(S)CAT!
“I don’t like cats,” my husband muttered, more to himself, than me, when I showed him a photograph of one of the three resident cats my kids have.
“Why?”, I ask him belligerently, ready to start fighting. I am always at my best early in the morning.
“They are not loyal,” he declared, getting ready to fend off all comers.
We have nothing to do, most of the time, we old people. So we look forward to sharpening our claws on, and pitting our wits against, each other.
And that, is the fundamental difference between dogs and cats. A dog is all over you, blindly obedient and loyal till her last breath, a cat’s respect you need to earn. They do love you, cats, but they can make their displeasure very, very plain. They can look at you with a curled lip, and sink you to the ground. They also have a very disconcerting way of pointedly turning their back on you, and watching you out of the corner of their eye, to see whether you have noticed. Haughty disdain, and attitude characterises most of the cats I know/knew.
But they can also be quietly faithful to you in ways that make you feel good about yourself. Loki, Coco and Raaz used to wait very patiently outside our bedroom door, when my husband and I were in Melbourne, so that they could greet us and complain about how no one was awake to play with them/ let them out for a run/ talk to them. Raaz, who was only four months old at the time, couldn’t understand why we needed to shut the washroom door when we were inside. So she used to put in a small, pink and very clean paw beneath the door, and move it around, looking for us. Cats like being petted, but not cuddled too much. And cats demand their space and their privacy.
And yes, they do fall on four legs, all the time.
I remind my husband that despite his avowed dislike of cats, every cat, wherever we go, makes a straight beeline for him.
When you take a cat so much for granted that you try to corner it, however little it is, however much of a pet, and however desperate it is, it turns and fights. And then you can get pieces of yourself gouged out.
I find cats powerful metaphors for women and what they should, and can be.
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