back where I began

It's a very late hour and I find myself sitting alone in the dining room of my mother's apartment in Bay Ridge. Ordinarily you would never find me sitting here, much less so late, but for the next few days here I will sit, in a part of Brooklyn that now feels like the middle of nowhere, cat sitting. I look around at the familiar furniture, cracks in the walls, dusty eucalyptus plant, mom's big blue floral painting mounted on the wall, and this feeling of distant deja-vu washes over me not from a dream or a premonition but from memory, because this was once my life. This small apartment in this strange neighborhood did not just house my mother and all her cats but me too, it was my home. Home, a place sacred and treasured. Now, just months later I find myself feeling incredibly detached, foreign, my mind has turned my dear old home into nothing more in my life but a bizarre memory.
By the time I made it here after sitting on two trains for an hour post work, the house was vacant except for the myriad of cats looking at me who all seemed indubitably hot, hungry and pissed. I promptly read from the long list of handwritten instructions left by my mother "there's pierogi's, hummus, tortellini salad, veggies, and take out menus if you want to treat yourself...Kitten meds are in the fridge...Just make sure poops are flushed, other waste in bathroom bag, and fresh water for outside cats too... They are great at being "put to bed" at night, they all settle right down..." Various other descriptions, a list of phone numbers of importance, and two $20 bills were also included.
I began the dance she performs three times a day every day, and now, 2 hours later, I can say I'm sitting alone in the dining room of the apartment I grew up in, there are 4 fed stray cats somewhere outside, 2 fat male cats and 2 skinny black cats are locked in the bathroom, also fed but with special urinary tract food, there are 2 shy female cats with dark dry fur locked in my mom's room, they've been fed regular food, the weirdest and skinniest of cats who pretends to want to rub against your shins but really doesn't enjoy being touched and likes her food watered down is under the bed in the living room, also fed, and the kitten's medicines (some that need to be administered via syringe to the mouth, some via a creme to the eye) are laying out on the counter waiting to be put back in the fridge while the kitten, fully medicated and fed, sleeps soundly in my old room. 12 cats have been fed, the paint is still peeling slowly off the walls, my old books remain on their Ikea shelf, ancient magazines and newspapers still lay about in piles and here I sit exhausted and bemused as I've just relived my mother's daily life. Now, there's a lot more going on in her life than just cats but it's puzzling how much thought, time, energy, and money she pours into all the smelly little affection-whores. It's no wonder I spent so much of my post graduation money on international flights and she's often so on edge. For the next few days I'm trapped in the life I ran away from, this is no longer my home, but for the remaining seventy two hours I'll have to call it that.
Did you say there was hummus?