Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist’s Way, stresses the importance of both writing and playing. At the WLT Summer Writing Retreat, Karleen Koen reminded students of Cameron’s Artist’s Date—a weekly solo “adventure” to feed the soul and allow for continued creativity.
Since leaving the retreat, I’ve been thinking about possibilities for my Artist’s Dates. A visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a candidate, though it’ll probably wait until spring. Central Texas affords plenty of potential for adventure.
But having just returned from a week-long Artist’s Date, I decided to concentrate first on writing.
I designated yesterday, my first day out of post-retreat depression, a day for writing.
Here’s how it went:
I rose at a reasonable hour and prepared to leave for my coffee-shop office.
William with books and printer
Downstairs, doling out catfood, I realized that in the half-hour I’d been up, I’d seen no cats. This had never happened. William often sleeps late, but Ernest is up with the chickens and frequently makes sure I am, too.
I called, ran upstairs, searched, called. William, draped across his pagoda, opened his eyes and blinked but offered no opinion as to Ernest’s whereabouts.
I ran downstairs, called, searched, dropped to my knees and peered under furniture. I ran back upstairs, etc.
Finally dropping at the right place, I found Ernest under the bed. He was sitting in that compact way cats have, with all his feet neatly tucked in. His look wasn’t warm and welcoming. When I tried to drag him out, he wriggled loose and ran into the hall and thence into the guest room and under that bed.
At that point, I remembered a get-well card I sent my great-aunt Bettie: On the front was a drawing of an orange-striped cat, looking bored, and saying, “Feeling poorly? Do as I do.” Inside, it said, “Crawl under the porch.”
We had no porch, so Ernest crawled under the next best thing.
I put batteries in the flashlight and girded my loins. Negotiating the guest room is not a task for the faint of heart. There’s stuff in there.
Back on my hands and knees, aka standing on my head, I again located Ernest. He was lying, neatly tucked, in the corner near the wall. Stretching out on the carpet, I reached under and scratched his ears. He didn’t protest. His big green eyes, however, told me I’d better not make any sudden moves.
I didn’t.
Then I did.
Ernest is heavy and muscular. His twenty toes are tipped with talons. He has teeth.
Barry Goldwater, U.S. Senator (AZ-R) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Like Barry Goldwater, he believes extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
I believe in keeping as much of my blood as possible on the inside of my skin.
I also believe extremism in the pursuit of getting my children to the veterinarian is a necessary evil. This evil was necessary.
Ernest suffers from what might be termed a sluggish constitution, which is aggravated by his habit of putting foreign objects into his mouth. And swallowing them. Mainly bits of string and thread. They don’t have to be on the floor. He pokes around on tables and steals anything that strikes his fancy.
The first time he withdrew from society, two years ago, I had to authorize X-rays, ultrasound, and a simple procedure he really really didn’t like. It seemed best, this time, to seek medical attention before a minor problem became major.
Well, to summarize: Ernest hid under the bed from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. I spent a goodly portion of that time supine on the floor trying to regain his trust. I spent the rest of the time downstairs, sneezing my head off because of all the dust bunnies under there with him.
In desperation, I took his jingly collar, the one he refuses to wear, and lay down by the bed and jingled at him. He purred and gnawed on the collar. Then he flopped over onto his back and I administered belly rubs. He had a lovely time. I went back downstairs and sneezed until my throat was raw. Then I coughed. I couldn’t stop coughing.
Having neither cough drops nor unexpired cough medicine, I poured a tiny bit of some extremely aged Jim Beam (my mother bought it to put on her Christmas applesauce cakes over twenty years ago) into a glass and added the dregs of David’s hummingbird sugar and drank it from a spoon. The first sip tasted pretty bad, and it didn’t do much for the cough, but by the time I was finished sipping, my concern for Ernest had eased considerably.
Anyway, as I sat in the living room taking my medicine, Ernest appeared downstairs. He sashayed into the kitchen. I heard him crunch two or three bites of food. Then he doubled back. Sneak that I am, I lured into my lap. Then I grabbed him and stuffed him into the waiting crate and headed for the vet’s.
Ernest protested, of course, at first. But as soon as the two big dogs in the vet’s waiting room charged up to his crate to pant hello, he decided confinement had its advantages and shut up.
Getting his weight was the first order of business. I was not surprised to learn he weighs 17 pounds. My spine had already intimated I would be making a trip to the chiropractor in short order.
After some poking and prodding and determining this was indeed the result of ingesting thread, and addressing that problem, the doctor said cats like linear objects. I said I’d noticed.
He gave me three choices: take him home and give him meds and watch him for 24 hours; leave him there for meds and the procedure he really really doesn’t like and pick him up at 5:00 p.m.; or be referred to another vet for X-rays because he’s moving his office up the street and his machine was all to pieces.
He said choice #1 would have been fine for his cat, but I told him I liked choice #2. Leaving Ernest would ensure he was unclogged. If I took him home and he crawled under the bed again, I might never get him out.
I hated sentencing him to a procedure. But if he hadn’t eaten something unacceptable, he wouldn’t have been in this fix.
As agreed, David and I picked Ernest up at 5:00 p.m., bought a tube of Laxatone, and hauled him home. He’s fine now, thank you, and appears to have forgiven me. I assume the scratch I got trying to remove him from my person in the middle of last night was unintentional.
That is the story of my day set aside for writing.
I’m trying to decide whether it qualifies as an Artist’s Date.
I was composing a post about Mountain Cedar, which is currently in extreme pollination mode, when I discovered I was boring myself silly.
I did chance to wonder why pollen is spelled with an –en and pollination with an –in, but I wasn’t curious enough to look it up. Perhaps for another post.
The only other likely topic was the dream I had last night about seeing Coriolanus on Broadway and during the performance being served chicken casserole in a 9″ x 13″ x 2″ sheet cake pan (everyone got one, not just me). Coriolanus wasn’t what I remember from grad school–it was more of a fusion of Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, and Othello–and the casserole appeared to contain eggplant.
The dream was more interesting, to me at least, than cedar, but once I got past the eggplant there was nothing more to say.
So, instead of belaboring this, I shall link to the following page, where you will see what I do when I should be scrubbing the sink.
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P.S. Tomorrow, February 7, 2011, at 1:00 p.m. CST, author Sylvia Dickey Smith will interview debut author Tina Whittle on Sylvia’s first Blog Talk Radio interview program, Writing Strong Women. To listen, access http://www.blogtalkradio.com/writingstrongwomen on your computer.
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Image: By engraving by James Parker (1750–1805) after painting by Robert Ker Porter (1777–1842) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Freezing rain, sleet, and drizzle. Williamson County is getting snow, but we’re getting freezing rain, sleet, and drizzle.
I’m fortunate. I don’t have to travel. JFTHOI Writers meet tomorrow–or meets tomorrow–but attendance isn’t compulsory. When roads are icy, few things are compulsory. I fell off one highway once because of a patch of ice, and I don’t care to repeat the experience.
If my husband has to leave for work at the usual time, I’ll worry. But when roads are bad, his office generally delays opening.
So there it is. I have a stack of books. If the power is on, I have the laptop. If the power isn’t on, I have a bed and a heavy comforter and a couple of cats.
“Kakaya krasivaya Amerikanskaya koshka!”
…
What a beautiful little American cat!
What do you do when you’re working for The New York Times, living in New York City, and you adopt a kitten your children name Henrietta, and she grows up as a member of your family, and then the Times names you chief foreign correspondent of its Moscow bureau, a job you’ve always wanted–but you have this cat…?
If you’re Christopher S. Wren, and your daughter Celia, aged six, tells your son Chris, aged three, that he’s not to worry because Henrietta is coming, too, isn’t she, Daddy?, then you do what has to be done.
You pack Henrietta up, haul her to the airport, put her on a plane–at least twice–and take her to Moscow.
And what do you do when you’re stuck in the Moscow airport, going through the long process of being formally admitted to the country, and you know that the Times is about to publish parts of a book by Soviet dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, and if you’re still being processed, the Soviets will refuse to admit you, but if you’re already at your job, they’ll let you stay, and things are moving slowly, and Henrietta still has to be examined by the veterinarian, and the veterinarian doesn’t look friendly, and neither does Henrietta…?
If you’re Christopher S. Wren, you give thanks for that “beautiful little American cat.”
And later, after Henrietta has accompanied you to Egypt, China, Canada, and Johannesburg, you write a book: The Cat Who Covered the World: The Adventures of Henrietta and her Foreign Correspondent.
If you googled the four words at the top of this post, which appeared on yesterday’s blog, you may have already read the story of Henrietta’s diplomatic coup that ensured Wren could stay in Moscow. You know more as well–what a Pakistani diplomat said when Henrietta set a not-quite-dead mouse beside his shoe; how Henrietta dealt with her feline arch-rival, the neighbor’s Rasputin; why Henrietta was fed only after the housekeeper left for the day.
If you choose to go further and read the entire book, you’ll find more stories about Henrietta set against a backdrop of the Cold War.
My favorite anecdote concerns the evening nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner, spent with the Henrietta’s family. Wren had warned his wife to keep kids and cat out of the way, but as soon as Sakharov arrived, he followed the children to their bedroom and, sitting on the floor, demonstrated what an atom looks like by making one from Tinkertoys. After dinner, while the adults conversed in the living room, Henrietta lay in Sakharov’s lap while he petted her and called her, in Russian, “Dear little cat.”
As you see, I have nothing but good to say about this book.
It’s possible that, as a confirmed cat person, I’m biased.
But I don’t think so.
If I am, my bias is toward interesting stories, well- and intelligently written books, journalists (and others) who don’t take themselves too seriously, and…cats.
For those with similar tastes, The Cat Who Covered the World will be a pleasant read.
Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch
The last time William appeared here, he had sat on the keyboard and turned the working title into gobbledygook.
I suppose tonight’s activity is progress.
Yes, I know it’s progress. Because a year ago at this time, his hobby was lying across my lap and biting my fingers. Lunge-chomp-lunge-chomp. Tonight he’s helping.
But Just for the Hell of it Writers meets tomorrow morning, and my promise (to myself) to finish my critique chapter early and, for once, get to bed at a reasonable hour is vaporizing even as I type.
Especially since I took a half-hour out of the evening to prepare this post. That’s okay. It was necessary. I needed a break.
I also needed to memorialize this event so in a couple of years I can look back and say, Wasn’t that darling of him?
Because it’ll be a couple of years before I think so.
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Note: That isn’t dust. We have a super-duper fancy two-toned gray-and-black keyboard.
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Update: Two hours later: I heard growling and turned to find William and Ernest arguing over a cricket. Ernest grabbed it and shot up the stairs. I grabbed a paper towel and ran after him, hissing, “Spititoutspititoutspititout.” At the first landing, after some indecision, he let it go. The cricket is no more. David was asleep but probably isn’t now.
Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance. ~Dan Greenburg
I returned home from Just for the Hell of It Writers filled with enthusiasm for the next assignment. Sat down in the recliner, put my feet up, booted up the laptop, read e-mail, checked a couple of blogs, and opened to write is to write is to write. I planned to compose a brief post about characterization–specifically, my reluctance to allow Molly, my protagonist, to exhibit less-than-stellar qualities, such as being human.
Before I could start, however, Ernest climbed into my lap. With the laptop already there, he didn’t have an easy time. He never does. But he made it.
So here I sit with a fuzzy gray tiger draped across my left forearm and wrist, cutting off blood flow to my hand. I don’t know how much longer my fingers will function. I don’t know how much longer this post will function either, because Ernest just touched something–a hot key or some other doohickey outside my sphere of knowledge–and it vanished. I’m lucky he didn’t delete it. Sometimes he does. When it comes to writing, cat watching is the least of my worries.
If he were on my left, I’d be fine with the arrangement. He used to perch there. But a couple of weeks ago he changed sides. As a result, I can’t use the mouse, and I have to bend my index finger at an unnatural angle to reach the touchpad. Periodically he throws his head back to let me gaze into his green, green eyes. That means he wants his ears scratched.
I’ve tried moving him to the left, but he’s heavy and muscular, a feline Jesse Ventura. He’s also the master of his fate and the captain of his soul. After losing three consecutive matches, I gave up.
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering why I don’t evict him from my person altogether.
It’s complicated.
There’s guilt. Yesterday I found him on the dining room table trying to eat a length of purple ribbon. I clapped my hands. That scared him. I spent the next five minutes trying to apologize. He spent the next five minutes evading capture. Then I realized that I’d forgotten to put out catfood on schedule, and that his acting out might have been caused by low blood sugar. I also considered that William, who has a wry sense of humor, might have dared him to jump onto the table. Ernest is impulsive, and I hadn’t taken into account the possibility of diminished capacity. I’m still making amends.
Then there’s the purr. I’ve read that the vibration guards against bone loss and muscle atrophy. Some authorities believe that holding a purring cat benefits human tissue as well. Holding Ernest could protect my writing arm against osteoporosis.
Furthermore, allowing cats a bit of leeway is a writerly thing do. Charles Dickens’ cat, Wilamena, had kittens in his study; the kitten Dickens kept later became his companion while he wrote. Raymond Chandler’s Taki, whom he called his “secretary,” sat on manuscripts he was trying to revise. T.S. Eliot sent his cats to Broadway. Mark Twain couldn’t resist cats, “especially a purring one.” I don’t know whether Garrison Keillor has cats, but he joined with the Metropolitan Opera’s Frederica von Stade to make an entire CD of cat songs (“Songs of the Cat”), and Bertha’s Kitty Boutique is one of The Prairie Home Companion’s most prominent sponsors. I can’t think of better role models than Keillor, Twain, and Von Stade.
Finally, I allow Ernest to walk all over me because I’m concerned about mental and emotional balance. My own. Sigmund Freud emphasized the cat’s importance in coping with the stresses and strains of modern life: “Time spent with cats,” he wrote, ” is never wasted.”
Freud might not have known much about women, but he had a thorough grasp of cats.
Since I began this piece, Ernest has jumped down, back up, down, back up, and down again. William, who, bless his heart, parks on the left, has visited twice.
It’s not always easy to remember my reasons for being a doormat, especially the one about balance. But when the conscious mind fails, the subconscious defaults to guilt.
Well. Once again I’ve written about not writing. Once again the obstacle has been cats.
[Full disclosure: If I had my druthers, I’d emulate Miss Von Stade instead of the writers. She gets paid to sing, she doesn’t have to make up the words as she goes along, her picture appears on the front cover, the Amazon reviewers simply gush at her “magnificent” voice, and she doesn’t have to read Bird by Bird twice a month to keep her spirits up. What’s not to emulate?]
Many thanks to the author of “Invictus.” If we ever get a brother for William and Ernest, we’re going to name him Henley.
Today’s horoscope said, “A person who means well will throw a wrench into the works.”
That was the man who came to paint the front door. The go-between told me he would be here at 9:00 a.m. I was supposed to secure my cats before he arrived.
Securing cats meant I had to (1) get them into the bedroom and (2) keep them in the bedroom. There’s never a guarantee of either.
The only guarantee was that I would stay with them. They don’t like closed doors. I don’t like being stuck in the bedroom all day.
But I also don’t like my mattress to be shredded.
So I rose early, performed my usual exercise routine (Dear Abby, crossword puzzle, op-ed page, and letters to the editor), and considered the ordeal before me. I wished I had a can of tuna. I could have lured them upstairs with that.
But fate was on my side. Last night, according to vet’s orders, I drizzled olive oil over their midnight snack. They disapproved, so they didn’t eat it, so this morning they were hungry.
I grabbed a clean bowl and their food and climbed the stairs, crinkling the Friskies bag as I went. William and Ernest followed.
I plopped the bowl onto the middle of the bed and poured in a cup of kibble. William and Ernest followed.
I shut us in. William and Ernest leaped from the bed and prostrated themselves before the door. They reached under it with their little paws and stretched their little forelegs as far as they would go.
Knowing that within seconds they’d be using their little claws to bust out of the joint, I harrumphed as if I meant it. They ran under the bed.
I galloped downstairs and grabbed the laptop. I needed to work on my novel. There’s a manuscript contest coming up. I have a lot to do.
By the time the painter arrived at 12:25 p.m. (not his fault), we three had been sharing a cell for nearly four hours. I had canceled my lunch date. Ernest had eaten a few bites. He batted a few more bites onto the bedspread to use as pucks. Normally I would have discouraged this activity; today I saw it as a blessing.
William stayed under the bed sulking. When I lifted the bed skirt, he looked the other way. Even when I opened the blinds, he refused to come out.
Later I saw Ernest tiptoe to the door. He stretched out in a casual fashion. Then he lifted one paw and gave the door a pat. I harrumphed. Withdrawing the paw, he looked at me. Then he looked at the door. Then at me. Then at the door.
I won. He joined William under the bed.
He didn’t know that a third of that harrumph was aimed at the cramp in my back. Lying on my side to type wasn’t smart.
When fumes wafted up the stairs, I slid open the door to the balcony. The cats emerged. They lay side by side, listening to birds and enjoying the illusion of freedom. Then the yardmen turned on the mowers and the painter turned on the sander. William and Ernest scooted back under the bed.
Having scraped, sanded, and applied primer, the painter left at 2:30. I told the cats he was gone. They didn’t respond. By this time I was as stir crazy as they were. I wanted to crawl under the bed with them.
But I didn’t. I remembered the second part of my horoscope: “The element of unpredictability will be good for you, and so will the delay this causes.”
That sentence wasn’t so easily interpreted. On the one hand, the painter told me he refinishes furniture. I told him about my oak dining table. He said he could fix it.
Without doubt, that’s good for me. The table top has been teetering on the pedestal since ever since the movers got it off the truck and brought it inside. I’ve been expecting a lapful of lasagna for the past six months.
On the other hand, there’s the novel. Between cats, fumes, poor posture, and funk, I didn’t get much writing done. In that respect, the delay wasn’t good.
Tomorrow the painter will come back to paint. Friday he’ll come to replace the weather-stripping. That means two more days imprisoned with cats–if they’re dumb enough to cooperate, which is questionable–and two more days of potential writing avoidance.
When it comes to not writing, I prefer to invent my own excuses.
But what’s done is done. The milk has been spilt.
I’ll get up early in the morning. I’ll do whatever has to be done to return the cats to the slammer. I’ll borrow pillows from the guest room to better prop myself up.
I’ll bow my neck and put my shoulder to the wheel and my nose to the grindstone, and I will write and write and write.
But I’ll skip the horoscope. There’s no use borrowing trouble.
M. K. Waller 