Why Do Cats Like Boxes?
A cat’s primary method of hunting is to hide and wait, then pounce and capture. As a strictly indoor cat, this is Riley’s main form of entertainment. Boxes offer cats a place of safety and sanctuary.
According to some very judgy internet quotes, our homes are also supposed to be sanctuaries.
Its more than a place, it’s a feeling, a sanctuary, a collection of moments that shape our lives.
Those of us in Southern California who have seen way too much devastation and destruction on our TV screens from the recent horrific firestorms are looking at our homes and our “collections of moments” a bit differently these days.
As Steve Lopez wrote in the Los Angeles Times, If you buy into stereotypes and myths, the climate in Southern California is splendid and the people are laid back. Lies. The conditions are harsh, with crazy winds and parched terrain cooking up one calamity after another, and anyone who isn’t on edge is either in denial, sedated or a renter.
I’ve been on edge all week from our current calamities and searched my photo library for some solace.
Sanctuary
We saw Antoni Gaudi’s masterpiece La Sagrada Familia last October in Barcelona and had the same experience as many first-time visitors, of wanting to weep with joy.
La Sagrada Familia is equally famous for not being finished. Construction has been delayed for multiple reasons—from the Spanish Civil War in 1936 which destroyed Gaudi’s architectural plans, to the COVID years which shut down everything, to a very modern problem of housing concerns. Completing the temple will require destroying three city blocks and displacing over 1000 residents and businesses.
So much for their sanctuary.
Consecrated Places
We’ve always found cathedrals a good place to stop in on our travels and just sit and rest. But I’d argue that forests are an equally wonderful sanctuary.
Two of these photos are from our pandemic trip to the Sequoia National Park, thankfully before the large KNP Complex fire that started on in September of 2021 and wasn’t declared 100 percent contained until three months later.
The General Sherman tree was protected by what looks in the photo above like a huge sheet of aluminum foil. Fire fighters are heroes.
Another hero is the Right Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde who urged our newly reinstalled president during the Inauguration Day National Prayer Service at the Washington Cathedral to demonstrate mercy towards the LGBTQIA+ and immigrant communities.
She’s under attack now for what she said. If you’d like to offer her your support, send a postcard or a thank you note to “The Rt. Revd. Mariann Egar Budde, Episcopal Church House, Mount St. Alvan, Washington DC 20016-5094.
She’s also written a book, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith.
My second novel Those People Behind Us is about folks trying to find sanctuary in a Southern California neighborhood where no one can agree who belongs. The story is set in the summer of 2017, post Trump’s first election and pre pandemic. It’s about politics, protests and escalating housing prices and realizing we have more in common than not.
It’s always on the shelf at my favorite Southern California bookstore Libro Mobile and for that I am extremely grateful.
If you’re in search of something that’s more of an escape, consider my first novel The Lockhart Women. Professor Lisa Alvarez called it one of her favorite literary escapes of 2021 in the LA Times, saying that it offered “an authentic portrait of 1990s Orange County, distinct from the oft-celebrated affluent coast.”
I’m very excited about Lisa’s forthcoming collection Some Final Beauty and Other Stories publishing in August of this year from the University of Nevada Press and available for pre-order now.
LA Times columnist Gustavo Arrellano wrote in his recent newsletter (subscribe here if you haven’t already) that he had the honor of blurbing Lisa’s collection. He calls the pacing and the details amazing.
My intention today was to write about how the MAGA city council of my hometown has declared Huntington Beach a non-sanctuary city. But I’ve decided I’m not in the mood to share space with them. You can read about their shenanigans here.
Instead, I’ll give a shout out to the Gibbs Butterfly Park, one place in Huntington Beach where at least the monarch butterflies can find sanctuary.
Where do you go to find sanctuary? Let me know and I’ll enter you in a drawing (US only) to win a signed copy of The Lockhart Women.
My sanctuary is anywhere I can read or write. Lovely newsletter, as always. (And as you may recall, I already have a signed copy of The Lockheart Women.)
Love your musings, Mary! Everyone should have sanctuary…..I’m grateful for the community we have found in the harsh landscape of SoCal, despite the dangers. As a native Angelino, I’m used to them.