On cats and portals

I don’t know much about cats and portals besides the common knowledge: that they can travel through them.

I have 2 cats of my own (or they have me to be more precise): Matias and Celine. They are 7 and 6 years old respectively and have been with me since I moved away from my parents house.

Matias was partly rescued and partly stolen from an old man that was letting him just die, when he was around 2 months old. He was born in this house full of other cats and was outside, in the front garden, all ill and weak but with this lively and surprised expression in his eyes, that still remains today. The old man didn’t want to give me the kitten to take him to the vet so I did what I thought was right. Matias recovered and has been travelling the world with me, from this house in the suburbs of Berazategui, a little town in Buenos Aires, all the way to Amsterdam and then London. Which is incredibly special, taking into account all the health issues he has. He is a miracle: he has a heart condition and every time the vets check his heart they can’t believe he is still alive and so functional. I think the magic potion behind this is a mix of 3 things: his willingness to live, love and that he knows I still need him.

Celine is another story. She was left behind in a box in a carpentry and has always been extremely healthy and my guardian. She is a 3-colored cat and has this pretty white, brown and black hair. The brown in her face makes you think she’s been eating chocolate all day and needs to clean herself. While Matias uses his magic to keep himself alive, Celine has this healing and cleaning powers that she projects with her purrrr.

So over the past years I’ve been living with them and observing them and there’s something I still don’t fully get. If they can travel through portals...When do they go away? Is it while I’m sleeping? Do they anxiously wait until I close my eyes to go on their crazy adventures? Or can they actually travel while they are sleeping?

Personally I believe that the second option is the most likely one. I’ve seen them making gestures, moving their paws and doing all sorts of crazy things while sleeping. Maybe that’s why they need like 17 hours a day to sleep: because some of that time is actually reserved to portal travelling. What could they be checking though? Do they have other incarnations and live adventures in other cat-bodies? Am I only one small portion of their secret lives? Do they cheat on me with other humans?

I don’t have the answers but my intuition tells me that they are from another planet and got assigned humans to spy on them. I don’t know how many but I think I probably give them enough work, especially these last 2 years, that I’ve been working full time from home.

Leaving outside all this chit chat, something crazy happened to me the other day and this is basically the whole point of this short story.

I had to travel from London to Wales, more precisely to north Snowdonia, to throw myself in this 3 day wild camping experience to reconnect with myself. And I can’t lie, I was nervous as fuck on that day. It was something completely outside of my comfort zone and I didn’t know what to expect. I travel by myself a lot but usually to hostels and other civilised places. I’m a city made human that in her late 20s discovered her love for nature and in my early 30s I’m trying to learn more about how to live in it.

And also I’m a woman so of course society made sure that I didn’t learn most of the practical survival aspects or how to use tools. Well, to be fair, I happened to become very independent from men and family but outdoor survival is an area where I feel completely outside of my comfort zone. And somehow I happened to believe I’m so useless at all practical matters of life. My ideas, thoughts and words have been my tools. Every letter connecting to another, in different ways in many languages, has been my weapon.

But you can’t do much with that in nature besides doing some spells, which is another area that I haven’t mastered yet.

Anyways, every time I travel, I of course let the cats know in advance. The amount of days. Where I am. If anyone will come to see them. I know our connection goes beyond the material world but I’m a human with limitations and no portal abilities. So it’s hard for me to turn on my animal side and know exactly what they need to know and how to connect through physical distance.

The cats knew I was nervous and that I was trying to unconsciously find ways to self sabotage my trip. Like almost forgetting my ID. I asked the universe for something to happen if it was not the right thing for me. I was scared, I can’t lie. There was this fear in me about going into nature without any connections to the world, not even my phone. I’m a Latin woman borned and raised in Argentina so I'm extra careful about my safety. That type of trust and surrender is just terrifying. I learned how to protect myself and be careful my whole life. And I know, the context demanded that. Now I’m in a different place but still my emotions are not fully adjusted.

Luckily there was another woman travelling from London to Bangor by train: Susanna. We met at Euston station and started sharing this journey, with our huge backpacks and this urge for something to happen. It was a relief to know that Susanna knew her way around camping, as she’s been doing that her whole life and that she was cool, basically. We connected.

Susanna and I had different assigned seats, I was in carriage C and she was in B. Still, we were close. I tried to disconnect from my phone and read but ended up arranging a bunch of things, like a gym subscription and some events for once I returned.

Once I finally got to chill, the train guy was saying something about the train splitting in 2 at a station and more things. I didn’t understand anything. I blamed my native language being Spanish but as I had a direct train ticket with a seat reserved, I sort of assumed I was in the right place. And I wanted to stay there, reading, sleeping, dreaming. My Latin neurosis made me only text Susanna and she also assumed the same. So we stayed. The train split in half towards different destinations. I decided to leave my phone, finally.

I started to feel sleepy but wanted to start reading my new book. So I did. I was just getting excited about the story when a guy getting off the train in one station told me “Hey, this is the last one” and I was in my dreamy area all like “What?”. I packed my belongings in my bag and then the train guy basically kicked me off the train. I was desperately trying to locate Susanna. And finally she got kicked off the train as well. We looked at each other and luckily the problem was solved quite fast. We asked someone for guidance and fortunately there seemed to be more trains. I thought maybe this was the sign from the universe, telling me to run all the way back to London.

But no, this was just the beginning of the little though still incredible events to follow next.

I don’t remember the name of the station where we were stuck but we had to go one station back: to Chester. We went to the right rail and waited there for around 30 minutes, while doing the usual: letting people know, as we still could use our phones. I called Tom, the guy running the retreat and picking us up from Bangor, to let him know that we were going to arrive later. Not sure exactly of the time, yet. He advised us to enjoy this little detour. When I looked at google maps to understand the route, I was sorry to see that it will turn into night time so I was going to miss all the coast view and the sea. Was it the right choice to go? There was still time and trains to go back to London...at least being with Susanna gave me hope. But then, it happened.

As we were waiting and I was looking at the train tracks, I saw this beautiful little white cat with grey spots that basically just came out of nowhere and ran in front of us, just crossing the rain track. I was surprised and scared for 5 seconds, I couldn’t take anything happening to the cat. But the cat just crossed and that was it. It’s not common to see cats in the UK wandering about and less in such a dangerous place like a train station. I breathed and tried to keep my faith up.

Once the train arrived, we had a short 20 minute ride but a long wait in the next station - Chester. We went for a hot drink to the closest place available: a pub. Am I the only person that got her ID asked to order a tea ever? Life is funny. Susanna had a hot chocolate, as she was craving one already from the first train. The place was really bizarre and already inviting people for Christmas reservations. Usher and some other old pop music was playing. 10 minutes before the train arrived, we headed back to the station and the second little event struck me: a ball of black hair moving around the station, moving fast. This time I thought it had to be good luck.

Finally we got on the last train towards our destination. We had like a 1 hour ride and I again felt so sorry for having to miss all the coast and sea views. Maybe on the way back, I thought.

The train was surprisingly full of young people. Where do all these teenagers go at 10pm in Wales? After listening to a lot of songs in Welsh from their cellphones and listening to them singing them passionately, we got closer to our station. As we were waiting close to the door, a 10 year old kid asked us if we knew if the next station was a big one. He had to go back to Chester. I asked for more details but he just said it was “one of those days”.

When we got off, the kid went to cross the train track, we went outside the station and I called Tom to let him know we were ready to be picked up. And there, the third one, a cat curiously going out of the front garden of a house, taking a look and then going back. I didn’t even have enough time to show the cat to Susanna as it all happened in the split of a second.

On top of that, as we were waiting, we saw the mysterious kid leaving the station, going who knows where. We lost him in the dark of the night, walking the streets in Bangor. We discussed the possibilities: did he have family there? Was he taking a cab? I’m sure the explanation is beyond our human scientific understanding and it just left us with a mix of worry but certainty he knew what he was doing.

Tom arrived 5 minutes later and my real adventure began and I had the most 4 wild days of my life.

But here is the thing. On my way back, after listening and connecting to nature, therefore myself, I understood everything: I now strongly know that the 3 cats that I saw were checking on me. I’m sure my cats sent them to make sure I arrived there safely: they probably used these portals to communicate with their cat gang...The cat support line? I mean, I almost fucked it up by losing the right train and forgetting my ID. I don’t think they took the shape of other cats but most likely asked other cats in other locations to keep an eye on me, because it was so important that I get there safely. And they knew that seeing cats would make me feel safe and on track.

This is probably one of ways they use portals, to protect their magical but sometimes stupid humans from messing up their destinies.