a conversation with my cat
marnie pulls me out of bed at 5am. for the past ~100 mornings, i feed her, i play with her, i read her the poems i wrote, and we talk about what to do…or not to do.
When this cat joined the household this past winter, every morning she would pounce on the bed and meow relentlessly at us in the dark, early hour of 5am. We tried to ignore her, to hide under the sheets and sneak in another hour or two of sleep, but she was restless. Which made me restless. Or maybe it was the other way around.
By late spring I surrendered to her demands. I followed her downstairs into the dawn. Somewhere in those sunrises, something shifted. It wasn’t losing a fight. It wasn’t giving up. It was a willingness to be carried, giving in.
I left the door open. Whose cat is this?
I don’t know this presence. I welcomed it with care.
But I left the door open. It’ll return, right?
As if a spirit wandered into my home to remind me how to feed my soul again. I’m recovering a source of faith.
It’s been ~100 mornings now, and I’ve been praying more and understanding less. I’m writing through contradictions. The dialectic. Control. Surrender. The truth inside the tension. Not to arrive at answers, but to rest with the questions.
This is a conversation with Marnie about some of the poems I’ve written.
Alec: The Buddhist belief, life is suffering, is often taken out of context. It leaves out the belief that follows it. The cause of suffering is craving: to control outcomes, to cling to pleasure, to avoid pain.
For my race up Mt. Washington last year, I wrote this poem and taped it to my handlebars. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was an unconscious reminder to feel the pain, and separate it from the suffering.
Now
Not
Next
Present
Not
Past
It’s like an anti-motivation-meditation that asks: If I’m always living for what’s next, or what came before, when do I actually live?
Marnie: *meow* Alec, if you don’t know where you’re going or where you’ve been, aren’t you just… lost?
Alec: Well, if life is a journey between two points, a line that starts and ends, it looks like it knows where it’s going.
______
But, I can keep moving the points, and stretch the line further in any direction.
_______________________
It wanders on and on, always somewhere else, never here. Isn’t that also lost?
Marnie: Lines are always the same — that’s me pacing when the bathroom door’s shut. Back and forth. Back and forth. Nowhere to go. I just want to know what you’re doing!
Alec: But what if you don’t need to know? As painful as it is, uncertainty keeps us open to other possibilities we’ve never considered. Accepting we might never know keeps us curious.
Marnie: *whiny meow* Too many words. Say it simpler.
Alec: What could Jenna be doing while I’m in the bathroom? *pet*
Marnie: *purr* What is she doing?
Alec: When we’re truly present, we lose our obsessive attachment to having answers, goals, plans, possessions—
Marnie: —like when I drop my toy under the couch, you find it for me.
Alec: Sure. Being lost makes space to find. It allows me to look where I normally wouldn’t. I ask different questions.
Like…what if life isn’t about movement at all, but stillness? Nowhere to leave and nowhere to arrive. Neither content or complacent. Each present moment as complete as the other…like a collection of dots.
. . . . . . .
Marnie: Dots are better. Little, whole, satisfying. They look like treats…are they treats?
Alec: Actually, they’re a lot like treats. But it’s tricky.
Because being present is not easy. It can’t take effort. To be in the moment, it takes ease. I wrote this to try and capture the tension:
Stay still
It will grasp at goals
It will swindle and shame
It will plead with plans
It will cry to be certain
It will reveal its roots
Wait
It will follow the feelings
Marnie: Stay still? *yawn* Impossible.
Alec: I know…my gut says to be here, and my mind wants to go there. It doesn’t trust it, because it doesn’t think. How can it know?
Marnie: Instinct is easy. See bug, stalk bug, pounce. Done.
Alec: I think it might be more complex…like what if I wasn’t meant to have what I thought I needed? That I could be at peace with its absence?
It’s scary to let go of it, scarier to learn that I didn’t need it, and scariest to live without ever knowing what I’ve always had in me, it.
Marnie: *big stretch* What’s so scary? If the bug’s gone, you can just nap.
Alec: But the world underestimates the value of doing nothing!
Society is so bothered by doing less that we intellectualize feelings: we think about being bored, talk about why we are bored, share how to be bored and not to be bored, but we never actually feel bored. We hear about other’s thoughts on boredom, but we don’t listen to our boredom. This overemphasized importance on thinking makes us boring, and our lives become the same boring line that everyone else—
Marnie: —you’re being boring. *half-meow* Just read the words so I can sleep.
Alec: Say less:
How can you sleep?
They traded love for sense!
They reasoned with art!
They wrote that faith must be seen!
They told us to be individuals and to perform with purpose.
But our identity is senseless and who am I without you?
Marnie: “How can you sleep?” *sharp meow* Simple. I curl up, I nap, and my bowl’s full when I wake up.
Alec: Maybe that’s the secret. You trust love to fill the bowl. I feel we often look for proof that we deserve love, and that we need approval to love. As if we believe all things are conditional, including love.
Marnie: *paw swipe in the air* What’s stopping you? An applause? Good job.
Alec: That’s the danger of validation, isn’t it? When we seek acceptance for our success, we forget how to accept failure. We’re quick to blame what’s wrong, disguise ourselves as right, and rob ourselves the courage to be in peace with the pain:
Memories, details
We forget, we write over
Our hearts protected
Remember when you bolted under the bed when our friend visited with their dog?
Marnie: *sniff* I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Alec: You came out after they left, tail puffed, strutting like nothing happened.
Marnie: The dog feared me. I am a lion. *hiss*
Alec: That’s what I mean by disguise! Forgetting is convenient. Our mind covers it with an inspiring story, one deserving of approval, but our soul remembers the truth underneath. When we deny the depth of our grief, our love is equally shallow.
Marnie: Maybe that’s your story. I prefer what I remember. *tail flick*
Alec: I know you’re strong, but it’s okay if you’re not. I love you either way. I’m reminding myself the same: not to forget, not to rewrite, but to forgive. A love that is deep needs no good reason:
I love you.
You found me.
Thank you for holding me.
I forgive you for shaping me.
Please forgive me for willing us.
We were never, but will be.
I’m sorry.
Marnie: *quiet meow* I already forgave you for the leash thing.
Alec: That’s not quite what I meant.
Marnie: And for not giving me treats yesterday. Forgiven.
Alec: I was busy—
Marnie: *repeated meows* —and for waking up late this morning. And for cutting my claws. And for stepping on my tail that one time. And for leaving me alone with your parent’s cats for over a week. An eternity.
Alec: Okay, so you already know all this.
Marnie: Forgiven. Not forgotten.
Alec: Anything else?
Marnie: I feel like you’re overcomplicating all of this. *tail flick*
Alec: *sigh* But what do you think?
Marnie: Wrong question.
- Pips
beautiful conversation