Transcription
Around the Cosmic Campfire by Tony Wright
Chapter Three: When the Cat Cried
Arbogast. It was an unusual name, and I have never heard it before. I could never remember it, actually, and I had to think of him as Dr. Flabbbergast so I could remember it. It was kind of silly of me, but I also had to hope I didn't call him that when I wanted to see him, because I got used to his nickname around the house. Doc was a very good chiropractor whose office was in an old red brick house sitting in front of Hillsborough Village and Vanderbilt University in Nashville. It had no on-street parking to speak of, and since I don't like parallel parking, I wouldn't have parked out front anyways. So I parked in the back. Out back, there were enough spaces for about five cars to park. It was the back of the house, connected to an old alley complete with trash cars and random litter.
It was a time not long after I had lost a baby at seven months in my pregnancy, for reasons unknown. I was 29. I was living not far from the village, so he was a logical practitioner of choice and was helping me feel better and better all the time. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life now that I wasn't on the road doing music anymore and not going to be a mother anytime soon. My partner and I were slowly moving towards the idea of really settling down, getting married, and having kids, but I was still recovering from our current loss. He was also horrendously resistant to a conventional lifestyle like that.
Then one day, out of the blue, he asked me to marry him, and I couldn't believe it. It was my second marriage and his first, and he was the man who was never going to marry and probably never have children. Here he was proposing we go through with this marriage and do it together and try again to start a family. I was shocked and elated.
I was working at a music publishing company on Music Row and did in-house demo singing for the company when I wasn't helping manage the office. The mother of one boss sang years ago with the Jordanaires for Elvis. The other boss was the son of the more famous writers, the Bryants, who wrote hits like "Rocky Top" and "Lovehearts," and many of the Everly Brothers' hits. It was a fun time for me. The trouble was, I wasn't making much money, and neither was my partner. As I rifled through how we could put together a little wedding celebration and purchase a ring for me, it became complicated, as I had been married before as a very young woman. It did not seek out large celebrations, so that helped too. How to buy a ring without money to spend on it—now that is a trick short of breaking into a jewelry store or shoplifting or something, which I would never do, of course.
It was bleak. I decided I would sort through the Service Merchandise catalog on a daily basis and gawk at diamonds and bands and just dream about a wedding ring. In the end, I decided I was kind of a simple ring girl and didn't want anything fancy—no diamonds, no stones. I wanted a plain, very narrow gold band, 14 karat gold, and I would somehow just save up for it. I looked at the catalog every day to keep my goal in sight. It was sheer intuition that I should focus on it, as I didn't really know anything formal about manifesting back then. My partner didn't even wear rings since he was a guitar player and it didn't feel comfortable to him, so a ring for him was no issue at all.
Every day I gazed at the inventory in the catalog. At the end of winter, I found myself at Dr. Flabbbergast's office and was getting a spinal adjustment. Upon leaving and heading to my car in the backyard near the alley, I heard a cat desperately crying on the other side of the fence in the neighbor's yard. I thought it must have been injured and rushed over to see the old rusted wire fence to see what I could see. The cat was making an awful racket, and as I approached it, it just sort of happily scooted away, as if it was saying, "Okay, lady, now pay attention."
I stood there a moment near the old rusty fence, staring at the ground and started to feel a vibration, so to speak, one that was familiar to me down through my life. I heard what I was supposed to do. I simply bent down and then dug away the dirt, and there, with one small corner of it glistening in the sun, was a beautiful gold band. It was a narrow 14 karat gold; it was my exact wedding ring finger size—there's one in the same as the ring I had been looking at in the Service Merchandise catalog—one and the same. My guess was that it had been there for a very long time since it was buried, and it never occurred to me that I should perhaps turn it into someone. It just felt like I was led to it. It fit me; it was what I had been wanting to acquire, and there, very magically, it just appeared, just like in the catalog.
I have wondered down through time how many years it was waiting around for me to find it. The bigger question is, how did the cat know, or did it? Was that cat crying being used by a higher power to communicate and lead me? Seemed like it. Who knows? Is that what some folks call coincidence? I don't really believe in coincidence; my life is too full of these amazing instances. I was so very grateful, and I am astonished even to this very day when I look at it. It is another reminder that when we focus on something wholeheartedly, we surely have a shot at manifesting it. I thanked the cat, who played some interesting part. I thanked the sunny day for making the gold glisten for me. I thanked my willingness to stop a moment and listen, to follow my knowing that there is so much more than meets the eye in this world. Did I tune my dial into a God station? I would say so. My antenna was tuned in; my radio station was tuned to the right dial that day, and I listened, then followed a random instruction on what to do. I can say that on that day, despite all the powerful intuitive messages I have received throughout my life, I was still truly the one who was—wait for it—flabbergasted.