Answering the calling of cats

by Andrea Fedder | Feb 16, 2023 | Creative Writing | 0 comments

If I’d never lain down on the cleanly swept concrete pavers that afternoon, I would never have uncovered what cats, domestic and wild, have known for centuries. Namely that once the sun has retracted her searing sharp rays, there, where the earth, clay or in this case cement has been baked by them, the energy can still be felt. That beautiful gentle warm embrace that grounds you into the palm of the earth and catches you from your day of trying. It was 5:30 in the afternoon. My eyes were exhausted from staring at a screen all day. I just wanted to feel…. . No, I just wanted to feel.

To feel human, I guess. Not to think anymore, and be stuck in the land of the eternally dissatisfied brain. The pavers were warm. The black cat was already there. The one with one eye – stretched out, his elongated form reminding me of a tire rim, all torqued and wonky from baking in the sun for a long time. At first, I just went over to sit with him. The clean open space called to me, my busy mind gravitating towards its expansive offering.

But when my hands touched the concrete, impulse took over. I mimicked what he was doing. I lay flat on my back, eyes closed. Mmmmmmmm. This is nice. I get why they do this. Not long after I had stretched out on the ground, the other cat, the ginger one, traipsed over and promptly lay down beside me. Flop. But more elegantly. *

FOOTNOTE

*I don’t think there is a word that onomatopaicly does justice to the way a cat can ‘flop’ to the ground, but do so with physical surrender and energetic grace simultaneously. As if a toppling sack of potatoes could utter poetry. Maybe it would be a sound like ‘Flipsh’ or ‘Thudeth’ or perhaps even ‘Bjujjj’.

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My eyes remained closed. Now we were a company of three. Three sun soakers, who knew the best time – and place – to absorb the gentler bands of her vibrant pulse.

This is what cats know, that we humans cannot find- cannot find because we are so busy looking for it on the move. Hustling and bustling, we always think “Contentment lies in productivity. Contentment lies in conversation. Contentment lies in shopping, -food; -alcohol; -money.

When all along the correct end of this human desire has simply been “Contentment lies…down.” Contentment is a resting state. It cannot be found within another activity.It lies within us. And only when we are quiet, sitting or lying down, lids rested shut, do we come face to face, or perhaps third eye to third eye, with its imperturbable hum.

With my eyes closed and my ears now in charge, everything around me became interesting. Inside me, the body was still and warm. The garden became a musical of the ordinary. Plop, plop-plop, plop. Ssssh sshwwssshhhhhuu uuuhhhhshhuuuuwshsh. Purrrrrr-brrrr, puuuurrrrrrr-brrrrr. Twzz. Wzzz. Twzzz-zzzwzit. Thuhk-tik tiku tikuh-tik- thuk-tuh. It didn’t matter than none of it ended in the same vowels or consonants. Somehow the dripping faucet, the wind, the purr of the lazy cat, the garden beatle and the wind chimes all rhymed.

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“Is this it?” I heard myself say, in that incredulous way. The way that means, “it caaaaan’t be this simple? Surly?”.

“Yessss shhhhhhshwuuuhh shhh” I heard on the breath of the wind.

Without her having to whinsper** anymore, I understood. This was it. It was this simple. This non-doing was where our bliss lay. This surrender, that was so hard to find –

This. Was. Life.

And we were missing it.

FOOTNOTE

**In my many hours of listening to the wind and being certain that she does in fact have a language of her own, I’ve decided to call that way of speaking whindspering ~ of the English words wind + whispering.

I don’t know how much longer I lay there, my dimpled thighs relaxed against that delicious, warm Bed of Now….but when I got up, I thanked the cats for their teaching and the sun for leaving us a love note on the ground.

I made a vow to myself that day, but with no one to witness it, I made the vow to my garden. To the trees that have been casting dappled shade for years and to the tiny succulent petals producing whole new plants from their broken-off limbs. I vowed to do what cats do more often.

My writing desk faces out into the garden. I watch them often laying sprawled out on the warm bricks, envying their relaxation.

But, now having sunk to the ocean floor of their habitual sun serenity practice, I realise it was only ever me who was stopping me from joining them. Even if it was just for a few moments.

We are always the ones in our own way.