Cats Galore

I live in a “cat house!”  My wife and I serve seven very demanding cats, and sometimes we feel that we are the pets and they are the pet-owners. Although our efforts to serve are often approved, as often they fall short.  Nevertheless, we appear to be incorrigibly dedicated to seeing their faces smiling, feeling their soft paws pressing gratefully against one’s hand, dissolving past moments of inadequacy in the rumbling ocean of their purring.  We are dupes, we are slaves to our own possibly ill-conceived but nonetheless hopelessly unconquerable love for these little, cuddly, prickly, furry hellions.

"Gus" (Sparticus, the Invader)

And now, an eighth feline, one we’ve named Gus (short for Spartacus because he has the carriage of a warrior), is circling the den like a comet that may or may not strike earth.  His beguiling sweet meow strums our heartstrings and pied-piper-like we offer him food and drink and bow in service, inebriated by the elixir of our own melting hearts.  Yet, he remains in orbit, some distance kept, fixed in a diffident spiral, coming and going.

Many other cats have passed through over time, Scootie, Marley, Whitey, Big Fluffy, Charcoal Gray… but Gus has persisted.  He has some way about him and resistance is simply futile.

We never planned to live this way, surrounded by a heard of cats.  The energy one must spend is great, sweeping up drifting tangles of cat fur, or the sand they scatter across the floor from their recurring dirt-baths outside, and continually restraining them from eating too much, or eating each other’s food, or protecting them from the natural results of their aggressive power-games.  And this is to say nothing of dealing with the morbid little “packages” left on a rug by the bed sometimes, despite which, in courtesy, one must strap on a too-wide grin and purr, “Good kitty, you are a good hunter, thank you for your gift!”  Food is the topic at the top of everyone’s mind.

One grace that we have in all this is their irresistible attraction to heat.  During the winter, they loll anesthetized within the aura of any source of heat. And in the warmer months, they spend much of their time sun-bathing shamelessly.  So, we do have some few moments of peace here in the house of cats.

Something must be done about Gus.  An eighth would be too many.  The recent addition of the seventh nearly toppled the cart.  Gus has to be neutered (fie on those who abandon un-neutered males or un-spayed females for others to deal with!).  And he must be cared for — our hearts will allow nothing less.  We are all prisoners of our love, wherever it may lie.

Gus just passed a few minutes ago beneath the window where I sit writing.  I called to him, sounding I’m sure like the greatest of fools to most who might hear, but to him, this was a sympathetic language to which he responded and that seems to be sifting into his heart like water through soil.  The question is, what seeds will germinate?  Will Gus splash down or stay in orbit, circling and calling pitifully in his isolation?

We humans certainly have our work cut out for us here on earth, as we long for love and strive desperately to make it the walls and rafters of a permanent home.  It’s an endless effort and there’s much that whittles at any such structure no matter how small or large, no matter how far along.

But in that painful sweet moment where love meets its need there lies an endless indestructible mansion of promise and fulfillment.  This appears to be one of the many gifts of insight, which despite the endless travails of life amongst so many cats, has been cultivated in my own heart during those quiet moments of gazing into their Cheshire-like smiling faces.