Why Cats?

Jersey on the neighbor's roof

                Let me start with a couple of disclaimers.  First and foremost, I am not a crazy cat lady.  In fact, until about 10 years ago, I adamantly considered myself a dog person.  My daughter, however, lists becoming a crazy cat lady as her main life goal.  What I am is an enabling mother, left behind when my daughter went to college to care for her five rescue projects—Biff, Finnegan, Frank, Toby, and Jersey. 

                Secondly, I do not believe cats are filled with wisdom, otherwise, why would my husband have to climb on the roof of the neighbor’s house to remove them after they jump there from treetops?  I do believe that occasional moments of insight come while I’m dealing with cat situations.  Maybe that’s because life’s biggest lessons hover at the fringe of chaos and exasperation.

                So why write about cats?  Since first grade, creative writing has been my quiet form of self-expression, but in the second half of my 40’s, I needed a fresh voice to re-energize my thoughts.  For a long while I was at a loss for an interesting topic.  Because my husband and I prefer to work behind the scenes where things are quiet and the drama is light, we are what most would consider boring. The last thing anyone would want to read about is our homebody existence.  Then out of the blue, like a golden beam from heaven, it finally occurred to me—CATS!  What am I surrounded by? CATS!  What do I spend my day serving, feeding, protecting, and herding?  CATS! What’s the source of my husband’s and my greatest amusement?  CATS!  All this time I’ve been asking God for a direction to focus my writing and I’ve been tripping over the answer a dozen times a day.   Let’s face it—there is a lot of entertainment value in cats.