During my mid-30s, I shared seven years of my life taking care of, and all-around adoring, a jet black cat called Emily Dickinson. My smart, funny, and ravishing fur companion showed me how to navigate the divide between mind and heart, past and present with a little more awareness. Like an unlicensed therapist who never said a word, her treatment was miraculous. Emily helped me reconcile the knots of thoughts and feelings that arise when awakening to one’s reflection through the eyes of another being.

Outside of the litter box, I believe we often get it wrong about God, reality, and the purpose of life. Within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, God is commonly proclaimed to have created the heavens and the earth, all of the universe as we know it (including everything that still remains unknown) within six days—culminating in the creation of Adam, mankind’s first seed bearer. And on the seventh day, the Creator rested, content with all that is.

Granted, even infinity deserves an occasional snack and nap. However, what if God actually reserved His/Her/Their/Its final day in the conception of the cosmos for a different creation, one requiring equal parts wisdom, beauty, and humor? Perhaps God transcended all the preceding trials and tribulations with the perfect refinement of them all: cats. If man-kind was created from dust, perhaps cat-kind was created from the very aether.

Hear me out…

Humans like to toss around playful questions to familiars and strangers alike that help us gauge each other’s identities, like, Which band do you prefer, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones? Or, Are you more of a dog or a cat person? Before we rouse a family feud that could echo throughout the ages, there’s no need to choose sides. However, for the sake of curiosity, and maybe a little awareness, let’s scratch this ball of yarn and see how it unravels.

Dogs, with their impassioned selflessness, are endearing in how willingly they shower their caregiver humans with slobber and good will. Who doesn’t want to be fawned upon and believed in exactly as they already are with seemingly limitless devotion?

The domesticated canine express an idealized side of our nature, one that we prefer to receive from other people while often struggling to reciprocate. And yet do dogs—and we, humans—ever give our love truly unconditionally? Would that be possible, practical, and healthy? Is people pleasing not an inversion of self pleasing, a different expression of an imbalanced ego?

By another loop of yarn, cats remind us of what we are commonly here-and-now already, the warts and wounds, hairballs and clawful mood swings of our shared humanity. One moment our feline companions are purring on our lap in perfect contentment, the next moment they are sheltering beneath our bed like it’s a London bombing raid during World War II. Cats deliver us creatures they catch; they also deliver us long nights as they scrimmage in our bedroom while we’re trying to sleep. At times they act in ways that seem inconvenient, contradictory, even tooth-and-nail dangerous to our limbs and belongings. How could they possibly behave this way towards the very people who ply them with endless affection. What nerve!

Our challenge then is to invite cats into our home and heart like they are a living mystery which we can never tame: a Sphinx which remains opaque to all of our questioning. No amount of spiritual idealism or self-deception can void the terms of this arrangement. If we can embrace a relationship with grace that is uncertain in its physics, we can, by extension, deepen our appreciation of ourselves, our beloved pets, and our perplexing humanity.

And yet, as independent as cats may be, they still require our help; or at least deserve our consideration. 

During the seven years I took care of Emily, I found myself endeared to one particular task: cleaning the litter box. I grew to view the process like raking a Zen garden: removing the daily debris—observing the Rorschach deposits of organ secretions—and smoothing down the sands of time—returning one’s being to a state of greater spaciousness—was something I did with mindful vigilance. Whatever trans-species differences cloud the bond between humans and pets is instantly punctuated by the sober reminder of what we share in common. Our best efforts will never last. But neither they nor we need to last forever to be meaningful.  

Although I no longer have the pleasure of serving as witness to my dearest Emily, she continues to climb the trees of my mind and jangle my heartstrings, her emerald eyes reminding me of All-Things-Good-And-Present. In honor of my lessons learned, I created a home video documenting the spiritual rapture in the midst of my devout love affair.

God bless you, Emily Dickinson!