There. I said it.
You know it’s true. I know it’s true. And you and me, we could stand to be a little more unreasonable, too.
OK, a lot.
From a purely functional standpoint, this world of ours would stagger on just fine without cats. They are neither the lungs of the earth nor its power company, not food or fuel. An economical artist would smudge them out of the scene entirely, the better to make room for trees and bees and sturdy dungarees.
Fortunately, the economy of art always tends towards inflation and exhilaration.
I tend to believe the Great Painter included cats on the canvas from the very first sketch, inking them in and then watercoloring them all wonder-full with intense intention. They were not an afterthought; they were not a frill; they were not a show-off move, a putting-on-the-Ritz.
They were ridiculous, gratuitous, over-budget, reckless, unreasonable.
And, therefore, entirely necessary.
Cats have always understood this.
A cat like CAT carries no weight on his shoulders, not even a few grams of glitter, not even a sprinkling of Ritz crackers upon the meaty macaroni-and-cheese that is himself. He carries only himself, a rowdy rucksack of pure gift, shameless and selfless and self-possessed all at once.
If you should ask CAT what he accomplished today, what he contributed to the whole, where he made his mark, he would make himself a question mark and make you question your question. CAT awoke this morning, took naps no fewer than twelve, and ate considerable tonnage of tuna-inspired product. CAT licked his lavish hair into something like submission. CAT considered his own paws. CAT considered the solo career of Harry Styles. CAT considered what it means to live with style.
CAT sat here with you. CAT beheld cats and people and the miscellaneous gnomes that only cats can see. CAT felt feelings he felt no need to record in the public record. CAT made no points, earned no interest, concerned himself with nothing other than all the one-anothers and each-others who dithered through his path.
CAT was a sprinkle on the world’s cupcake.
And without CAT, the entire world — much less yours and mine — would be malnourished.
Reasonable scouts that we are, you and I try so hard. We want something to show at the end of our day. We’re scared the moon will catch us with empty hands and sluggy to-do lists, messy desks and insufficient funds. We get scared and chase our tails when we feel feelings without real reasons. We ravish our hours for purpose, when all along we could be considering the beauty of a radish, or the wildness of having feelings at all, or the number of rings on CAT’s tail, or the number of times we’ve been saved from our own tale.
We are essential. We are beloved. But heaven help us if, when the sun sets and the stars try to catch our eyes each night, we forget that we, too, are pure gift.
Maybe it’s easier to soar above the sludge when you have two hundred human manservants and maidservants delivering cheddar shreds and cleaning your toilet for no reason other than love. Maybe evolution and artistry have outfitted feline whiskers with not only the powers of geolocation and invisible-gnome-location, but also great glee in the gratuitousness of existence.
Maybe. But I’m convinced that we can learn from the sooty sketches around us, learn to be unreasonable, learn to season our striving with at least a sprinkle of salty lightness.
You and I did not have to be here, not on this page, not in this era, not in the eminent company of CAT, not at all. We didn’t, but we are, together, a thousand impossibles embroidered on the same canvas.
It’s up to us what we do with this information.
We can keep digging in the daily debris of duty, and I suppose we must. The socks must be rolled; the children must get to the bus; the macaroni and cheese must be made melty and magical; the spreadsheets must be sorted; the cats must be fed, and medicated, and fed, and fed, and shnoogled, and fed.
But woe to us if we slip off the edge of essence into mere economy. Woe to us if we trade all the watercolors for work. Woe to us if we part ways with CAT. (In any fashion whatsoever, including awe at the existence of tails, robust appreciation for Harry Styles, and the grateful gluttony that will always risk big-bellification for the reward of belly-laughing at life.)
Joy to our world if we reach beyond reason and remember that none of this, none of us, had to be here.
We can’t explain ourselves.
We can’t earn our keep.
We can only come into the kingdom of awe, or stay in the humbug hallway. We can be very productive out there. But there’s quite a cost when every hour, friendship, and feeling needs an explanation.
CAT offers, instead, inflation and exhilaration. Maybe even revelation.
There’s no reason to be hungry.
There’s every reason to rejoice in the unreasonable.
May this be the season when we sprinkle ourselves — no, make that roll around in bliss-butter and excessively, exuberantly bread ourselves — with gratuitous wonder.
Just save some cheese for CAT. Hold the macaroni.