#gratitudeNow: No. Two Zen

“Pottybot”

It seems I’m on a theme here. Because this post is about the intersection of mindfulness and… cat poop. It’s not the first time I’ve spoken of this, either.

So this would be my, er, “number two” post on the subject.

So this morning I woke up rather grumpy. I’ve just got a few heavy things on my mind.

First, of course, is that our piece-of-shit President has eight days left in office. He’s done a laundry list of terrible, immoral, illegal, unethical things for which he needs to be held accountable.

And yet, a number of GOP folks won’t. And yet, a whole lot of my fellow citizens don’t see it that way.

Which makes me despondent, and grumpy.

Then there’s tomorrow. Tomorrow is not just the day the Democrats will impeach him again. It’s also my fiftieth birthday. I am weirdly conflicted about this. On the one hand, it’s a milestone to have a fiftieth birthday. On the other, it’s just another day. I know what I wanted to do for my fiftieth birthday. I wanted to be spending it in Florida, at a paramotoring school, and lift off into the air to celebrate. The pandemic, and other life circumstances made that just not possible.

It’s okay.

I am going to do that. It’s not an IF, it’s a WHEN.

Okay, so what’s this all got to do with cat poop. So that death-star-looking-thing by my stairs, that’s my cats’ robotic litter box (seriously), “Pottybot.” (That’s the box’s name, technically speaking it’s a Litter-Robot 3 Connect.).

Well, I’m downstairs, feeding the cats and the fish and myself breakfast. I get the fish fed, get the cats fed, and then good ol’ Pottybot messages me (because, as I said, it’s a robot) that its drawer is full.

Joy.

I immediately stop the process of putting together a bowl of cereal, blueberries, and milk for myself, and go empty the drawer. Which really, is no big deal. It’s an incredibly fast process that is made as pleasant as possible for you by the machine. You open the drawer, draw up the sides of the plastic bag liner, twist the bag shut, knot it. Then you shake open a new liner, pull the edges of it over the four retaining hooks in the drawer to keep it open and taut, and replace the drawer.

It’s like a 4 minute thing, end-to-end. But here’s the thing: when it’s time to do it, it is 100%, no fucking around, time to do it. Leaving the drawer in a full state is what Colonel Joe Bishop in the Expeditionary Force books would call a November Golf, a no-go. The potential cat-poop-calamity that would likely ensue for not doing it is… horrible.

I was glad to do it. Not at first, yeah. But really once I had embraced the necessity of doing it, I was just fine, happy even.

That was when I found my zen. The taoist concept I’m tip-toeing around here, albeit with a gross example, is called wu-wei, the “action of inaction.” It’s the principle of doing only that which you must.

Which really has two sides to it.

First, there’s the not-doing-needless-things-part. Like, my being grumpy about Trump isn’t going to make tomorrow’s impeachment get here any faster. It isn’t going to change that some people are just not good people. It isn’t going to magically rewrite time to make me be in Florida right now, kiting a Paramotor.

But second, there’s the do what you must part. All that expectation-holding-nonsense gets in the way of meeting necessity. When Pottybot told me what I needed to do, it felt really, really good to be able to see that it was vital, and just go take care of it.

After I got Pottybot all taken care of, I washed my hands and made myself that breakfast, and sat mulling all this over. I realized I needed to write this post. And then, while I was doing so, Yang got in the box, and did what cats do in their litterboxes. And then Pottybot took care of it, without a problem. All three of us, just doing what’s necessary.

#gratitudeNow: Lapcat

Today, I'm doing some writing and hanging out with Missy in the living room.

Yang is with me

My boycat Yang is sitting on my lap, insinuating himself between me and the laptop.  It's adorable.  It's a pain in the ass.  It's both!  

Cats are such funny, entitled, loving agents of chaos.  At first I wanted to push him off my lap, and really get to work.  But he's got me realizing it's important to go slow, and pay attention to love.

It makes me think of Andrea.  She was a cat person too.  Her babies, Abbycat and Daddycat, look, weirdly like my Yin and Yang.  She has expressed to me many times how they're lovely pains-in-the-neck, too.

I COULD be writing in my office, at my desk. without company (cat or spouse).  But it's better this way.

I know Andrea would approve.

#gratitudeNow: On Cats and Submissives

This is my boycat, Yang.  I've had him and his sister, Yin almost 13 years now.  They've been with me their whole lives.

There's this routine they do with me, every single morning.  Part of that routine has to do with when I get out of the shower, and I'm getting dressed.  I lay my clothes out on the bed, sit down and begin to dress.  

Yin sits nearby and begins to meow at me, urgently, so I don't forget that this time is also, crucially, mere moments before the high pinnacle of the day, the moment at which I give them wet cat food for breakfast.

Yang plays a part in this ritual too.  He sits next to me, and butts his head against me, rubbing it into my arm, my back, my side, my leg, any part of me he can get at, in an earnest effort to let me know, just in case I didn't know, how very much he loves me, how great he thinks I am, how he wishes me joy and sucess and good fortune all day, and... to not forget to give him and his sister their breakfast.

I turned to him this morning, and petted him, and reassured him, "Oh buddy," I said, "I know, I already know."

Yang looked at me earnestly and kept on head butting me.

This is when I was struck with a powerful epiphany.  There is a giant venn overlap between my cats, and my own submissive tendencies.

My cats are beautiful, graceful, powerful creatures.  They can run fast, leap high, (granted, not as fast nor as high as they used to), are alert, clever, wholly magnificent creatures. At the same time, they are neurotic, insecure, peculiar, and very funny.  No matter how many times (thousands) we have repeated this morning ritual, they are never blasé about it.  Each morning they're this heady mixture of anxious, nervous, fearful and excited for their breakfast.  They go from graceful to goofball.

I am just like this about the things that Missy and Alissa do with and to me.  

Every time Missy is going to spank me, or I think I might need a spanking, I become this hesitant, excited version of myself.  

Every time I want Alissa to change my diaper, I rub against her like one of my cats, get all clingy and up in her business.

At the prospect of physical intimacy it's like this switch flips in my head, and all the other things I am recede, fade.  My lifelong obsession with writing? Off.  My daily practice of mindful contemplation?  Nowhere.  

I broadcast to my partners, loudly, about these pending and very necessary things.  The familiar dance we are potentially about to do again becomes EVERYTHING.  In that moment, what I am with them, to them, it's all that I am.

Powerful.

It gives me maybe just a little more patience with the cats, and with myself.