servers.
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