The Zen of Cats

I am in the process of getting reorganised and refocused. I hope. In local parlance, my head has been all over the shop. I want to write more than I am writing (which wouldn’t be hard.) Today I went to the pound shop and got a cork board to make a visual reminder of my goals to help me focus on my goals and the actions I need to take to make them come into being. I went to pick up the board a while ago but I couldn’t, because there was a very large black cat lying very comfortably on it. Now Sid is peaceful, but like a lot of cats he doesn’t like being moved. And as he weighs nearly 6 kg I am not taking any chances. I don’t want to spend the weekend in A&E waiting to be rethreaded. So I looked at the next item on my agenda which was to write a blog. I sat down to write and I heard roars from upstairs, where Simba, a Maine Coon rescue cat, is recovering from recent surgery. So I had to bring him downstairs to halt the noise. As I sat with him on my knee to calm him down, I was reminded of Natalie Goldberg’s great book, Writing Down the Bones. She is talking to her Zen master about the difficulties of finding time for Zen practice and time to write. “Make writing your practice,” he advises. So from now on, when I have to down tools and sit with a large ginger cat on my knee who is enthusiastically kneading the bingo wing of my left arm, I resolve to make cats my Zen practice. To be in the moment and enjoy it. He is going to his new home in a few weeks and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth then. And that’s just from me. Meanwhile Harry Three Paws continues to elude me in the evenings, and I do a regular exchange with my long-suffering neighbours whose wall he perches on, just out of my reach. I ring their doorbell, and they hand me Harry and I hand them organic raspberries from my garden. These are the neighbours mentioned in Harry’s book, The Tale of Harry Three Paws. If the spirit moves you, you can buy it on Amazon here, and if you do, it would be so much appreciated if you could put a review on Amazon here. Thank you and have a lovely weekend.