#4 Mr. Sunshine & Oatmilk Latte | Piano Music

When I was 28 and living in Brooklyn, two special creatures walked into my life. Or maybe I walked into theirs. They were barely bigger than ducklings—”kitten nuggets” is what I called them. There was six of them altogether, plus mom.

Mom (“Monster Truck”) was spayed and treated and after a short recovery period in our bathroom was released back to her home: the streets of Brooklyn. The other six wouldn’t have survived the incoming winter, and so me and my roommate took them all in. We fostered six kittens in our New York apartment—feeding them, vaccinating them, de-fleaing, de-worming, all of it. 

We managed to get two adopted to a family—Abba Zabba Gold and Amelia Earhart—then two more to another family—Bitty and Angus. Then there were two remaining: Milo Sunshine (“Mr. Sunshine” as he’s gotten older and more mature) and Oatmilk Latte. 

When my roommate and I parted ways, they both came with me across the country to a little town in Northern California. Now we live here together.

For me, they represent responsibility. 

Responsibility is an interesting concept, one that I always thought was hoisted upon an individual as they got older. But that’s not the case at all. As I’ve aged I’ve learned that responsibility is taken; it’s grasped firmly and defiantly. You see, the world and the individual both want to let go of responsibility. It’s easier to say no, to run away, to let someone else handle it.

They also represent frustration. They represent broken glasses and clawing my leg at 3am and pooping in my shower and eating pieces of foam that gets stuck in their stomach and costs $4,000 to remove surgically. Money that you didn’t really have to spare, but it was money that you would’ve never withheld. 

That frustration and that responsibility has morphed into a certain type of love, one that’s honorbound, one that’s divine. I didn’t ask for them to come into my life, and I didn’t ask them to keep me up at night and make me lose my mind. But I also didn’t ask them to cuddle with me for hours on end; I didn’t ask them to come and sit by my side every time I cried and felt alone. And they didn’t ask for me, either: a sometimes grouchy, often neurotic, always forgetful mess of a human who’s trying their damndest to provide them a life they love. 

This is Oatmilk Latte & Mr. Sunshine, and I love them very much.