A Cat Who Wants to Be Outside

I woke up one morning to my partner explaining that he had been on his morning walk and had found a kitten in box. She was clearly abandoned and probably was too young to live if left on her own. Suddenly, it seemed, we had a new kitten.

Cleopatra was named for the markings that looked like eye makeup. (We called her Cleo for short.) There wasn’t much of a transition issue for her. She settled in; she ate, understood the litter box. She was a kitten with kitten energy and eyes that were in a constant state of wide-open, like she was always surprised.

Cleo dearly loved Barry’s cat, Ms. Polly, who was far too old to want to have anything to do with kittens or cuddling or mothering. No matter how much Cleo walked up to her, droopy-eyed in half-sleep snuggle mode, it wasn’t never well-received. When our cat population expanded by six cats (a friend passed and we took her cats in) Cleo more or less kept to herself. if she couldn’t have Ms. Polly, she didn’t want anybody.

By and by, Cleo took to sitting by the storm door, looking out at the back yard. We would step over her while coming into an out of the house, so she had plenty of time to dart outside if that had been what she wanted. (She also had time to move out of the damn way, but wasn’t interested in that, either.) Barry and I decided that she remembered having been outside alone and abandoned as a kitten, and had no desire to relive that experience. So, she just watched the world happen from her safe place of shelter, food and water.

The change in her mindset about the outdoors was very gradual. I suspect that she saw the strays who had taken up residence in the back yard. She watched them lounge in the sun AND get fed. Her cat brain began to question the truths she had accepted. She realized that the love and care that we showed her inside was available to cats outside as well. Hmm…

She snuck outside a few times. Barry was very unimpressed with me when this happened. He’d run late to work because he’d insist on crawling under the house to get her out from under there and bring her inside again. She went under the house because almost as soon as she had managed to get outside, she became a little spooked—no longer sure why she had wanted to be out there in the first place. Dreams of warm sunbeams forgotten because she was too busy thinking about the fact that there were only a few precious minutes before the man who lived inside the house and brought her food (Barry) would come out and chase her back inside. So she panicked and ran under the house to hide.

A few years went by like this. Then one day a confident new hunky cat named Tomcat began to strut around the backyard. Cleo mostly watched him with the same detachment as she did with the other cats and possums. As winter set in, though, and it began to get cold outside, Tomcat began coming inside at night, and was allowed back out during the day.

This was the last straw.

Not only did the cats outside enjoy food and fresh air and sunbeams, they were allowed into the house as well, and then back outside whenever they pleased? That was too much.

She rediscovered youth in her desire to be outside. The storm door doesn’t slam; it has a pneumatic closer that catches it and lets it come to a slow, quiet close. This gave Cleo ample time to allow us to walk outside and then charge from two rooms away through the door before it completely closed her in. She got better at making sure we were either out of sight, or that she engaged her cat stealth as she ran by so that we didn’t notice her.

She no longer wasted any time being frightened and confused under the house. She’d lie in the grass, soaking up the sun. Or curl up under an esperanza bush. She could alternately sleep and watch the world around her for hours before standing on the back step, announcing that she’d like to come inside again please.

She didn’t interact with the cats outside much more than she had with the ones inside, and she also didn’t care who was around. Most cats won’t walk through a door or around a corner if another cat is standing nearby. There is a code in cat life that states, in no uncertain terms, that if another animal walks across your path you must swat it. It could be another cat, a human, or a dog, it didn’t matter. It had to be swatted, and it might need to be chased, depending on the circumstance. (Possible exceptions are possums. It is unclear why, but possums can get away with all kinds of nonsense that other cats are not allowed.)

But Cleo didn’t care about all that. She was a big girl (almost 20 lbs.) and she knew her strength. More to the point, she didn’t care about those other cats. She had places to be and she proceeded, regardless of how many cats were on the back step or nearby. She walked right by them, or jumped over them. To her, they were mere objects in her path. She knew that time was somewhat limited. She may be a badass cat, but she knew that the man with the food would be around sooner or later to scold her and chase her inside, so she wasted no time.

I, myself, long to learn this lesson. Not only learn it by watching Cleo chase her dreams, but I want to really feel it in my bones. To KNOW what I want, why I want it and to make no excuses about not going after it. If the door is closing, who says you can’t reach it from two rooms away before it locks you in? If other cats want to play by their rules, that’s their business, but I have things to accomplish and work to do.

I want to go at life with the conviction of a cat who has decided to be outside. Nothing can stop a heart on a mission. Cleo showed me that.

Move over. The door is closing now; I don’t have time for nonsense.

How Did I End Up Writing a Novella About Cats?

I have always been a writer, in the sense that I have always written. I have yet, however, to be a writer who earns money with his craft.

When my office job was becoming more than I could handle, I searched (desperately) for a way to use my writing to earn money. (I'm still searching for that, by the way.) I wasn't an immediate success, clearly. It could be that I'm not serious enough about a writing career; it could be that I'm picky about what I write. I'm working on loosening up the strangle hold on topics because it seems like I could learn to grow as a writer by expanding what I write about, even improving my art in my preferred subjects. Also, it could help attract more readers. I understand that it's important to develop a niche, but there's much to learn out there.

Then, there are novels. Writers write novels, so I decided to write a novel. I thought about what I wanted from this experience and what I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to write, to earn money, and I wanted to enjoy the process. I love mysteries, so I decided that would be my genre. I had a character in mind, even before I began. I had lived with this guy in my mind for a couple of years, in fact, so sitting down to give him life felt natural, and other characters came easily.

… but the cats kept calling me

The actual plot was something else altogether. I researched ways to develop this. There are many good resources out there, free and otherwise. I didn't mind paying for one or two of them because if I want to make money writing I shouldn't be shy about paying other people for theirs. Also, you usually get what you pay for. Free is free. I found "The Story Toolkit", by Susan Bischoff to be the most helpful.

It was slow going. Writing about what you know and experience is one thing; creating worlds and generating plots and scenes is a different thing altogether. I tried just writing whatever came out—AKA pantsing, or flying by the seat of your pants. I got nowhere. I used the Story Toolkit to help me organize it all, but that meant I had to have a plot in mind, and what I had were a bunch of people talking to and about each other in my head. They weren’t interested focusing; they were content just hanging out, drinking wine, and gossiping.

Then cats.

I live with cats. At one point there were 15 here, and before you gag know that we have two acres and that they were all in their own little areas. There were five cats in the house at one point and that's far too many for my taste. But I wasn't going to just throw any of them outside because of a personal preference. When a close friend died over a decade ago, we swooped in and adopted her six cats, which is what led to the surfeit. If we had put any of those cats outside, our friend's ghost would have wreaked havoc on our lives.

I, myself, had three cats to call my own. I'd sit in my room watching them interact, and for the most part they didn't like each other. Raku, the youngest—and a ginormous bundle of cuddliness—loved the other two, but it wasn't reciprocated. There was bickering, the occasional hiss, and a lot of pretending that the other cats weren't there. I'd also watch some of the other cats interact, and stories just generated themselves in my mind. Cats have their own personalities and my mind began evolving those into human personalities. Complete with conversations. In English.

At the time I was taking a workshop where we would be given a prompt to start us off. Using that, we wrote for anywhere from five to twenty minutes. Then we'd critique each other's work. During one of these workshops I decided to write about some of my cats, jotting down a few paragraphs about them.

I took those paragraphs home and they sat in a drawer. I had to pick them up periodically and write more stories, because stories were running around in my head. Then I'd put them aside again, because I was working on my mystery novel. That is a real novel in a real genre, and it is something that one does when one is a writer. I wanted to put my attention on the mystery, but the cats kept calling me.

Most people that I worked with encouraged the mystery. But, eventually I found myself three quarters of the way through a legitimate novella about my cats. I made the decision to work on that project, let it loose in the world, and then I could work on the mystery while the cat novella did what it could do. (Hopefully generate some money around here.) While it wasn't necessarily what everybody advised, once I made the decision they were all on board.

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Raku and Anastasia on the bed, inspiring me to write about them. Demanding it, even.

So, I picked up the Story Toolkit and began plotting out a continuous storyline that would take me from beginning to end. I crafted characters, which was easy because: one, they are my cats, and two, their anthropomorphized personalities had already established themselves in my mind. I observed the very first cat I ever owned, Carmela, walk around, ignoring the other cats, distancing herself, exploring the outdoors and being a loner. Situations created themselves from what I saw my cats doing, things like going under the house and getting too spooked to come out, or lying on the sofa, looking out the glass door. Jumping on the bed, sitting in the window seat. I learned to stitch these things together as I drafted the outline of a narrative arc.

I worked with a writing coach. This was key. He was the same man who gave the workshop that I mentioned earlier. He’s spent his life as a writer, and though it was not necessarily fiction, he knows how storytelling works. He guided me as I struggled. I can tell a good 4k word story, but a novella—and later a novel—takes a different kind of skill. He didn't tell me what to write, not at all. But, as I wrote he let me know which parts were interesting and which parts were flat, and he suggested ways to make it better. One never enjoys hearing that any piece of their art is not good, but we won't grow any other way. Anybody who is outside of your own head will be able to give you insights into things that you don't see, but a professional writer can do so much more.

Holding in my hands my little novella, which I printed from my computer, felt good. It wasn't the exhilarating experience that one might expect; it was a quiet, calm feeling of knowing that I could do it. I took a project from beginning to end despite doubts, fears and a lifetime of creating excellent excuses for not succeeding.

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Carmela, the first to give me inspiration. My muse, my baby, my cat.

And along the way I gained insight into the mystery novel, which I'm tackling again. What I enjoy most about that piece are the characters, the people. I'm the boring guy at the coffee shop who watches people. I enjoy having a good conversation, but I am more fond of watching others have them. Back in its heyday writers of mystery novels would focus on plot. It was a game with their readers, leading them to guess whodunit, and packing a surprise at the end. The writer succeeded if their readers did not guess, and if their ending was believable. I enjoy that, but it's probably not what people are looking for these days, not like they did in the early to mid-Twentieth Century. I'm adding it to my work, but less in the plot, and more in the development of the people populating my novels—their minds and the way they interact.

I've deepened my natural appreciation for characters. I've learned that it is a strength in my writing and one that I need to continue to develop. While I work on learning to create novel-length plots, narrative arcs and consistency in style, I'll focus on learning to have my characters drive the whole thing.

That's what I learned from writing about my cats.

P.S. The writing coach I worked with is Ron Seybold and you can find him at The Writer’s Workshop website.

In Loving Memory of Cleo the Cat

Years ago, Barry was on his regular walk and found a small kitten in box. She weighed 3.5; she was tiny. And vulnerable.

Barry brought her into the house where she fell in love with his other cat, Ms. Polly. She looked toward her as a mother. Ms. Polly, on the other hand, was about 16 years old and generally not amused. This was the first time I noticed the affectionate half-closed eyes in cats. Cleo was sitting quiet in the same room as Ms. Polly, who was minding her own business. Cleo got up from where she was lying, walked over to Ms. Polly, her sleepy eyes half-closed, and nuzzled her, to which Ms. Polly hissed, swatted and jumped away, unamused as ever.

When she was awake, though, Cleo’s eyes were permanently wide open, as if in surprise. She would be lying on a table when we walked in, she’d look at us with her wide permanently-surprised eyes, whether or not anything interesting was happening. And if we looked at her for more than a second she would yawn. She had a black line of color extending from the outer corners of the eyes to the end of her face, like make-up. This make-up is where the name Cleopatra (Cleo, for short) came about.

Cleo Showing Eye Make-up

Cleo Helping Me Journal

Cleo Sneaking onto a Chair that is Not Hers

Cleo Hanging Outside at Night

Eventually some other cats moved in. They were isolated from the rest of the house at the beginning to avoid unpleasantness, and we weren’t sure how long they’d be here. We found homes for some of them, and three others remained with us. It was around that time that Ms. Polly, at the ripe old age of 17 had her last Christmas with us. So, the three cats from the new set were let out of their room to explore the rest of the house.

It was interesting that those three cats walked around, and Cleo walked around, and even if they were all in the same room, it was like having two sets of cats. There was little if any interaction between Cleo and the others. We were sitting watching TV one evening and the three cats all looked toward the bedroom in unison. Cleo continued as she was, unmoved by such things as ghosts walking by. We figured it must have been their mother’s ghost, and that’s why Cleo took no notice.

She loved us. She really did. We have scars from ‘playing’ with her. We had to teach her not to bite, but that never lasted long. She just loved to play that way; she’d hold your finger captive between her teeth, purring away. If you tried to jerk away, instinct kicked in and she held on harder. It was a bad habit, but it wasn’t malice or anger; that’s just how she played. We know this because there were other times she showed what she was made of, and what it looked like when Cleo was actually angry. Barry and I tried for thirty minutes once to give her a pill. The two of us together couldn’t make that happen and the only thing we accomplished was to make her angry and to leave us using alcohol on the many scratches on our arms.

Here I Am!

Cleo, Taunting Me

Cleo on her Box in the Library

Indifferent to the Other Cats

For the most part Cleo was a bundle of self-sufficient contentedness. After Ms. Polly passed, she didn’t even try to associate with other cats, and she was only moderately needy for attention from Barry and me. She’d come to me on the sofa and want attention, but eventually she’d move and lie down a few inches away, purring. She’d sleep on the bed at night, but she didn’t want to touch us. Just being close was all that was needed.

At some point along the way she and I became buddies. She’d see me walking toward the office and RUN in front of me to sit in my chair first. Then she’d look up at me, like, “Whatta ya gonna do about it?” Usually when I arrived home after work she’d run to the bathroom (of all places!) and I’d have to sit on the tub and pet her. Or, I’d pick her up and talk to her for a while, walk around the house and let her sniff the artwork on the walls. Then she’d want down and she’d go on her way, sleeping on a decorative table or something along those mildly destructive lines.

For years Cleo would look outside and have no interest in going out there. She’d sit by the glass door looking out and wouldn’t budge when we walked in. (Really. She wouldn’t move. Not even to get out of the way. We had to step over her.) In the last couple of years, she began to enjoy visiting the back yard. There are cats out there as well, but she took no notice of them. She’d walk right past them, looking ahead at where she was going, and they didn’t so much as swat at her. She enjoyed lying in the grass, in the sun. Very quiet, just watching the world go by, looking at the field on the other side of the fence, smelling what the wind carried.

For the past six months I noticed that she wanted to be outside more. She wasn’t completely determined or demanding, but she’d sneak out given the chance. In addition to lying in the grass, she would lie on the patio, warming herself, with the sun and with the heat from the bricks. As spring began to heat up, she found a spot underneath an Esperanza bush, where the ground did not have grass. She could be in shade and the bare ground would cool her as well.

It’s not that she seemed unhappy, but my experience with cats began to nag at the back of my mind. She was wanting to spend more and more time outside, and she looked so peaceful there. It was getting hot, though, and Barry would bring her back inside to cool down. I wasn’t entirely surprised when she began to lose weight rapidly. She went from nearly twenty pounds to around six.

She enjoyed lying in the grass, in the sun. Very quiet, just watching the world go by, looking at the field on the other side of the fence, smelling what the wind carried.

Barry took her to the vet, which is a lonely experience in the time of pandemic. He parked outside and called; they came to pick Cleo up and take her inside. The vet who was available saw her alone. At first they diagnosed hypothyroidism and gave us medicine for the condition. It was administered in the outer ear, which is the only reason we considered giving it to her. Even in her weakened condition, we were both kind of afraid of her. But, I didn’t think she was acting like she had a thyroid issue. We have experience with that, and this was not the same.

We gave her the thyroid medication, and other one to increase her appetite. She “ate” moist food, which actually just consisted of her drinking the gravy that we made by mixing water to the canned food. Other cats came by the clean up the actual meat. She seemed to hold her weight though, so we continued to give her medicine in the ear and prepare her gravy for her. She continued to slip outdoors at any opportunity she had. She couldn’t move fast usually, but she could slip through a door before it closed. She’d have to catch her breath, but at least she was outside.

I could tell that Barry’s heart was breaking a little. A few times I held her and walked around the yard with her. One such time he told me to walk over by the back fence, where she had always loved to lie. She looked over the fence at the field beyond and I’d catch a glimpse of Barry looking at us as he walked to his studio. Days went by and she became less and less able to move, so I’d sit on the front porch with her, holding her up to keep her comfortable.

Eventually I noticed that she wasn’t able to use her back legs; she could only lift herself up and drag herself along. She couldn’t seem to make herself comfortable and we had to admit that the thyroid medication was not helping that part. Barry called the clinic and asked to speak to the veterinarian who he’s used for years, if not decades. She agreed to see Cleo, though she was in surgery that day. I drove Cleo to the clinic and they came to my car to pick her up. It wasn’t much later that the veterinarian called to let us know that she had found a large tumor in her abdomen. She said it had grown very quickly. Indeed, the previous vet hadn’t caught it just a few weeks earlier.The three of us together made the decision that the time had come for end-of-life intervention. Normally I am an advocate for letting nature take its course, but I support Barry in this 100%. It was so difficult to see Cleo suffer, and she was suffering. She couldn’t get comfortable; she couldn’t walk or even hobble any more. The doctor was in surgery for a few more hours and Barry asked if we could bring her home during that time. She agreed, so we planned that I would pick her up and we’d take her back to the clinic at 4 o’clock.

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The images above are courtesy of Tamara Talamantes. davincibox.com

It wasn’t very hot yet when I brought her home, so Barry asked me to put her under her Esperanza bush. She wanted to be tucked way back behind it. I sat with her for a while. I did that as much for Barry as I did for Cleo. He’s had many, many cats in his life, and it’s never easy to arrive at this point. Especially with a loving cat with so much personality.

As we got closer to four o’clock, he wanted to go dig a grave for her so it would be ready when we got home. He had just had surgery on his hands, so I did the digging once he told me where. (It had been raining, thank God.) Our friend Tamara was working in the studio, and we let her know. She has three cats of her own, so she understands how it is.

Barry holding Cleo

The time arrived. We gathered Cleo up and got in the car. Barry, unable to use his hands, let me set her in the back seat, and he sat back there with her. This time the clinic let us come in; they told us that this is the one, and the only one, exception that they make. We still wore masks and kept a polite distance, but we were able to be there with her. I don’t know that we could have done it otherwise. The vet talked us through what would happen; she tranquilized Cleo first so she’d be asleep at the end.

And Cleo passed in Barry’s arms.

On the way home, I pointedly drove slow, and with my headlights on. When we arrived, Tamara joined us. Barry gathered the holy water and a small cross charm. He blessed Cleo and put the cross in the ‘angel bag’ they gave us at the clinic. Then Barry, Tamara and I did a sort of procession to the graveside, with Tamara’s cat Ziggy following along. We lay Cleo into the ground and took turns throwing dirt into the grave. Then we covered her with earth, the earth she had longed to lay on for the past few months.

I’m always a little envious of Barry’s cats. While it is heartbreaking to say goodbye like this, I know for a fact that he has spoiled them and given them a better life than they ever could have had anywhere else. I remember Cleo, the cat who never noticed the other cats in the house, and never paid much attention to the dog when he was here. She lived, mostly, for me and Barry, and for any other person who came to visit and was silly enough to put their hand too close to her mouth when they pet her. She loved each and every one of them, but she was who she was. She was strong and held her own; the tom cats outside didn’t even try to bother her. I remember her running across the wood floor, sounding like a herd of horses. As soon as Barry sat on the sofa she was on his lap, pushing at his hand and nibbling his fingers until he pet her and gave her attention. I remember fighting with her over the office chair, and letting her have it while I sat on a wooden dining room chair. I remember Cleo filling her own spot on the bed at night, not next to Barry, but close to him. (I also remember Barry, once, sleeping sideways across the bed to keep from disturbing her.)

Barry found Cleo on the side of the road, tiny and vulnerable, and she grew to be big and confident in his home. A cat like that gets under your skin, literally and figuratively. She wasn’t shy about taking up space here. She let us know that she loved us and demanded love in return. She made herself a part of our life and made sure we knew she was important. Without us realizing it, she created a space in our hearts and filled it. The house doesn’t feel the same without her. She will be missed.

We miss you, Cleo

Favorite Places

My cat, Anastasia, has a new favorite place—on my lap when I'm sitting on my rocking chair. Not any other time, just on the rocking chair. I have a couple of back issues, so last year I got rid of one super soft chair, which my physical therapist told me I absolutely need to stay away from, and I replaced it with a wooden rocking chair. It's incredibly comfortable, even aside from the back issue. I don't know why I didn't consider it before. So, I sit down to read and Anastasia decides that she needs to be on my lap. She jumps up, fidgets, fusses, and goes in circles and eventually chills. It's cliche and the best.

For my part, aside from loving my new rocking chair, I have discovered what is probably my new favorite place—the front porch. It's been there all 15 years I've lived here, but I rarely use it. I don't know why that is. My partner used to tease me about it for one thing. I don't know why he teased me, and I don't know why I cared. It wasn't malicious, just in good fun. I'm just going to chalk it up to the fact that I've come a long way with my attitude and state of mind. The house itself is pier and beam, so the porch is raised. It's a fabulously old house in an old neighborhood and being there makes me indescribably happy. I just had a long weekend, and sitting our there in the cool mornings was about as close to heaven as I've come in a long time. And another of our cats, Clarice, enjoys exploring the area near the porch while I'm out there.

This makes me think of my favorite place in the world to write—the dining room table. It's only a dining room because we have a table in it. The original house basically has four rooms, one of which is the kitchen. They are all more or less the same size and just make a square. Anyway, we have a large dining room table that barely fits in its room, and it just has a good energy. I can write more here than any other place. For one thing there are no doors between the rooms (except for the bathroom, which sticks outside of the main square.) So, I can breathe and it feels so open. I have been trying to create another space for writing—one that feels the same—so that the dining room table can be a place where we actually eat, but I think that secretly this will always be my favorite space. (I'm sitting at the table as I write this.)

One thing that the other space I'm working on is missing is windows. The space is big enough, though not as open as my dining room office. It doesn't have decent windows, though, and I miss that. The windows that are in the building are all about 7 feet off the ground, so you can't gaze out at anything. When I moved into the room that is my bedroom, the first thing I asked for was for more and larger windows. I feel cramped without them. I only recently discovered this about myself, but knowing it I can't ignore it. So, while this is a beautiful old house sitting on two acres of mowed grass with a back yard partitioned off, when it comes to views it's sorely lacking. Or, so it seemed.

Then one day as I sat at my table working I looked around. The dining room has four good-sized windows and the living room next to me has the same. For the fifteen years that I've lived here every single one of these windows, plus those in the bedroom, have had blinds that have been permanently closed. Closed for probably 25 years, and my partner couldn't really explain why. So, I opened six of them, two in front of me and two to each side, and now the space feels even MORE open. I may never leave this table again.

Honestly, the dark bedroom where I sleep (in a building in back of the house so I can have personal space) would actually make an ideal library. Currently we have all of our books in the back room, one that was added on and is the width of the house. That room also has plenty of windows and they face east. The problem is that the light will not be good for my books. I'm torn, because I love seeing the books there, but they'd last better in the darker room. I would definitely visit that room often, but I don't know about Partner. He doesn't read; he just likes to see the bookshelves with books and artwork. Maybe some UV filters on those back windows? Nobody really looks out of them anyway.

I have to say, in these past few weeks I've learned a few things about myself and my life. I've rediscovered my passion for windows, and a minor case of claustrophobia maybe. I've learned that I love this house even more than I thought. You can discover a lot when you slow down, open your eyes and look around.