A Disturbance

I decided to come out of hiatus by writing about the cats I live with.

Every night after dinner, my larger, older cat Finzi begins his systematic dismantling of our household. He starts small, disturbing the peace with his cute meows that turn into mournful yowls. He works in this element for many minutes, and I ignore him because that is part of the game.

He and I have had this routine for just about three years now. Both of us are creatures of habit, and I shaped his habits in my image. We spent weeks figuring out precisely when breakfast, lunch, and dinner should be for our house to have peace at night. Cats are crepuscular beings, meaning they have their most rambunctious moments at dawn and dusk. How, then, can I have peace at dawn? That was the big dilemma, three years ago, as we strategized mealtimes and listened to the same YouTube mantra on repeat: “play with your cat play with your cat play with your cat.”

Clank! First, I hear the metal hitting the floor then listen for scattering paws on the linoleum. His first real disruption. I had a solid twenty minutes of background yowling before the destruction escalated. Still, I sit quietly, focusing on something else. It’s probably nothing valuable, whatever it was that fell on the floor.

There’s this scene in Mary Poppins, when the Banks’s neighbor Admiral Boom prepares to fire his hourly rooftop cannon. As the clock gets close to the hour, all the members of the Banks household rush to a precarious item in the house and position themselves to hold the item upright while Admiral Boom has his moment. Do they ever complain to the admiral? Say, “Hey, neighbor, so what’s the deal with the cannon?” No, they prepare themselves and the house for the regular disturbance of a slightly off-balance neighbor. The cuckoo clock sways on the wall, the plates slide back into place, and Mr. Banks goes back on his rant to Winifred about the importance of a highly qualified nanny. And in an hour, the process will begin again.

I’ve been going through a rough patch in terms of creativity and mental health. How could I not, with all the turmoil and cruelty happening in the world? For months, I’ve written stupidly sad essays, just trying to make sense of how I feel. I didn’t post any because I couldn’t, because I didn’t want to. Throughout this period of despondence, I’ve felt a bit like the Banks family, just trying to go about my day while my unstable neighbor fires cannons from the roof of his house.

I hear another clatter, this one bigger and louder. The younger cat scampers into the room, eyes wide, saying, “He’s really lost it now — you need to come here soon please!” The eldest cat sits on the dining room table, staring at me, unblinking. He knows what he did, and he regrets nothing. More importantly he knows that, eventually, he will get what he wants. “Finzi,” I ask, “is that really the best way to get my attention?” Yes, of course it is.

If there’s one thing living with cats has taught me, it’s the importance of relentlessness. See, if you are truly relentless, truly focused on getting the exact thing you want, eventually you will. But you can’t give up, ever. The older cat knows that, and the younger cat knows to not get in his way.

I walk to the closet, where we keep the fishing rod cat toy with the remnants of what used to be a stuffed bird. With each swing across the floor, synthetic fluffs fall from the bird’s fabric corpse. I run the bird along the floor, and the cats furiously chase it. When I toss the bird in the air, the younger cat leaps and catches it in his mouth. The bigger, smarter cat stands on the bed, triumphantly waiting for his turn to pounce. Several minutes pass, and the boys take turns practicing their skills. Eventually, both cats lie down, done with their hunting simulation. Once I put away their bird, they rush in front of me to the kitchen, where they get their nighttime treat of dry kibble.

This line is where the formulaic section of my creative brain wants to tie it all together. My cat stands for the importance of disruption for our mental health, or maybe he stands for how eventually making enough noise and chaos will force the “powers that be” to make the changes that we demand. Somehow, Finzi resembles Admiral Boom, and I am Mr. Banks. But I don’t know if I can tie up those connections neatly, following a formula that feels comfortable and safe. Instead, I’ll introduce a third thing.

I had a professor in college who had worked at the school for a very long time. One time during office hours, she told me about how when the school had demolished one of the original dorms, she kept one of the bricks from that dorm for years. She said, “And then one morning, I looked at this cherished piece of memorabilia, and it was just a brick.” I think about that line a lot, as I often try to make meaning out of anything. Sometimes it’s just a brick.

Every night, our cat Finzi terrorizes our house, systematically knocking down items by measure of importance. It’s polite, honestly, that he starts with my sunglasses case before knocking over the frame of my grandma and me. I don’t think he decides the order based on anything other than convenience, however. He’s our smarter cat, but he’s not that calculating (and I haven’t actually gone through the inventory with him, so he doesn’t have that data available regardless). His routine is just the thing that he does. It’s just a brick.

However, on the nights when I can’t seem to hold it together, when I’m stuck in the pit of despair or fear or anxiety, Finzi still follows the same routine of slowly taking apart our home. It’s important to him, this ritual, and I’ve made peace with that. Regardless of what it does or doesn’t stand for, he forces me to engage in the world, whether or not he resembles a deranged Admiral Boom or just really wants some time to play.

Finzi, trying to take a bite and cause some chaos.