There is a kind of stretch that is the opposite of “stretching ourselves.”
Cats can extend their regal limbs beyond all limits of physics. But, try as they may, they cannot overextend themselves.
Fortunately, they would never try such a thing.
And if we give them two minutes, they just might jump our jumblies back into joint.
When I was little, I was helplessly drawn to drawings and sculptures and figurines of people with their arms outstretched over their heads, the higher, the better.
Their entire bodies were a V for Victory, flesh and bone turned into affirmation, exultation, adoration of the sky and the sun and and the bare fact of having breath. I collected them — resin angels and greeting cards, framed sketches and sassy pig figurines, photographs and humanoid twigs — and surrounded myself with stretching rejoicers.
And emulated them.
Long before I ever heard of “sun salutations,” I flung my tiny body into the pose every chance I got (appropriate and otherwise), determined to add my V to the flock of festive folks everywhere.
But somewhere along the line, I stopped stretching. I started hunching. I got a little more “appropriate” and a little less “otherwise.”
Maybe that’s why I ended up at the cat sanctuary.
To be a cat is to stretch. They don’t think about it, or if they do, their thoughts are distilled to “ahhhh” and “yessssss” and “I live! Let the earth rejoice.” They look resplendent or ridiculous; they excel at asanas or absurdity; they bare bulbous bellies or tickly ribs; it doesn’t matter.
What matters is that they’re made of matter, and unlike us, they have never forgotten. A cat is an unrepentant body, guileless and guiltproof as they taste and feel and unfurl their flesh and fur. CAT can’t forget the bliss of bodyhood, because CAT is a creature in full, spirit and speckles and joy and jiggle in equal measure. CAT can’t forget to unfold, full-sized, because CAT knows himself to be a road atlas to rejoicing, a map of the wonderful world, a son of the sky and the stars who is duty-bound to at least attempt to embrace them all.
This is all evident from just five minutes of viewing CAT’s contortions in the solarium.
CAT can’t forget. But we can.
Sometime between little-girlhood and medium-girlhood, I forgot. There was work to be done, and proper postures to be assumed; there were desk chairs to be inhabited, and reckless festivities to be inhibited. The V folded into an I: I must produce, I must prove, I must persevere, I must power through the aches and achings and shy sunbeams that will politely ask, but never demand, that I come out to play.
I stretched myself, but it made me smaller.
I avoided breaks, and something inside broke.
I wasn’t alone; this is the peril of people, earnest achievers that we are. CAT come-hithers us to cuddle, but we have acknowledgment letter to sign. CAT summons us to the solarium, but the Lobby isn’t about to mop itself. CAT literally yells — “YOU! Dunderhead! This is not a drill!” — but we have so drilled it into our disembodied heads that we need to keep going, that we go in exactly the wrong direction.
Next thing we know, we think it’s all up to us, and our backs are stale pretzels, and we have forgotten how to find magical twigs, or to heal ourselves, or to need each other.
It is a lonely, prideful, doomed-to-need-Advil existence, this stretch-shunning hustle.
Stop flocking with the festive folks, and it’s all about you.
Stop talking to your body, and the ping-pong balls in your brain will get frantic.
Stop stretching your arms over your head, and the sky itself will fall on your head.
But if you start hanging out with cats, there may be hope yet.
Keep company with cats, and you may remember that your sinews and tendons need tending. You may remember that you are equipped with many senses, most of them superior to the sense of duty that keeps you gnarled and grind-bound. You may remember how it felt to be a littler creature with a larger wingspan.
You may even take a break.
A cat is a living, breathing break.
A cat, fully flesh and spirit, fully friend, fully on our side, stands ready to break our concentration, and our train of thought, and the chains that keep our arms neatly folded at our sides (or, more likely, flying furiously across our screens).
CAT confided this in me through the sheer power of his stretch.
On the solarium floor, full of himself and full of sun and full of the Massive Mercy that loves body and soul exactly the same, CAT called me.
Little-girl me. Medium-girl me. And the considerably older and larger me that was entirely too small.
Watching him, joining him, joining the throngs of festive stretchers who had always been calling my name, something inside me broke open and unbroke.
I lay on the solarium floor, even though questionable odors and vapors and substances were sure to cling to my blouse.
I unfurled my arms, even though volunteers were everywhere, and the appropriateness of a dervishing Development Director is questionable at best.
I stretched, and I stretched, and all the self-importance and self-deprecation and sterile spinning stopped.
And, while we were at it, my body felt considerably better.
CAT gave me a look that let on: this was not his first master class. He’d been stretching stuck humans from anxious almonds into lithe linguini every day. His class was quite colossal, but his office hours were as open as outstretched arms.
But there was one last thing before he’d let me leave.
I had to bring him a 55-gallon drum of melted provolone. Well, ideally. But in lieu of that, this: I had to stretch at least two minutes a day. Or walk. Or just lay in the warming grass and let the earth itself bear me up.
Two minutes. Every day.
It would change my life, he told me.
It would remind me that I’m not bearing the entire world.
It would remind me that I am body and soul, small but sufficient, every age and every exultation still at my fingertips.
It would remind me that we need to tend to the garden, bend before we break, extend our arms before we overextend, depend on each other enough that everyone has time to play.
There is always time to play. Come to think of it, it may be the highest form of prayer.
So if you’re looking for me, I’ll…well, I’ll probably still be hunkered down at my desk. But for at least two minutes a day, you won’t find me, unless you, too, are vaulting V’s for victory at the sun.