LALATOWN LIFE

The mayor of LALATOWN is a gentle giant named Frankie.

He was a big, fluffy, mellow cat with the softest heart. He came into my life because his previous family had a baby, and suddenly he started peeing everywhere. They couldn’t keep him anymore. When Frankie arrived here, he never did that again. Not once.

He stayed with me for about ten years. I often wish I had found him earlier. There was a chance once, but at the time I wasn’t ready for another cat. Our house always had two or three already. Now it’s down to one.

Frankie carried grief in a way I had never seen before — deeper than most people I know. When he lost his feline family, he showed it openly, quietly, and completely. He didn’t hide it. He lived it.

That’s why the position of mayor in LALATOWN is not replaceable.

There will never be another.

I’ll share his portrait here — Frankie, the Gentle Giant.

LALATOWN is a place you want to be when life feels heavy.

And it’s a place you can be.

One of the paintings I kept wanting to make — again and again — was a life where I could paint until I got tired, nap without being startled awake by urgency, and eat salad with chopsticks. No alarms. No sudden jolts. No emergency pulling me out of my body.

Who cares if I eat pork belly with chopsticks?

Or apples?

Or a hard-boiled egg?

I eat what I want, how I want.

That’s the situation I wanted to live inside.

That’s the painting:

I Paint, Nap, and Eat Salad with Chopsticks.

Another painting I made was Four O’Clock in LALATOWN — and Ten Fifteen in LALATOWN. Those times weren’t about schedules. They were about longing. The desire to simply drink tea. Nothing else. No responsibility attached.

Now, sometimes, I actually do that.

I drink tea while painting.

I drink tea while writing a blog.

I think I’m living in my LALATOWN now.

This town — this life — grew out of Frankie, Janggu, Dolsoe, Sarangi, Saja, Kamangi, Hero all the cats who came before, and now Bongu. Bongu currently has a broken nail and is in recovery. He’s half Border Collie, half Dachshund — energetic, determined, always ready to go again.

We just came back from hiking, and still, I catch myself wishing he’d tap the door and say, Let’s go out.

I miss it already.

When he heals and taps the door again, I’ll gladly go.

And maybe I’ll paint that part of LALATOWN too — the place where we play fetch.

This is my town.

LALATOWN.

Come on in.

Find your spot.

Stay awhile.