Public service announcement, direct from the mouth of CAT: there are two moments in life in which it is utterly imperative to play.
One is when you have no time to play.
The second is when “This is no time to play.”
For CAT, these moments came simultaneously.
Like a calico croissant, she was consumed by responsibilities. The deadline was yesterday; urgency had been oven-roasted into emergency; her entire grade would depend upon this term paper.
The terms were bleak. The task asked everything. The topic had picked her: Defying Death.
She had DISEASE, and DISEASE had her in its unbrushed, mossy green teeth. She should have been raging and rioting, spitting self-pity in all directions. She should have been running and gunning down every idle hope. She should have been working, fighting, righting her wrongs. She should have been angry and afraid, which, when they hold hands, hold time hostage.
It was time to buckle down, not pluck daisies.
It would have been the height of irresponsibility to play.
But cats are wise, not responsible.
I’ve heard it said that a dying cat will eat but not play, and perhaps CAT wished to inform death that she would not be bullied by its baloney. (Public service announcement: CAT would gladly be bullied by bologna, but this is an entirely different and celestial substance.)
And so CAT played.
CAT frayed the end of the sparrow-on-a-string. CAT bingled the jingle balls until they made music. CAT cackled in our laps until we — always the grimmer species — laughed, too.
CAT rejected her responsibilities and showed us the firepower of her abilities.
The jaunty croissant buttered death so heavily, it slipped right off its high horse.
But if CAT had freed time such that she had time, surely it was still no time to play. CAT was sick. CAT had seen the mean and slick side of the sandwich, rejection by people and rebellion by her own embattled body. CAT knew precisely how mildewed and prickly life can be.
It would have been the height of naivete to play.
But cats are brave, not jaded.
In the foul-breathed face of suffering, CAT blew bubbles. In the foamy wake of wrong, CAT jet-skied. Fully aware of the full bucket of tears, CAT submerged herself in silliness.
With her history of terrible times, and no guarantee of much time, CAT wasted time.
Given the same diagnosis and the same pea-soup prognosis, you know what you or I would have done. We would have prostrated ourselves before our fears, curled like crescent rolls into self-pity, and then staggered to our feet to do Something Productive.
Something Productive is tirelessly seductive. When the news is bad and the dark is stark, we may not be able to heal ourselves or summon springtime, but we can mop the kitchen or balance the checkbook or alphabetize our underwear by color.
What we cannot do is lay on the floor and take selfies with a kitten, or read a book about hummingbirds, or yank our aging bodies into friendly trees, or see what happens if you put chocolate kisses inside crescent roll dough.
When wars and earthquakes boil the world, it’s no time to play. When greed kneads the weak like dough, it’s no time to play. When someone has died, even if that someone is the person you wanted to be, it’s no time to play.
It’s time to be as solemn as a mollusk, as grim as gruel, as heavy as wreckage.
Unless we want more than survival.
Unless we want to be real, rebellious healers.
Unless we want to be of service.
CAT wants to save the day, and so she plays.
She plays, as a counter-melody to the dirge that demands too much.
She plays, as a ripe rebuttal to the dried raisin of despair.
She plays, as a scrimmage against the sadness that will lose the big game.
She plays, as a testament against the trauma that only thinks it’s the whole truth.
She plays, because time is free, and so is she as long as there’s breath in her beautiful body.
She knows it’s imperative to play, even when your heart is broken, especially then. It’s in these moments that play becomes prayer. Time tickles eternity. And every embattled biscuit finds that hope is baked in deep.
Nothing saves the day like a survivor who can still play.
Public service announcement: you have time to play. This is precisely the time to play. Do it on the authority of CAT.