Helen, my newly adopted cat, doesn't sleep on me anymore.
She doesn't sit on my notepad when I'm trying to write. She quits playing after twenty-eight seconds instead of fifty-four; her toys are in the same place in the morning. When I bend down to stroke her, she dips her head and lowers her back to escape my hand. She still sleeps on my bed, arriving at about the same time, sometimes with a yowl, sometimes not, but with no physical contact.
I know Helen is just a cat. I know human beings tend to personify pets and to project the potential for the fulfillment of their unmet needs onto their pets. I know that it's dangerous to read too much into a pet's behavior or to take it personally.
And yet.
I find myself deeply pained by what I perceive as her choice to exclude me.
I think I can explain part of her behavior. She's seen the neighborhood cats out the window. She saw the white cat first. She put her forepaws on the windowsill and moaned with such longing that the sound seemed torn from her throat. The white cat is a misery of clotted fur and dribbling feces, a ghost moving through the gardenias and ferns, disappearing instantaneously when spooked by a door opening, a heel on the sidewalk, a dog barking.
The other cat is black, with white mittens and green eyes, friendly to humans, but it cuffs the white cat. The mittened one is definitely this neighborhood's alpha cat.
I saw her approach my window yesterday morning and watched Helen dart to the window, bobbing her head anxiously, looking for a crack or opening to reach the cat. The cat hissed, then attacked, throwing itself against the windowpane. Helen responded instantly, but soundlessly, the two cats head-to-head, paws-to-paws as if in a mirror, separated by the glass.
I ached for Helen. When I was deciding on a cat while visiting the Humane Society, I noticed that when the handler replaced Helen in her lower cage, Helen reached to touch noses with the cat in the upper level.
So Helen's focus is now outside. She stays near the windows, hoping for a glimpse of the ghost cat, even the mittened one. She, like many humans, seems to have decided that abusive contact is better than none at all.
I miss Helen. When I was upstairs, she was upstairs. When I was downstairs, she was downstairs. Now she stays where she last slept—near a window.
Crazy as it sounds, this "relationship" with Helen reminds me of so many others in my life, particularly with my former husband and then with the man I dated after my divorce. Both of those relationships started with closeness, intimacy, sharing, both personal and physical. Slowly, slowly, however, the man began to move away from me, distancing himself. I felt like a starving child, hands to the windows, looking in on Dickensian feast. Why was I outside and not in? What had I done? What could I do? I could have uttered Helen's bereaved cry.
I spent years with one man, then another, trying to love, shame, persuade, seduce, and control, anything to "make" them come back to me after they “left.” But they wouldn't.
So I am free of men who both love me and stay-and-leave at the same time. But here sits Helen on the ottoman, three feet from me, in classic cat form, forepaws and back feet under her, tail curled close to her body, a nice little "cat package," the picture of domesticity. She stares intently, relentlessly out the window.
With sadness and humility, I must admit that I have tried all the methods I used on men on Helen. About twenty toys are strewn about my small living room, some handmade using my best creativity and innovation. I've played, I've not played, I've stroked, I've not stroked, I've invited, I've left her alone. As is usual in my relationships, I've tried really, really hard. And gotten the exact same results.
I e-mailed some of my concerns to my mediation teacher, who has two cats. Her reply: "Try less."
Yes, but with what do I replace trying?
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