Why Do I Love My Cats?

It’s not a state-secret that I like cats. But I LOVE my cats.

I have some dear friends who do not like cats. One doesn’t like animals, period. A second has always had a dog and just doesn’t care for cats. A third loves dogs, but only English bulldogs for some reason, and cats are “aloof to the point of being appalling,” so sayeth he. A fourth professes to like cats a little, but is allergic. 

I don’t have to explain my admiration for domestic felines to avowed cat-fanciers. But I do find myself justifying my admiration of the species to many of my friends. Why do I like cats? They’re beautiful, graceful, smell good, and, what can I say-- are self-cleaning. Most admirable.

Why do I LOVE mine?

Because in addition to all the above, I take care of them.

It was a revelation to discover that at the root of abiding love is the experience of taking care of the beloved. Not what they did for me, but what I did for them.

That explains a lot. We take care of young and very old humans in diapers. We pick up after them and let them scream at us. And then, when they have worn us out, we love them even more.

It isn’t what is most glorious or glamorous; it’s the care they made us extend.

For once, I have some insight into the divine love for creation.

And before I get too sappy and waaaay too lofty here, I’m heading to clean the litter box.

Ethical Questions

There are places where we don’t expect high ethical conduct, and are pleasantly surprised to find it. (Example: Does anyone expect insurance companies to be driven by high moral standards? The astonishment of positive encounters with such suggests we don’t.)

Then there are situations where ethics are a must, because trust is the foundation of these alliances. (Example: with physicians, therapists, or teachers. The astonishment of negative encounters suggests we had assumed the very best ethics from them.)

Having had, personally and through friends and family, some positive and negative experiences lately, I got to thinking about ethics and the gap between what we say and what we do. I say “we,” because while I am not guilty of most of the mentioned below, I can’t and won’t exclude myself from the abundance of failures, often explained as “that's how it’s done,” and “this is the real world, darling.”

But it got me wondering, and questioning. No reasoned answers in this post, just questions. I would love yours: the questions and the answers, if you’re so inclined.

These are all examples of things I have come to realize happen all the time.

*Is it all right to play editors against each other in a bidding war for manuscripts?

* Is it all right to look for a job while you still have a job?

*Is it all right to look for an agent while you have an agent?

*Is it all right to look for a spouse/partner while you have a spouse/partner?

*Is it all right to say publicly you are an in-network provider but say privately you will only treat privately “on the side,” for much more $$?

*Is it all right to take a friend’s confidential confessional life story and publish it without their consent?

*Is it all right to ghost-write and for $$ let the payer put his name on it?

* Is it all right to promote a friend’s product/book while having a less than high opinion of it?

While most are legal, I’m not one to see any as truly ethical.  What do you think?

Why We Write*

*--Otherwise known as the other Big W Question

I’m re-reading a lovely collection of successful writers’ accounts, called WHY WE WRITE. It serves as a nice break between revisions, and for some reason I believe I deserve a break.

 

I enjoy the take of these incredibly talented and phenomenally successful folks on why and how they do what they do. From my humble perch, I recognize the process, and feel closer to some than to others.

It was something Armistead Maupin said about the “why” that struck not only a nerve, but turned the light switch to illuminate, at least for me. I quote:

“I write to explain myself to myself. It’s a way of processing my disasters, sorting out the messiness of life to lend symmetry and meaning to it.”

Life’s journey is understood in stories. In fiction we can organize the twists, and make the hairpin turns be more than pointless moments of extreme anxiety, but part of the whole. Everything fits, all for a reason, and endurance is heroic.

I also love that Maupin used the word symmetry. I’m a sucker for symmetry. I had spent many years working with traditional textiles, and getting comfort from their use of symmetry.

18^th Century embroidery from Karabagh

I have a writing friend who is a master puzzle-maker. Puzzles work this way as well; everything fits, and one thing ties to another. The anxiety of solving a puzzle, persevering while mulling the clues, can be exasperating. But in the end every square is filled, everything in place, and, to use a famous quotation from Robert Browning—

God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.