Cats

If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.’ – Doris Lessing

 ‘A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.’ – Ernest Hemingway

In the novel by James Benn, protagonist Billy Boyle’s father tells him an investigation is like a blank canvas and you have little pots of color you throw at it until you get the picture right. However, I don’t think in terms of applying paint from tubes or cans. I use other methods and will try to explain.

I have a black cat who is skilled at shapeshifting, which is the whole basis for this story. This animal serves as my canvas. She can do this, I think, because of the abilities Lessing attributed to cats in the quote at the beginning of this story. Their bodies are the diagram and pattern of movement, of air. They are the marks on a page and they enable us to tell our stories. That’s what I interpret her words to mean, at least. Something akin to magic, elusive movements, sleights of body, capturing the essence of unspokenness, which some call silence.

There is nothing haunting or eerie in the relationship my cat and I have, despite our very deep level of communication. The whole idea of black cats as spooky or signifying bad luck is just ridiculous. The truth be told, all the negative beliefs attached to black cats can be refuted by all the good luck they supposedly bring in other circles. Sailors and their wives have had black ones for that reason, but there are others.

Hemingway, in his quote, points out the emotional honesty of cats, which he says is lacking in humans. He definitely loved felines, as many know. He did seem to have difficulties getting along with women, if we judge by the number who passed through his life, whether married to him or not. It is not clear what the basis for the evaluation was, but I personally think he saw that cats will either ignore you or cling to you. They aren’t just nice to people out of politeness. 

I think we get from a feline what we put into the relationship. Not so with humans, which is rather sad. Loyalty isn’t all that common.

A strange tale

My black cat does not hide her feelings, and I love her for that. Trust. Openness. She is pretty much all I need to be happy. Maybe she can’t be everything to me, but she occupies a place no everyday human could.

In other words, my cat consists of both form in the sense Lessing describes and meaning as Hemingway stated. I kind of liken her to the form and text pair. What you see is linked to what you say. Your actions and your words. Should be something built on trust.

However, the point of this story is to talk about my kitty from the start. Let me explain how we met, because that is very important to understanding our bond. Ours goes way beyond the usual pet-owner relationship. I do not in any way own or control her. She is not the pet who must be trained, and must obey. Things don’t work that way with us.

It all began with a distant sighting. I noticed her like a comma on a page. Her body’s curves and points moving along a path. Watching. I her. She me. Not trusting, yet, but neither tense. Simply expectant. Protecting our spaces while lessening the distance between us. Deliberate. She moved closer while I sat as still as possible, not wanting to startle her.

Moving, inching closer. I saw her beautiful black, the black of other cats like Kellas-cats or even Cat-Sìdhs. I had only seen pictures of the first group and they are the hybrid of Scottish native felines with domestic ones. The second, is a fairy cat that has long been known in literature. It has a tuft if white hair among all the black. The white is just below the chin. Celtic folklore offers many versions of the animal.

I saw my animal rusting in the sunlight like those her color often do. That’s really what they call it and I’ve often seen a black cat turn reddish brown - rusty - when the sunlight hits them. Fascinating. Not all do that.

I waited for her to come closer, hoped she would, and the next day she reminded me of Beware the Cat, especially the part in the story that discusses the translation of cat language into English. Except this feline had not spoken. Somehow, I knew. She would communicate and I would understand.

At this point, I felt the need to give her a name, but resisted the temptation to see her as the clichéd “Inky” or “Spot” (the latter possibly insulting). She ended up as I.S., IS for short. Not Izzy, IS. It would turn out to be an odd name for most people.

Finally the sleek feline, ever panther-like, floated up to me docked her furry starboard next to my thigh. My hand tried to flutter casually down to her midnight coat, and succeeded. I had tried hard to make the movement look natural. Maybe she had never known human touch, or had known the wrong kind.

Next, and this required another whole day, she draped her head over my leg. Eventually she stretched out a front paw to my other thigh, gently colonizing my lap. She had scrawled (sprawled, if you wish) herself over me, as if autographing my legs. I barely breathed.

On the fourth day, the slinking, stretching black-furred cat had retracted, become a snail of fur. Perfectly centered in my lap, that is. Purring and centered. A glinting dark pool I could dive into. Would dive into. The temptation was that great.

My black cat still does this, and when she centers herself in her spot on my legs and her throat vibrates, I put aside everything else I ought to be doing and follow her. She IS and is my Muse; she is. I revise her name slightly. She is now IS. Muse. Or Is Muse. Or just Muse, which is less confusing than IS, I admit. Ignore all that. I’m just rambling.

This is obviously the part where our relationship deviates from the typical pet-owner relationship. She leads me and never laughs cryptically like the Cheshire fellow did with Alice, frightening the poor girl. I follow her, knowing there are good and bad myths told about her kind. Never once have I felt afraid. She always leads me in a good direction.

Sometimes appears from up high, like an angel. (I am referring to the familiar image of a winged figure of religion. In this angel’s position my Muse is either male or female or both, because as you probably recall, the Church never did decide whether angels were male or female.

Other times my Muse emerges from my head like Venus emerges from the shell in Botticelli’s painting. These minor imprecisions as to exactly where she should be situated will be resolved. I suppose Muse will have the last word on this. Does she work better from inside my head where language is or outside, with a view of the world, its colors, its textures?

I follow her form, black on black because it is late. There is no sun to see by in this darkened, slate-like world that is asking to be written upon.

“But light can be created,” Muse says slowly.

I hear myself saying to the granite air:

“Such a coincidence! I was thinking about exactly the same thing, somewhere, someplace, one day last week… we can make light, if we try.”

And we mingle until I forget Muse exists, forget how she thinks. She seems to be part of me. We are close because I believe in her. She is so wise that when She leads me into her deep dark world, she knows how to ensure that I am never lost, never at a loss for colors. 

Let me tell you another thing that sets Muse’s and my relationship apart from the usual pet-owner type. I literally see her differently. (That was clear from the time she curled up in my lap, wasn’t it?) but there’s another way she appears - again, not in the mode of Cheshire in Lewis Carroll. 

Her sleek, iridescent, rusted patent leather body oozes like my tubes of acrylic onto the gel plate when preparing to pull a print. She spreads, yes, like an ink spot, and keeps spreading until I too enter her magically real world as well. Black is a beautiful embrace. Muse is my favorite color, emerging like Venus from a scallop-tube.

Final thoughts:

In the novel Stranger in the Woods by Anni Taylor somebody’s grandmother apparently said when a heavy snow covered everything, it was like a blank page or maybe it was a blank canvas. Once more, that surface before us, the temptation to put our mark(s) on it, the faith that we can accomplish something by inscribing ourselves on the blank space and that only the unseeing will walk away from important things. Unable to face the blank page?

Always the mysteries (ancient and contemporary) are laid out before us, looking flat or not, awaiting the shapes we will place or engrave on them with some tool, or even just our nails. The colors. Sizes. Or shapes. 

Marks of humanity that are becoming fainter, more fragile, more forgotten, like the cursive, the flowing, ornate, creative handwriting children aren’t allowed to learn nowadays. 

……..

But I believe a good guide or guides will save us. That will be the cats of the world, if your spirit guide is a feline. For others, it’ll be a canines or fowl. Always pair a human up with an animal, because animals make us human, which means more like animals. If that’s clear. I’ll definitely be with the cat group. So will Muse. IS Muse. We are inseparable.

It may be that the screen is black for you, as it is for me. I find ways into it, find ways to see.

The screen may also be white for you, as it is for me as well. Black and white. One telling the other’s truth. Black and white are the only colors a baby distinguishes at birth. Pink and blue are tasteless. Contrasts, shapes. White and black defining each other. What matters is leaving a mark, or marks, on the surface before us. And allowing ourselves to be inscribed upon, without being erased or broken.

Making something, not destroying it, not bombing it to hell like we do nowadays.

I learned all of this from a black cat with a white tuft under his chin. He went by several names, but I called him Muse and for me he was female, not male.