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.