Lögberg-Heimskringla - 19.04.1991, Blaðsíða 6

6 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 19. apríl 1991
A Treatise on the Essential Relationship
between Writers and Cats
Saskat
by Joan Eyolfson Cadham
Dogs are nice — obedient,
compliant, receptive to the
slightest crumb of attention,
never inclined to grace your
dinner party by peering down
at your guests from the top of
your heirloom china cabinet.
However, I can’t see how any
serious, self-respecting writer
can consider existing without a
cat.
There’s no fun to be had in
writing unless writer mails out
pieces of her psyche stuffed into
little brown paper envelopes
containing identical brown
paper envelopes in which the
editor can return the sub-
mission, usually without any
logical explanation. To survive
this game, the writer needs to
be conditioned to rejection. A
dog will never reject anyone.
Ignore him, forget to feed him, shut
him up in a closet all day and he will
bound out, slurping, drooling, tail
wagging, at the slightest whisper of a
human voice. Not so my cats. My
cats, having taken food — of their
choice — at a time of their choosing,
served up in dishes of their liking,
w'ill or will not, at their deciding, turn
their backs on us, usually without
any logical explanation. Greattraining
for surviving editors.
Sophie, the sleekest, blackest most
perverse bit of feline personhood ever
born and Saskat, an overwound
bundle of spring — loaded curiosity,
can both cut an unerring pathway
past a litter of discarded first drafts,
around my dictionary and reference
books and past my pile of pencils in
order to save their freshly muddied
little pads for the exact middle of my
ready-for-mailing, paper-clipped,
proofread clean copy. Sophie most
enjoys skittering across a sorted stack
of flats of slides, giving the pile a
teasing flick of her left hind paw in
passing then offering the world a look
of contrived surprise as the entire
heap heads floorward. Saskat’s
specialty is filled file folders. I have
meditated on their intent to teach me
structure and orderliness — although
I usually manage to subvert them by
slinging a protective cloth over work-
in-progress while I go off for the
mail.
Brain dead? Writer’s block? Can’t
face my typewriter for one more
minute? Cats always need some-
thing — fresh food, fresh water, fresh
litter, fresh containers, out if they are
in, in if they are out. Between times,
our little fur factories offer up pounds
of cat hair that requires washing,
wiping, scraping and vacuuming from
every surface, horizontal and vertical,
in our house.
Sometimes I need an opportunity
for some undisturbed meditative
thinking. Sometimes I struggle with
a thought that won’t quite come into
focus. I don’t need Greek worry
beads, crystals, thought stones. I
have cats. Fortunately, both Sophie
and Saskat demand at least six hours
of stroking, scratching and hand
brushing a day — each. If they feel
neglected, they will thrust their
little heads down under a cupped
palm with small regard for what that
palm is doing, including times when
that palm is curved over flying type-
writer keys.
Do I need a rationale for having
done absolutely no work for two
days? I explain I was trying to photo-
graph my cat. Sophie has an endearing
habit. She lets me line up equip-
ment, select optimum lighting and
wait patiently for the perfect pose.
Then, in that infinitesimally tiny
millisecond between my committing
final pressure on the shutter and the
photo actually being taken, she turns
away. This is a favorite game she
will play for any length of time, under
any circumstances, no matter how
preoccupied she might have been
with any other activity or private
thoughts.
Need to work out an idea and
desperate for a second, honest
opinion? A dog would simply woof
agreement to any inanity — as will
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Jack and most of my best friends.
Not so my cats. My cats will meet
me eye to eye, narrow theirs, give my
idea adequate thought, then chase an
errant imaginary flea as a way of
telling me that I am not holding
their full attention. They greet my
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clever phrasings with baleful
stares and one long pointed
yawn. They are guaranteed to
send me back to my first draft
with a sharpened pencil — but
given time, they’ll make a better
writer of me.
Miss a deadline? I explain to
the editor that the cat was using
the typewriter.
Miss a deadline? I simply
explain to my editor that I’ve
spent two days with a magnify-
ing glass and tweezers, plucking
little black hairs out of my
typewriter from the last time my
cat used it.
And when I’m right out of
ideas, I can always take a
long look at the cat sprawled
across the typewriter, entice
her away with a well-laid trail
of fresh catnip, and type A
Treatise on the Essential...
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