The bad news: you’re entitled to very few titles.
The good news: you’re a character.
The best news: you’re in the company of cats.
You may be reading this on your 99th birthday. You may be reading this on the kindergarten bus. Either way, you have already held titles, lost titles, and stumbled your way through the library in search of something you can keep.
We can’t get him to sign up for a library card, but CAT still knows where his bookmark belongs. His favorite novel is always close at hand, and he would like to read it to you. You don’t even need to wait ’til the next session of Paws to Read.
You do, however, need to get comfortable with paying late fees. Fees, as in conscious forgettings. Late, as in your late, great characters.
CAT knows a thing or two about characters, and I don’t mean just CAT2 (who looks at his reflection in the SuiteSUITE window and sees the Great Gatsby) or CAT4 (Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, which he would rewrite as Omelet, Prince of Breakfast) or CAT3 (Elizabeth Bennett, with ten times the pride and the prejudice…against CAT2).
CAT knows about the characters we each carry for a time, and the characters we’re called to put down like one-semester textbooks.
Despite all evidence, CAT once held the titles of Kitten, Irresistible Puffball, and Pure Innocent. CAT was Young. CAT was New.
But time came, and time took out that entire series, and Young and New were shipped out on inter-library loan to some newborn kitten just learning his alphabet (by which I mean the difference between fish mush, beef mush, and undefined poultrish mush).
CAT was Kitten no more.
But CAT had read enough books on the back of the kittengarden bus to encounter Jungian psychology (cats are considerably more precocious than human kittens). CAT knew that cats and humans and senators slip in and out of different archetypes across a lifetime. And so CAT was not afraid.
CAT read on.
CAT knew he would soon be entitled to a new title. And sure enough, the Great Author knighted the grand reader with the title of Child.
CAT was owned. CAT was chosen. CAT was ensconced in hearth and home. CAT was Ma Joad proclaiming the importance of “fambly.”
CAT was about to taste the grapes of wrath.
For reasons we dare not dissect — judgmentalists joust where mercy-makers fear to tread, and we can’t read every page of anyone else’s story — CAT’s fambly slipped him back through the book drop. CAT was unchosen. CAT was famished and unfamilied. CAT was Child no more.
CAT was not afraid.
CAT read on.
If CAT’s life were a manuscript, it was written in longhand, the cursive careening across looseleaf pages. There is no auto-save for such a story, no backup to the cloud, only mystery and mercy and changing skies. And so, from time to time, a bus would drive by too fast, and all the pages would blow in all directions.
Some would land in someone’s lap, and CAT would claim a new title: Rescu-ee. Resident. Rosenberg. That’s the chapter that wrote CAT into our lives, in magenta gel pen, with exclamation points dotted with hearts.
(Let the reader understand that every Tabby’s Place resident formally bears the last name “Rosenberg,” technically for veterinary billing and other reference-booky-bland purposes, but really — the Great Author is nothing if not a comedy writer — because it’s kind of hilarious and kind of reminds us that “the Tabby’s Place family” is really and truly a thing.)
But some other pages would blow into the river, and we all know what water does to looseleaf. The ballpoint would bleed, and titles would turn: Healthy Cat would give way to DIAGNOSIS. Easily Adoptable Individual would yield to Special Needs Standout. Hercules would have to be strong enough to become Dandelion.
CAT was not afraid.
CAT read on.
This is the point in any novel where most of us hurl the book against the wall. If Aslan’s death or the Red Wedding got you angry, just think of all the times when life has killed off one of your own characters.
You were Unblemished; then you were not.
You were Star Employee; then you were not.
You were Husband; then you were not.
You were Healthy; then you were not.
You were Eye-Catching; then you were not.
You were Applauded By Many; then you were not.
You were Wise In Your Own Eyes; then you were not.
You were Upper Middle Class; then you were not.
You were Productive, Powerful, Proud; then you were not.
You lost and you lost and you lost your titles, and the tighter you clung to them, the more you felt like you were back on the kindergarten bus, small and scared and not even sure how to write your name in cursive.
Build your life on erasable titles, and you’ll be scared for all of your days.
But read the book of Cat, and you’ll remember that you get to keep your character.
With hands equipped to grip, we lack the peaceful paws of CAT, who can’t and won’t hang onto his headings too tightly.
CAT knows what all epic characters know: as long as there are pages left in your book, you’ll be entitled to titles that will take you where you need to go. You will keep losing titles, keep gaining character, and — if you’re lucky, or feline, or (God bless you) both — keep living from the lives you can’t lose.
Cats have at least nine, and maybe we do, too.
Whether we are returned or remarried, ravaged with disease or relegated to the bargain bin, orphaned or ordained, instructed by the Dalai Lama or inducted into the Mullet Hall of Fame, we get to keep our core:
Beloved.
We know this to be every cat’s identity. That’s the plot of Tabby’s Place, our heart and our charter: a cat was made to be loved; a cat is made out of love; a cat cannot lose our love.
Cannot. Lose. Our. Love.
And you and I? We cannot lose our belovedness, either.
That’s the title. That’s the truth. That’s the center from which we have to live, if we’re going to live catlike and free upon this earth.
And if we’re brave enough, we get to choose at least eight other lives that will outlast the eraseables. Might I suggest:
Healer. (This one is generally inaccessible until you’ve lost Unblemished.)
Humbled. (This is considerably better reading than Wise In Your Own Eyes, although the chapter in between is savage stuff.)
Light-Bearer. (This has nothing to do with Eye-Catching. Just ask CAT, a Swarovski angel dressed up as an “ordinary” tabby.)
Lover of Life. (This is essentially a requirement for living in a world that contains sea lions and meteors, Lin-Manuel Miranda and towns named “Conshohocken” and “Manunka Chunk.”
Kittens, someone sat down and named a town “Manunka Chunk.” Even CAT5 unfrowns at that.)
Bruce Springsteen Devotee. (This is, after all, my list.)
Reader. (In every sense of the word.)
Writer. (Pen not required.)
Mercy-Walking-On-The-Earth. (This one is accessible to absolutely every living creature. But especially cats)
The bad news: you are going to lose titles that you thought you needed to remain “you.”
The good news: your bookmark will always find its place, so long as you keep company with characters like CAT.
The best news: you, and CAT, and I all have so many characters yet to love in this life. Grab your bookbag and meet me on the bus.