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.

You Can, If You Decide To

“If you want a life you’ve never had before, you’ll have to do things you’ve never done before.” Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass.

So, you’ve decided that you want to change. Maybe you want to rediscover a passion that you left behind when being a responsible adult got in the way. You’ve decided that you’re not going to give up on your music again, or your art, or writing. Or whatever it is that makes you talk so much and so fast your friends look at you funny.

That’s great. Now, get ready to do some things that you’ve never done before, or at least not in a while. And a lot of those things will be just different enough to be uncomfortable. Make the decision right now; decide that you will not give up. Remind yourself every day that you are not giving up.

Consuming to motivational materials is an effective way to help us keep momentum when the doubts attack.

Personally, I need to hear encouragement regularly to reinforce a decision I made a few years ago. I’ve made the effort to get in front of myself by reading and listening to Jen Sincero, Anthony Robbins, Wallace Waddles, Twyla Tharp and many others. They help me keep doubt at bay so I can investigate my thoughts with a clear head.

I decided to be a writer. I usually allow myself to be talked out of my ideas, even when nobody is trying to discourage me. I just give up on myself, almost out of habit. “It’s too much work”, or “I’m not as talented as real writers”, or “they’ll just look at me as if I’m cute for trying.” Or, “I don’t have a degree” is always a good insecurity to fall back on.

At the end of the day, those are just reasons to let yourself fail, to give up, or not to try.

The more uncomfortable you are, the more creativity you’ll bring to it.

Last year my partner challenged me, himself and another friend of ours to have 5 paintings (each) done by mid-December for an exhibition in his studio. Not a problem, I thought as I penciled in time on my calendar. We’d already been painting with each other for over a year and we were in the flow.

There is a difference between dreaming and doing, and it is inside the chasm of this difference that most people give up. I want you to dream big. Huge. Then get to work. When you have an idea that’s so brilliant it makes you tremble, watch out for your worst enemy: You.

I had an idea for the paintings that I was really excited about. I knew it had potential and I couldn’t wait to see the series up and in person. Before that, though, I’d have to paint it.

Some time after having a great idea, the reality of its being possible becomes frightening. Especially if you’ve spent a large part of your life backing down, talking yourself out of growing. Reasoning with yourself.

This, though, is not the time for reasoning. This is the time to go. To do it. The more uncomfortable you are, the more creativity you’ll bring to it.

I just give up on myself, almost out of habit.

When I began on the challenge, I first had to have coffee. Then, I needed a nap. I was thinking about my wonderful ideas and how I would execute them. Which made me terrified. Like, I-couldn’t-get-out-of-bed terrified. I lay there, paralyzed by my reaction to my own enthusiasm.

I pushed myself a little. I told myself that I would start sketching and let that lead me. Just sketch, just to get the blood flowing. For now, it was just going to be me working in peaceful solitude, with my own music playing and cats keeping me company. So, I breathed and got out of bed.

And keep the inevitable mood swings to yourself as much as you can.

First I was angry at everybody. Then I had to find a reason to be angry at them. Why did they stack stuff on top of my canvas? Now it’s all warped. Who took my ruler! How am I supposed to draw a straight line without a ruler? And my paint brushes; where are they!? Doesn’t anybody around here respect my stuff?! I’m never painting in this studio again. I will find someplace to paint by myself. WHY DOES EVERYBODY HATE ME? I’M NEVER TALKING TO ANYBODY EVER AGAIN EVER!

After inspecting , I learned that the canvas could be fixed by getting it wet; it tightened up again. And the paint brushes were standing neatly in a container designed specifically to hold paint brushes.

Breathe. Get back to work.

Beware that getting started doesn’t mean that your subconscious has given up. It’s just lying in wait.

I approached the canvas. This was really, really frightening. I had been slapping paint on things pretty regularly for over a year, but this… this was an idea that I love and that I thought had true potential. If I messed this up I’d be messing up my dream. I thought about taking another nap right at this point. Tomorrow is a good day to start painting.

Breathe.

Lean on your team

I worked for a while, sketching and getting into a creative flow. Partner came in at some point and aimed a light at my canvas, which helped immensely. He could see what I was so clearly struggling with, and it took him two seconds to redirect the light. (Please don’t tell him about my fit earlier.) But seriously, this is why we need coaches in our lives. And editors, and people with outside perspectives.

Take a break

Make some quiet time for yourself. Do some Zentangle. Have a cup of tea. Sit on the porch and watch birds. Do your best to think of nothing.

After sketching for a while and writing for a while, I did need a nap. I was on the bed with my cats and after a short time I got a nudge from somewhere inside my mind saying that I didn’t have to stay 100% faithful to the reference picture. I lay still. The feeling inside me said I could move the angles of a couple of straight lines in order to make the perspective more dramatic. That ended up making a huge difference in the painting.

Taking a break is different than ‘lying in a fetal position in fear’, by the way.

Work, rest. Work, rest. Meditate. Breathe. Clear your mind, and then work again.

Giving up is not an option. If that thought comes up, work through it. We make a habit of quitting, as if life were a video game. When I began working on those paintings, nothing was even that difficult yet I was ready to quit, before I had even started. This is, if I’m not mistaken, when I usually give up. I have a great idea, I begin to put it together, get overwhelmed and stop. I might tell myself I need more research, or I need to learn a new skill first or something. But for the most part the project is abandoned.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Are you stronger than you believe?

If you take some time to look at your life, you’ll probably find some instances in which you demonstrated tenacity, even if it didn’t impress you all that much. Maybe you took a second job and worked seventy hours a week for an extended period of time. Or found rent money moments before being evicted. And it’s possible (likely) that you don’t give yourself credit for these things, but don’t sell yourself short.

Despite that I’ve always thought of myself as a loser, there have been times when I have persevered. When I decided that I would accomplish a goal, I accomplished it. In my early 20’s—in the middle of a depression that I couldn’t understand or control—I learned Spanish. I did it in spite of all sorts of discouragement being thrown in my way. My family was highly irritated with me. Some Spanish speakers made fun of me. Or got angry at me. And, I was just really, really bad at speaking and understanding Spanish. I was clumsy. I gave up several times.

But before I could even properly quit, I found myself listening to Spanish music again, trying to make out the lyrics. I couldn’t let it go.

This just shows that I CAN do these things; I just have to WANT to do them, and DECIDE to do them.

You can do your things. You just have to WANT to do them, and then DECIDE.

Maybe you’ve been exploring and came across this website. You find yourself researching something you’d like to do some day, and to your own dismay you feel that you are trying to talk yourself out of it. This is a good time to learn to be still, to be quiet and to meditate. There are more resources online about meditation than I could list, but don’t dismiss the idea of art.

Me, I find comfort in art. Even if drawing isn’t your thing, you should give it a try from time to time. I encourage you to pick up a pen and paper. Don’t think about anybody seeing it; just make doodles, repeat patterns. Let your hand wander, and focus on the act of moving the pen across the paper. Circles, half-circles, squares, arcs repeating themselves. Your inner champion is trying to talk to you. Get used to making quiet time for yourself. Hold your dreams in your mind when you begin and see what your inner champion whispers to you. Be still and listen.

Then get ready to work.