Meditation Aid

There is a small dog bed on the floor next to my meditation cushion, and every morning when I fold myself into a half lotus my gray cat, Telemann, jumps into the bed and regresses to earliest kittenhood. Not that there is anything kittenish about Telemann. He is in his prime, an avid (indoor) hunter, agile and well-muscled, with a tom’s wide skull and thick neck. 

The dog bed where he stages his regressions is covered in fuzzy fabric, and its back and sides are stuffed to form a softly convex wall. Telemann hops in, spreads his ten white fingers as wide as they will go, and begins to push rhythmically, first the right hand and then the left, against the side of the bed. His scimitar claws make a popping sound as they dig into and out of the cloth. His purring grows louder; the kneading speeds up; his eyes closed in ecstasy, he presses his nose and lips into the fabric. I can’t tell whether he’s actually sucking on the fuzz or whether it’s the accumulated moisture from his breath that makes his favorite spot damp and frayed. Either way, Telemann pretends he’s nursing. 

By the time the twenty minutes of observing-but-not-judging my monkey mind are up, the purring and kneading have stopped, and Telemann is fast asleep, one white paw still pressed against the curved side of the bed. Perhaps this pretend nursing is a way of making up for his deprived infancy, when his mother was so undernourished that when the family was rescued the kittens had to be bottle fed. Or perhaps the nursing is a way to soothe his anxieties, if he has any anxieties, which is doubtful. 

Whatever the reason, it doesn’t seem to embarrass this otherwise dignified cat to be seen indulging in baby behavior, and I envy Telemann his nonchalance, which we humans are taught to overcome at an early age. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, waking up in the dark of a winter night, gasping with virus- and Trump-induced  angst, one could take comfort in a well-sucked thumb? 

Telemann doesn’t think about what I think of him. Oddly enough, when he’s settled in my arms I often stop thinking myself. He looks into my eyes, I look into his eyes, our breathing slows, our eyelids droop, and I subside into a blissful no-mind state that I hardly ever achieve on my meditation cushion.

You could tear out my fingernails one by one and you wouldn’t get me to say that I love Telemann more than my little dog, Bisou. But Bisou doesn’t induce that serene blankness in me the way he does. It may be that her face is too expressive—dogs have a special set of muscles around their eyes that gives them an almost-human repertoire of expressions—and when she looks at me I react by thinking: does she want food? Does she need to go out? Is she bored? Is she worried? 

Cats do not have those cunning little muscles around the eyes, so their faces appear somewhat mask-like to us. Looking at Telemann’s face when he’s relaxed is like gazing into a still lake, its surface broken only by his slow periodic blinks. There is no thought there, no demand, no hurry, no worry--only presence. And in response my mind slows way down, and I get a blessed respite from being human, and a fleeting taste of what it’s like to be a cat.

Inspired By Don Marquis

"What in hell have I done to deserve all these kittens?"  Don Marquis

The Cat Pascal-Pazuzu, Part The Second

I need not have worried.  Pascal made it through the night, and the next morning, relieved but bleary-eyed from all those feedings, I put him in his shoe box, packed milk and the trusty washcloth into my briefcase, and took him to the office, where he spent the day sleeping contentedly under my desk.  Every couple of hours I would feed him, sneak him and the washcloth into the bathroom, and then put him back in his box.

Several days later, a slit appeared between his eyelids, revealing bright blue pupils, and Pascal suddenly turned from a mostly passive embryo into a real kitten.  He started eating solid food, and could go for longer periods between meals, which was good, as he refused to be contained in his shoe box and I had to leave him at home.  He also outgrew the wet washcloth.  I thought he was too young to be litter-box trained, and worried about what the interim period between washcloth and litter box would bring.  I went out and bought a litter box and some litter anyway, and the minute I set the litter box on the floor, before I'd removed the cardboard band that held top and bottom together, before I'd put any litter in it, Pascal jumped in and made a tiny poop.

At that time we had a young Irish Setter, Jeremy, whose purpose in life was to please.  Pascal, at age six weeks, made him his personal slave.  He would ride around the house on Jeremy's back, clinging to the wavy red coat with his tiny claws.  He would cuddle up to the dog if he was cold.  If Jeremy was sleeping,  the kitten would squeeze himself along the points of contact of Jeremy and the floor, pushing with all his might until the dog turned on his back.  Then he would crawl onto Jeremy's belly and root among the forest of red and gold hair until he located a vestigial nipple, latch on, and purr and knead to his heart's content.

As was the custom in those days, we had Pascal neutered early.  As a result, he never developed a tomcat's characteristic blocky head, but his body and legs grew long and rangy, and he ran and jumped so fast that he really seemed to fly.  As a result of being handled early by humans, he was so completely without fear that it was all but impossible to correct him.  If we caught him walking around on the kitchen counter we would hiss at him, we would clap loudly, in desperation we would hurl the car keys at his feet.  Nothing worked.  If we wanted him off the counter we had to pick him up, at which point he would purr happily and nuzzle our necks, and we would lose the battle for good.

One night we were awakened by a strange crackling noise in the kitchen.  It grew louder, and seemed to be coming towards the bedroom.  We opened the door and saw Pascal propelling a large, full--but fortunately closed--trash bag along the hallway.   In our sleep-befuddled state we were too slow for him, and he and the trash bag disappeared into the darkness of the living room.  It was about that time that I came across mention of a Babylonian demon named Pazuzu, and appended that to the cat's original name.

I forgot to mention that Pascal was born and lived the first year of his life in North Carolina.  Eventually we moved back to Maryland.  It was arranged that my husband and the moving truck would go first, and I would drive up a day later in the station wagon with all the stuff the movers had failed to move, one of our daughters, and the dog and Pascal in their respective crates.

It was a hot, bright July morning.  We were driving north on the interstate when the timing belt broke.  I pulled over onto the shoulder, put the emergency blinkers on, and tried to think what to do (this was in that bygone era before cell phones).  Since the temperature was in the nineties, I opened the windows and the cargo door so the animals could have some air.  Traffic was whizzing by, and I was wondering what I would do if nobody stopped, and what I would do if someone did.  That was when Pascal-Pazuzu worked open the door of his crate, bolted out of the car, and headed towards the road.

(To be continued.)

M Is For Meow

This is the story of my cat, Pascal-Pazuzu, and how he came by this two names.

When the workers who were repairing the roof of the administration building brought down the nest of kittens, each was no bigger than a large egg.  Their eyes were closed, and their skin showed pink through their sparse coat.  They had that generic look of the very young:  they could have been bunnies, or mice, or even puppies.  Their mother, one of the dozen feral cats that roamed the campus, had taken good care of them, though:  their skin was warm, their stomachs full, their coats  spotless.

I chose the black-and-white one and named him Pascal, in honor of Blaise P., who wrote that the heart has its reasons which reason does not know.  And certainly reason had had nothing to do with my decision to adopt the kitten.  I was in a demanding new job, and had a house full of dogs and teenagers and moving boxes that I hadn't yet unpacked.  But once I felt the warmth of that little body in the palm of my hand, there was no way I was giving him back.  The registrar, who was a serious cat lady, handed me a pamphlet on fostering kittens, a can of special milk, and a tiny bottle with a tiny nipple.  I put Pascal in my pocket and took him home.

As I read the pamphlet, I began to wish I'd ignored my heart's reasons.  First of all, Pascal's survival appeared extremely doubtful unless I could somehow get him to accept the nipple.  Secondly, he had to be fed every two hours, round the clock.  Thirdly, since kittens that young cannot excrete body wastes on their own, I would have to simulate his mother's tongue after each feeding, with the aid of a washcloth dipped in warm water.  Fourthly, he had to be kept warm at all times....

Feeling that I had taken on a desperate cause, but realizing that I had to get Pascal through the night before I could make alternative arrangements for him, I filled the doll-sized bottle and gingerly brought the nipple to his little pink mouth.  He latched on in an instant, and began a loud, ferocious sucking.  But as he finished the bottle I knew we were not out of the woods yet.  What, I asked myself, were the chances that he would accept my warm washcloth instead of his mother's tongue?  Visions of death by constipation ran through my mind as I swabbed Pascal's nether parts with my washcloth.  I needn't have worried:  the washcloth worked right away.

Limp with relief, I dried off the kitten, made him a bed inside a shoe box, tucked him in and poured myself a glass of wine.  Later, as the alarm woke me in the dead of night for another feeding, I hardly dared to look into the shoe box.  Would I find his cold, inert little body among the blankets or, worse still, would he be writhing in pain that I wouldn't know how to relieve?

(To be continued.)

Nuthatch, Chickadee

Chickadees and nuthatches are the mainstays at our feeder in winter, and I think they kind of "go" with the look of the landscape--elegant black and white, with subtle blue or rosy shadings that mimic the play of afternoon sun on snow.

Both are tiny birds, but the chickadees look cuddlier than the nuthatches. Nuthatches are more streamlined. They have small heads and long beaks--adult proportions. Chickadees are "neotenic"--they have the kind of features that remind us of babies and trigger the cuddling response. Puppies and kittens are neotenic with a vengeance: big heads, widely spaced eyes, tiny muzzles. That's why we fall victim to them, even when we ought to know better. Chickadees--even the bossy adult males--look like babies too: their heads are round and large in proportion to their bodies, their eyes are wide apart, and their beaks are the size of a niger seed: the very essence of cuteness.

It was sunny today, and cold, but in the middle of the day you could actually feel the warmth of the sun. And up in the bare branches of a birch a chickadee could feel it too, and sang its song with extra oomph: "Heeere sweetie, sweetie, sweetie!"

Before you know it, the sweetie will answer the call, and then spring will really be on its way.