Authors and their Cats

My first cat was a black and white stray named April who joined our family on Virginia Street.  I got her in the third grade for getting straight As.  My mom, little brother and sister had picked me up and were excitedly exclaiming to, “look in the back!”

I looked in the back of our blue station wagon and tucked into the right pocket was a tiny, black and white kitten named April procured from an animal shelter.

April grew up with me.  I had her for 16 years and when I was angry, or disappointed, happy or enchanted, there she would be sleeping or standing or meowing right along with me. 

I was 24 when my little sister, the same sister who was there in that blue station wagon excitedly telling me to look in the back, called me in Indianapolis telling me that I needed to come home.  I was about forty-five minutes away.

April had not been doing well for the past few days.  And when I got there, I knew she had been waiting for me before dying.  My sister and I played Enya’s, “Only Time,” as we gently wrapped her in a blanket and comforted her as she passed.

I did not get another cat until years later—when I was given an orange tabby named Uncle Lour.  By then, I was living in Hyde Park, a neighborhood in Chicago, and I was a full grown writer.  I had published opeds and articles by then, had written my novella and was starting on my Arab American novel.  I still turned to my cat with my joys and disappointments, but now, as a writer, I looked to my cat for emotional support and spiritual connection as I came in and out of the lives of my characters. 

As a writer (and a person) who thinks a great deal and feels a great deal, it helps to have the magical connection a cat offers.  It is an emotional connection that runs deep, much deeper than the connection I have with most people I know.

I get angry at the stereotypes of a woman and her cat.  Sexist comments related to being ugly, reclusive and unmarried.  I chose to not marry for a long time, why, will be a story for another reason.  But that did not mean I did not have great love in my life.

Then there is the references to cats and women and witchcraft… going past sexism into outright torture and murder.  Even now, I hesitate writing about my spiritual connection to my cats—I think of the burning bodies of the powerful women before me who died for being strong, intelligent and misunderstood but also died because of the weakness, hypocrisy and outright hatred of women.

But it seems like when the relationship changes to authors and their cats, authors who range in gender-- public perception changes from sexist views to curiosity.  Why are cats important to some authors?

Which Authors Cherished Their Felines?

The curiosity about authors and their cats even prompted a book about them—one is titled Writers and Their Cats by Alison Nastasi.  

Haruki Murakami is one such author.  Author of the Norwegian Wood, named his jazz club, Peter Cat, after one of his cats.  Cats are featured in his stories.

Alice Walker, author of The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart, cherished her cat, Frida, named after the artist, Frida Kahlo.

Elizabeth Bishop—Born in 1911 in Worcester, MA, Elizabeth Bishop would go on to become a renowned poet and short story writer.  Larry Rohter in the New York Times has referred to her as, “one of the most important American poets” of the 20^th century.  She loved her cats and also went on to use cats as subject material.  One example is her book, Cat Poems.

Why I Treasure My New Cat, Toyen

Toyen, Sitting in Our Window Sill, Chicago April 2022

    

 Why I Treasure My New Cat, Toyen

Toyen and I met during the COVID pandemic.  I was very lonely in my apartment.  I was living in Chicago, doing work via zoom, and all of my family were out of state, my friends and I agreed to not visit and we were not supposed to travel. 

I have never been a stereotypical author—reclusive, introverted, anti-social.  In fact, I am the opposite enjoying throwing dinner parties, attending Halloween parties, dancing and meeting lots and lots of people through my writing, traveling and interviews.

          During the pandemic, I celebrated my birthday alone, Thanksgiving alone, Christmas alone. 

          And then I would see a sunset-colored cat who would approach me when I saw him.  He was so loving and the connection we had!  It was as if we already knew each other.  On my daily walks around the neighborhood, I would look around, hoping to see him, and often when I got home, there he would be coming out from the bushes that surround the front of the house.

            We were not allowed to have pets but my landlord was kind—and said it was okay.  He knew that I was having a difficult time with the isolation, and he could see the joy my new cat gave me.

            Toyen is now three.  I named him after a gender-neutral Czech artist I greatly admire.  While technically I rescued him (along with my landlord) it is he, in fact, who rescued me. 

            While I am an extrovert, I do need time to write that is devoid of people.  I need that time to clear space and connect to some other dimension—a topic I can explain in some further post.  No, I am not a witch.  In fact, I am Catholic, but I do believe in a spiritual world and I, myself, have experienced writing stories that wrote themselves. 

            My cat, Toyen, is with me when I write.  His energy does not interfere with the other kinds.  So he sits next to me on my glass writing table or sleeps on the brown couch behind me.  I see him as my touchstone.  When writing gets overwhelming, I stop and get up and kiss him on his forehead or just watch him sleeping.

            What writers do may seem easy—sit there by a glass table and type away.  But writing is emotionally exhausting.  I travel when I write, I travel to 20^th century France, to the rainforests of Costa Rica.  I channel a child who has been betrayed or a wife who cannot escape her oppressive marriage.  Or channel a man who cannot get past the suicide of his mother.

I feel all of it and I write all of it.  Toyen is right there with me.