life with cats

Life with cats is ok. They’re low maintenance. They pretty much hang out all day, don’t judge me. I’ve learned about psychic abilities living with cats. They do vibes and stuff for sure. It’s like a 6th sense, a 5G wifi connection to other critters that are on the same network. Raccoons for example. They have a similar look when they‘re scanning you with their ESP to determine your intent or atleast your attitude as they approach the cat food bowl.

They’re predators though, the cats I mean. They have sharp claws, lightning fast reflexes, highly sensitive hearing, excellent eyesight, needle sharp teeth, the ability to move stealthily, to be perfectly still, to strike with speed and agility any small animal they can get close enough to. They are designed by nature to be predators. That’s where they fit into the food chain, that all important symbiotic, copacetic, biosphere.

I’ve rescued a squirrel, a small bird, a frog and a mouse either by rushing out into the yard and distracting the cat (squirrel, bird) or finding the victim hiding in my house somewhere and releasing them (frog, mouse).

My property is patrolled by 3 cats, well my place and the nearby neighbors. They don’t respect property lines. The mild wildness of cats and the tame greenness of our lawns and the flowers of our landscaping comprise the natural and the primitive of our suburban landscape.

The owl is an outlier showing up whenever she feels like it and observes from above, hidden in the tree branches. One night, while sleeping outside in the backyard, I was awoken by a loud shriek; it was alarming, almost frightening. I threw the covers back, parted the mosquito net and began searching with my flashlight for the source of the shriek. It seemed to have come from above so I searched the hackberry trees along the fence line - nothing. When I pointed the beam up into the big pecan tree, there was the great horned owl sitting on a branch 15 feet above my head and above the heads of Kybo and Tee Tah, two of my cats who had been accompanying me on my nocturnal sojourn. Apparently the cats were too big or too gnarly to attack so she let out a banshee cry instead. We looked at each other for a few moments, then she hooted twice and flew off over the fence on her silent wings.

So that was predator vs. predator, pretty interesting. The raccoons who have taken up residence under the house peacefully co-exist with the cats. Their aspiration is to join the tribe and enjoy the benefits of being a pet. They sometimes lay about on the porch in a relaxed manner as if to signify, hey I’m a cat too.

This is all to say that as I have domesticated my cats in my own way and set up relationships, they have domesticated my yard in their own way. They patrol it, looking for any creatures below them on the food chain, or they find a spot, turn around twice, lay down and hang out for hours, like a radar station sending out signals and receiving signals. That’s how it appears to me, at least, as I consider their motives and methods.

It’s this aspect of life with cats that interests me the most. How do they perceive the world? Differently than me, of course, having a different brain design. Having a tiny little cerebral cortex - their language skills are meager. Six or eight different meows make up Kybo’s vocabulary, the most talkative of the three. But they have other, simpler communication modes inherited from their ancestors and they are sufficient to survive in the non-verbal world of nature. Their cues and their prompts are invisible to me but I can imagine what they might be: a bird song, a change in the air pressure forecasting storms or sunny weather, the smells that waft thru the air and inhabit the earth.

When humans want to know something we get out our phone and google it or we initiate verbal call and response - conversation. We are addicted (and limited) to our high level language skills. There is much going on subliminally and sub-verbally that we are not privy to.

Foremost and most of all I have learned from my cats how to gaze at the world and observe it without judgement. This is a great yogic skill, it seems to me, and I try to practice it. Of course without having any great yogic skill in the first place, it’s difficult to maintain the focus. I’m all over the place. But I notice the world sometimes, fine and bright and right in front of me. In those moments I thank my cats, Kybo in particular, the one you see in the photos, for revealing the world to me. Oh, they can sit for hours in communion. Perfectly content, by appearances. So much so that little kids walking by with their parents are attracted to the cats and want to pet them. Subliminal. Communication.

Yes, these are shots of little Kybo not long after I brought her home. I found her in the middle of the street in the middle of the night on N. St. Mary’s while riding my bike. I was curious what that lump was doing there, trash I assumed, almost run over by a car. So I rolled over and it was a tiny kitten. I scooped her up and brought her home and gave her love strokes and slowly she came out of her shell and started playing. Three years later she still craves love strokes and in return has taught me many things that I didn’t know before.