THE PROJECT

Today's September 4, 2024. Seven years ago tomorrow, I embarked on a three-month cat-sitting adventure in Spain. Regrettably, I didn’t keep a journal during the trip.

Over the next 87 days, I’ll attempt to rectify that by creating an entry each day which will explain my activities on the same day exactly 7 years previous. I’ll do this by jogging my memory with my dated photo gallery, Google Timeline, a weather time machine, and my personal notebook, emails, and texts.

Before we get into it, an explanation of how I ended up in Spain, looking after a cat named Blanche.

BACKGROUND

Doctors informed me that if they couldn’t “get to the bottom” of my 2017 Transient Ischemic Attack (a minor stroke) within the next 12 to 18 months, the risk of a “full-blown” stroke was high. After ten months of tests without answers, I was left with a grim prognosis.

I understand that this may sound like an exaggerated reaction to some of you due to the "minor"ness, but strokes run in my family. My sister was left disabled by a stroke at the age of six months. She died when she was just fifteen. I was ten.

Since I didn't want to die in a record store — I owned a shop called Good Music — I made the decision to sell my inventory to a competitor and relocate to a place where, if my head did pop, it could pop happy and tanned, preferably on a beach at sunset.

After a mere eight hours of online searching, I responded to an ad placed by a woman in Spain who was seeking someone to care for her cat for five months. She quickly responded to my message, asked only a few questions, and within 24 hours made the decision to hire me. It was only then that I conducted some research and discovered that Canadians are limited to a three-month stay in Spain.

Surprisingly, she dismissed this limitation, stating that she had dreamt on it and believed that I was the ideal candidate for the job. Notably, she did not request any references. I'd like to say that this didn't seem unusual at the time (I was a little distracted), but I do recall asking myself, "What's the worst that could happen?"

I booked a return ticket for an 87-day trip, arriving in Barcelona on September 5, 2017, a Tuesday, and was committed to arriving in the town of Oliva, 400KM south, on the 8th. My host would spend the day showing me around and fly out on the 9th.

During this trip, I worked on two personal projects: Burning the Days (BtD), daily poems sent out to a mailing list, and Loneliness, Violence, Grief, and Regret, a novel — my first, which remains unfinished.

For the sake of fairness, but for Blanche, I've changed the names of everyone I encountered.

The project starts tomorrow and will continue through early November.

All entries can be read by clicking on the Distant Diaries — Spain tag on any diary entry.