| Really?...
a Cat?
This is a story about perseverance, acceptance of defeat and developing
a relaxed attitude. I learned these little pearls of wisdom by watching
my cat the other day. I’m not a “cat person.”
I’m really not sure if I ever have been. Oh sure, kittens
are cute and I like to watch the personality shift in the expressions
on my cat’s cynical face, but I’m really more of a dog
lover at heart. However, sometimes you’ve just got to stop
and watch nature happen, in the animal kingdom, right before your
eyes. In my case, I even learned a little something.
My cat, Ozzie, is a depressing soul. He is an outdoor cat with no
front claws. Before you send out the PETA people to bust down my
door and haul me off to be stoned somewhere in California, he used
to be an indoor cat and had to be evicted after the birth of our
third daughter. He just couldn’t stay out of the crib so out
he went. Besides, once you know a little more about this cat, you’ll
see that the claws really don’t make the cat.
He’s depressing because all he does, for at least eight hours
a day, is sit in my kitchen window and stare at the sink. I often
wonder what he’s thinking… “I’m hungry.
They seem to have eaten today by the looks of that pile of dishes.
I wonder when they’ll give their precious, furry feline a
thought. I think I might faint, I’m feeling very weak…
and … may not be able to get down… from the window…”
I’m pretty sure that’s it, or at least something close
to that. However, on the rare occasion that he manages to descend
from his perch, he actually demonstrates some feline instincts.
Climbing trees, pouncing and pawing at gently blowing leaves are
a few examples, but my favorite is the carefully calculated coursing
of a squirrel.
The squirrel and the cat are such a paradoxal pair. Squirrels are
nervous, jittery, high-strung, and spastic and behave like a caffeine-overdosed
room mother at a kindergarten Halloween party. Cats… not so
much. Cats are calm, cool, collected with actions that take on the
persona of silver-tongued swindler with his eye on the mark.
I’ve witnessed this spectacle on more than one occasion but
usually lose interest long before the hunt has ceased. This time
though, I made a vow to see how this charade played out no matter
how long it took. It began with the sighting. The cat’s usual
lackadaisical stance was suddenly altered. His head tilted back
to catch the scent of his oblivious prey. His ears stood at attention
and his eyes focused with the intense glare of a killer. He almost
appeared to grin as if to say, “You doltish fool, busily scrounging
for a morsel you’ll never taste.”
As the squirrel continues to feverishly dig for the nut he buried
only days ago, the cat’s haunches become strikingly visible
and his paws take the formation of a track star on the starting
block. A cat can hold this pose indefinitely. Patience is his ultimate
virtue as he waits for each momentary opportunity to shift one paw
in front of the other. This give and take of dumb squirrel to conniving
cat goes on for minutes that seem like hours. At this point, I wasn’t
sure which to root for. On one hand, the naiveté of the squirrel
is heart warming and innocent. On the other hand, the perseverance
and determination of the cat is admirable and undaunted. I root
for the cat. He has no fear. He’s locked in on his goal. Nothing
is getting in his way. He hears nothing around him. He focuses on
the job at hand and is determined; come hell or high water, to achieve
what he has set out to do.
I’ve seen this go both ways. There have been times, I’ve
witnessed frame by frame, the launch of the cat thrusting forward
to meet his prey. Every muscle exposed ending only in a deadening
silence and a tasty reward. This time, however, was like most. Within
just a few feet of his savory spoil, crouched in stealth-like positioning,
the squirrel suddenly catches on. The stunned look on this moronic
rodent’s face is priceless. But nevertheless, he lives to
see another day.
What strikes me most about this situation, is not the freedom of
the squirrel, but the ever so brief dismay of the cat which leads
to immediate acceptance of defeat, followed by a relaxed and laid
back attitude. As if to say, “Oh what the hell, I’m
not really that hungry anyway. I know I’ll get the little
nut-hoarder next time. I think I’ll go sit in the windowsill
and bathe.”
If only we could all share this blasé attitude about defeat.
Wouldn’t life be grand if a little rejection or failure didn’t
thrust is into the bowels of depression? We should all learn to
go after our goals with the intensity of the feline and envision
only victory as reward for our toils. However, if those goals should
be defeated and reward is out of reach, we should accept that we
are human and move on to the next challenge that awaits us. If we
could all learn to accept that losing once in awhile builds character
the better off we’d be. Who knew we could actually learn from
a cat?
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