Disclaimer: I love dogs, pygmy goats, rabbits and horses, all creatures great and small. But I am decidedly and devotedly a cat person. Ask my family: I have yet to meet a cat I didn’t like. Short or long-haired, Siamese, Persian or Maine Coon, I love them all.
Two weeks ago, one of my outside cats (you know you’re a cat lover when you have inside AND outside cats!) had kittens. When I awakened that morning to find her in labor, I sat in the early morning chill, holding my breath and whispering push–push now as she gave birth to five kittens during the course of the morning. Cats are birthing machines, and I reveled in the relative ease and efficiency with which she birthed and after-birthed. What a woman, I thought as she nestled all five into her for their first feeding.
English Romantic poet Robert Southey wrote: A kitten is, in the animal world, what a rosebud is in the garden. Sitting on the floor of my screened-in porch, I was smitten with the five little rosebuds in front of me. I couldn’t wait to tell my granddaughter and grandson that we finally had kittens, for they had been coming over daily to check to see if there were babies yet. As the rosebuds wiggled and rolled into one compact gray and white mass, I couldn’t help but think What a great day this is!
Japanese haiku writer Kobayashi Issa is a cat lover after my own heart:
Arise from sleep, old cat,
And with great yawns and stretchings…
Amble out for love
This is one of the greatest things about cats: they amble out for love. No over-eager licking or jumping up or general pushiness for cats. They are amblers whose love is manifested in curling up and purring and general hanging out. And I like that very much.
British veterinarian and author James Herriot claims that cats are the connoisseurs of comfort. On a rainy day or a cold winter night, there is nothing like the sweet weight and warmth of a cat stretched out on your chest as you read or nap. This is comfort to rival the finest spa experience. Add a generous dose of purring, and this is heaven-come-to-earth.
As one who often turns off the radio as I drive, I value the quiet space in which I can think and dream. Cats afford a rare companionship in solitude. Mark Twain wrote that if animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much. This rare grace of never saying a word too much is an attribute I admire, one to which most humans might aspire.
In the weeks to come, my grandchildren and I will set about naming the kittens. Just as naming my children was serious business, so, too, is naming my cats. As the kittens’ personalities emerge, we will try out names in pursuit of the best extension and reflection of each cat. One day’s name may be discarded in favor of a new, and hopefully more suitable, name the next day. Some kittens may receive people names, while others do not. Serious as this naming business is, it is not a science so much as a labor of love. I currently have a Pierre and a Phil, the fanciful French cat and the redneck Iowa cat. A wild stray who took me weeks to tame, a peanut of a cat, finally earned the name Birdie when it was clear that she would remain forever petite, eating more like a bird than a feline. Over the course of decades, I have had a Scamper and a Puff–regular cat names–as well as a Jade and a Darth–not-so-regular cat names. Poet T. S. Eliot understood the difficulty of finding just the right cat name:
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
. . .
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
[Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats]
A name that both cannot be uttered, cannot be described in words AND one that can. This is the paradoxical task of naming cats, and I tell you, it is not just one of your holiday games. After all, the kitten with the face that looks oddly like a monkey (according to my granddaughter) cannot continue to be called Monkey Boy. There is a dignity in this naming process, and both she and I understand that he deserves much better.
Each morning before I make coffee, I walk to the sliding door onto my screened-in porch to check on the five rosebuds. Often, they are contently gathered into their mother, one furry ball of sleep. Other times, they are trying on their new legs, wobbling to the edge of the cat bed, desperately focusing their new eyes on the shadow and shape that is their mother. Knowing that I can open the door, scoop them up, and take in the wonder of kittens? This is one of the best ways to start (and end) each day.
We have a dog, two bunnies, chickens, a fish, two adopted ducks at the pond, and cats. If it were up to me, we would have more of everything. Still, there is–and will always be–a special place in my heart and my home for cats. Though I haven’t yet told my husband, we will have kittens again in a couple weeks. Birdie-the-petite is not so petite these days. And this is great news for a cat lover like me who understands that the rosebuds will have cousins to play with this summer. What could be more glorious than a cozy clutch of kittens and their mothers who devotedly amble out for love?
