Gato and the Temple

August 25, 2019

Alec and I placed a spoonful of Gato’s ashes in a velvet pouch, put it in a small box and wrapped it in one of the last photos of him before he died, printed on our low-end black and white printer. In the photo, he’s lying on top of Alec during one of our Sunday morning coffee rituals, his paw seemingly hugging his beloved master. Our dear friend James will be taking Gato to the temple at Burning Man. I ached to be the one to place this bit of our sweet boy in the place that has come to be my root, a place that symbolizes both the eternal and the amorphous, the universal permanence and evanescence that is this life. But he is in the best, most appropriate hands with James, who is more like family than friend, who loved Gato and was loved by him.

Gato came into my life when Emily convinced her cat-hating father that she desperately needed a cat. Emily is an animal-choosing savant, and Gato immediately proved his superiority to all beings, even as a 10-week old kitten. There was an awareness from the moment he arrived that we would all be at his mercy from then on (not unlike my feeling when Emily arrived), that this was a being of such unique and unexpected intelligence and elegance that he was clearly to be the owner of us. And so it was. He was spunky, bitchy, loving, indifferent. He leaped to the highest heights (often to his own consternation when unable to find a way down), burrowed under the lowest lows. When his 2-year old self became too aggressive and started drawing blood when chasing the ankles of his young co-habitants, and the girls’ father threatened to remove him from the family, I suggested getting another cat as a companion upon completion of the Google research necessary to counter the effort to exile the family’s new emperor. When the newest feline member of the household was introduced, Gato’s disapproval was palpable and characteristic. But once he accepted that Little Bit was neither leaving nor edible, a new side of Gato was born: the mother.

Little Bit was (and is) a special needs kitten. He was found with his siblings, separated for an unknown amount of time from his mother. His foster family was involved in the adoption process, as they were very concerned that his adoptive family understand and appreciate his quirks. They had named him Hoover for his need to suck on their hands, as if they were mama. It was heartbreaking and endearing and it is to this day. Gato seemed to instinctively understand Little Bit. Once he was over the hump of having to share his people, he became Little Bit’s primary nurturer. He allowed the kitten to suck on him as if he had teets. He groomed him. He curled around him when they slept. And over the years, he taught him to cat. Little Bit followed Gato’s lead in grooming (although not very well, he still looks confused by how his parts work), Gato encouraged him to explore the house when he was much more comfortable remaining under the bed, and he helped him, over a very long period of years, to trust strangers.

Gato was the household’s lord protector. Whenever someone came to the door, Gato ran to the arm of the sofa closest to the door and would mewl until the interloper took their assigned seat next to the arm, where Gato would put his front paws on the top of their head and proceed to sniff (and occasionally nibble) their hair in order to ascertain their suitability for visitation privileges. If you didn’t pass muster, woe betide thee. But if you were a return visitor, it would be a brief and more loving ritual, especially if you had wisely offered proper fealty to his highness. He knew when any of us was unhappy or unwell. He would curl up on the bed when either of the girls was sick and whine if he believed proper action was not being taken on their behalf. He comforted me oh so many times during the period leading up to my divorce.

For a period of time in 2008, I existed in a semi-colon. My marriage was over, we had made the decision to split up, but the school year was a few weeks from over and we didn’t want to cast a pall over Emily’s Middle School graduation. So for about 8 weeks, I spent every night on the couch of our den, some unwatched tv show softly on in the background, crying. And every single night, Gato snuggled in next to me, his constant purr a reminder that life would eventually again have something resembling joy for me. When the girls and I moved to our post-divorce Burbank apartment, Gato scoped it out and quickly made a pact with the resident spirits ensuring that they could play their requisite games with the mortals, but Gato would stand firmly in between us and any malevolence. There were many weird occurrences in that space, and a few areas that were always uncomfortable. But Gato was always vigilant, and often entertaining in his interaction with its eternal occupants.

When I met Alec, I knew immediately that he was a permanent part of our lives. He came over for dinner a little over a week later. The girls had already met him briefly, but he had yet to be reviewed by the house mother. Gato’s immediate reaction was the same as usual, but he settled into approval mode almost immediately. He too knew that Alec belonged with us, and they bonded hard and fast. Alec is tall, and Gato reveled in perching on his shoulders. He’d wrap himself around Alec’s head (none too comfortable for him, and yet he delighted in it) and would stay for seemingly impossible amounts of time as Alec tried to function with a nearly 20-pound creature attached to his neck. I loved how Gato loved him.

My first Burn was in 2010, before I met Alec. I was just over 2 years out of 17 years of marriage to a person who dis-assembled my self-confidence (what little I had), my identity, my independence. I had been told for so long why I should be afraid, how I was incapable, how I was worthless. When I went to work at Disney, I met 2 people who became central to the process of unlearning these deeply felt realities. One of them introduced me to the idea of being a Burner. I knew of Burning Man, knew others who had been several times, but I didn’t understand the community or the essence of being a Burner. The more I learned, the more I recognized my need to be there. To put my feet on the Playa and experience the 10 Principles: Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Radical Self Reliance, Decommodification, Radical Self Expression, Communal Effort, Civic Responsibility, Leaving No Trace, Participation, Immediacy. It sounded like a blue print for the world my internal utopian optimist always believed was possible. But going to Burning Man requires money, planning, and a lot of information. It became an “I’ll get there eventually”, until a friend at work was invited to go with friends who were going for the first time and had lost one of their travel mates. He walked up to my desk and told me that he could get me a spot in an RV if I could get a ticket and pull my necessities together. I looked at him like he was insane, it was 10 days before the day they were leaving for the Playa. But as my logical brain formed the words, my irrational and much wiser heart said oh hell yes. And 10 days later we were on our way.

Burning Man 2010 was a different animal than the high-tech money fest that has become its reputation in the years since. The Burning Man organization didn’t even have a decent website, much less a corporate structure. The “plug & play” camps, those that put up massive amounts of capital to offer an exclusive, glam experience to those who can pony up the money didn’t exist. The airport hadn’t been built. The business of selling Burner accessories hadn’t really taken off, since Pinterest and Etsy were still small and relatively uncommodified. The interim evolution has been controversial and is probably permanent, but I was fortunate to lose my Burner virginity in a still-naïve Black Rock City, where the only expectation I observed was don’t be an asshole. I found a community of radical individuality cloaked in deepest compassion, creativity and acceptance. This was a temporary city built of thousands of individual intentions and the excitement of sharing them. It was a playground of deepest love and support, an environment of encouragement to express every aspect of yourself every single moment without hesitation and without fear of judgment. But it was in the middle of the harshest, least forgiving physical environment, one which required constant vigilance to remain healthy. 100+ degree temperatures, <5% humidity and several thousand feet of elevation join forces to challenge your system to sustain hydration, energy, consciousness. Wind storms stir up out of nowhere to envelop the Playa in whiteout conditions that last seconds or, occasionally, hours. Disorientation, thirst, hunger can easily turn into a life-threatening event. I left Burbank for Burning Man with a driving need to prove to myself that I was a deserving member of a community that was made up of shared creativity, passion to express, and the rejection and pain that usually accompanies a desire to live outside the corporate norm. And I went with a more basic need to prove to myself that I could survive. I had my share of scares in that week. But I had far more revelations about myself, my place in this life, and my own capability. I survived. I thrived. I changed.

When I met Alec and told him about the Burner community, he admired the idea but didn’t think Burning Man would be for him. I accepted that, but quietly believed he was wrong. He finally decided in 2015 that he wanted to go, and we did. I knew it wouldn’t be the same as my 2010 Burn, too much had changed. But what remained at that time was the magic of the Playa, the heart of the community (if altered by the presence of the oh so pretty, immaculately and impossibly dust free moneyed class), the art. And the temple. There is a holiness about the temple that defies religion, that vibrates with the divine. Burners leave memorials to be sent to eternity with the flames of the temple burn on Sunday evening. Our visit to the temple that week was particularly moving and soon after, Alec declared that we absolutely had to return the next year. Another Burner was born. When we returned a year later, we brought a number of photos and momentos of those we’d lost, and wrote notes on the structure itself on behalf of friends who’d lost loved ones. It was one of the most profound parts of that week, and watching the temple burn at the end of it was very emotional for both of us.

When we lost Gato last year, we had his ashes delivered to us afterward. They’ve sat on our mantle since and we really hadn’t known what to do with them. Where do you sprinkle someone who lived their entire life indoors? I don’t remember which one of us realized that Gato belonged at the temple. When James asked if we’d like him to take anything to the temple for us, since we’re not going to the Playa this year, we knew he was the perfect conservator to deliver Gato to the care of the universe. We will watch the temple burn next Sunday, and will cry happy sad tears as we watch the bursts of spark dance around the rising heat and disperse into the vastness. Rest in the arms of the divine, my best boy.