My cat does not speak English. (Oh how I wish she did: her “language” is a bite put . . . not so tenderly . . . to my ankle or hand.) So I have needed to learn to become more or less fluent in Cat. When Golde wants something from me — to stroke her sweet golden body with her grass plant (which she otherwise enjoys munching on), to gently tug her tail in a spine-stretch she thoroughly enjoys while lying on her side (but which she cannot manage on her own), to turn on the cold water in the bathtub to a slow drip so she can avail herself of its deliciousness (and yes, it is good for her), to toss her sparkly balls high into the air above her head so she can jump sky-high to play what we (okay, I) call her “WEEEE!”s, her way of communicating the desire-du-jour is to administer one of those bites to whatever stretch of my ancient skin is just then exposed.
I’m a slow learner (especially when I’ve just then awakened from a refreshing night’s sleep), but those teeth wake me right up. Well, cats are night people, for that is when their hunting takes place. So she has been waiting (and waiting) for the old lady to Get the Hell Up. Do fun stuff. Feed her.
* * *
But this — have you guessed as much already? — is not about feline behavior. It’s about how life, in its wordless way (rather like a cat), delivers bites to us here and there to call our attention to something that bears noticing. It may start out with an easygoing nibble, but if we don’t sit up and Pay Attention, after a little bit the clamping down of the teeth may ramp up until we stop, hold still, and say Is there something here I need to see? Pay attention to? Learn from, maybe?
There’s just about nothing we do that doesn’t carry consequences. If I do something meant to make me (or someone else) happy, and it doesn’t deliver the goods, then spirits sink. Maybe anger and frustration enter the picture. I try something else. Familiar?
Before you know it, you’re rolled into a morgue. If you’re lucky, shortly before you’ve breathed your last, you have some thought or feeling that goes like this: Why did I think all that stuff mattered so much?
* * *
What matters? Don’t let me be the one to tell you. Stop reading this for now. Go sit quietly. See what your heart whispers.
It ain’t money (unless you or someone you love is hungry or endangered). What might you wish you’d paid more attention to when you feel the last drops of life running out of you?
Do you know anybody who was living a carefree life, somebody decades from old age, who suddenly learned they had a terminal disease?
But life is terminal. What have we got? Today. Right now.
It’s not about being loved. It’s got to do with loving, my friend.
* * *
My teaching last month had a lot to say about Annie Dillard, one of my favorite writers. Soon after I posted it, I went on a whale watch off the coast of Massachusetts. While there, I learned of Dillard’s death. From her I learned so much about mortality. As it happened, I was just then close to where she’d died.
How she would have reveled in those arcing whales and their little ones! She saw plenty with her own eyes. The woman knew how to live. She was no fool.
I try hard not to be one either. I wish the same for you. And if you have a cat, tell it I said hello. And by all means, if you don’t already have those sparkly balls, get the two of you a package of them. Toss one of those suckers high into the air above the feline’s head.
And please do have fun. Nobody ever had to talk a cat (or a kid) into that, eh?
Love, love, love. The Beatles said it well. All you need is love.