Professor Kitty

Every pose, every stroll they take, every pause, is a moment of perfection.

They are cute, not for our benefit, but because they have no choice. They capture our hearts because they own themselves.

There is no pretension, no favorites, no winning and no losing. They don’t come to a stern voice. They don’t come to a happy voice. They do whatever it is that they do because that is what they are led to do at any moment.

My favorite of all time is when a kitty is rolling around playing with a piece of string or whatever, and then just stretches out and goes to sleep! Actions like that are so ridiculously pure it is hard for us to even comprehend them. You’re going to your table at the Four Seasons and half way to your table you just lie down on the floor and go to sleep! That is priceless.

And if we really saw someone do that, and we knew it wasn’t a stunt or joke, we’d respect him or her also.

Cats bring no preconceptions or biases. There is no violence, just a swipe now and then as a friendly reminder for us.

Cats are cool. Way cool. ‘Learn from’ cool. OK, Fonzie-like, but so much cooler.

They don’t LEARN reactions, they act from higher instincts.

Couldn’t that be a magnificent universal paradigm!?

Aloofness seems to be the key. Complete disregard for anything that involves judgment, values or right and wrong. You just trade all those things in – and be cool. (My kitty just strolled in. Amazing! How they walk, their silence, their ‘KNOWING’. She had a sip of water, brushed up against my ankle, pushed a sheet a bit to smell under it, turned – and laid down. Priceless!)

They are here for us. Not the other way around. They begin teaching the day they are born, and they never stop. Even up to their last breath, when they do that dip thing and rub their ear on your finger, and then look into your eyes and convey their thanks for you supplying them with food and water.

And even after that last breath, the amazingly funny episodes that they were a part of, remain. That kind of diagonal walk they do while looking around as they go. And that ultimate gesture of purring – it brings tears just thinking about it.

Thank you, Professor. You bring a world of knowledge in the cutest package imaginable. Thank you for all the insights, all the memories and all the peace and happiness you so effortlessly offered, wherever you happened to be.

Thank you.