Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home: A Memoir

by Natalie Goldberg

“Nat, she’s a cat,” Erica said as we huffed up a challenging mountain. “The rest of us are dogs, eager to be petted, acknowledged.” Erica made short panting sounds. “Love me, love me.” She hung her tongue out. “Yes, yes, that’s it,” I laughed. On a bench outside, a few months later, Yu-kwan began for no reason: “This is how cats lick themselves,” and she extended her lower arm across her tongue and then the other arm. She turned her head to the left and raised her upper left arm, nuzzled and licked under her armpit. “This is how they get clean.” My eyes twirled in my head. She looked exactly like a feline. “Did you ever have a cat?” I asked. “No, never.” “Then how do you know?” “I just know.” That night, when I couldn’t sleep, I listened to her breath, heavy, then slightly snoring, then snoring deeply, then silent, never using a pillow. In a pale yellow nightgown, she was out in space, against aging and time, arms outstretched over the whole dark world. Later, feeling the fragrant heat of her breath, I shook her awake. “Sing to me,” I said, and she obliged, still hovering someplace else. Out came a sweet rendition of the Beatles’s “When I’m Sixty-Four.” At that time we were both in our sixties, out beyond our generation’s imagining, out in the footprints of the comets.