Wondering, What's the Value of a Purring Cat?

#4

 

I wrote the first draft of this essay last February before the ridiculing of women with cats became so viral and public. 

Coming back to this draft all these months later, I’m grateful to JD Vance for fully naming the cat woman stereotype I’d touched back then with embarrassment rather than scrutiny. For me, his open mockery asked me to take a second consider. And a wonder. And wander all over the place as you will see. But before I get to that, look. Here’s how the first draft began:

February, Sixish months ago

It should be noted that I’m beginning this piece in a cafe, where there is no cat curled in my lap nor walking across my keyboard and re-elevating google docs’ importance as a sanctuary of saved history. It should also be noted that I’m shy to write about my cats, as there is such a painful stereotyping of single women of a certain age (in this case 60)(which I love being, by the way) who have cats (which I have, and love having, by the way). Though I’m working hard to rise above the awareness of this stereotype, as I write I’m still falling prey to the insecurity of being typecast as so lacking. 

Back to September, aka, Right Now

See what I mean????? Boom! There it was! Me feeling ashamed to admit that I have a cat, TWO CATS!, am a woman, and am single.

WHAAAAAT?

Me and my cat status

So right now, here I am, stepping in with all my feet, boldly holding up my feline-filled-life for public scrutiny. Me: 1. I’m an older woman, 2. I’m single, and 3. I have two cats. My cats are also 1. older, 2. female, and 3. single. In people years, they’re 16. In cat years, they’re about 80, actual grandma cats. They’ve been in my life since they were actual kittens and my kids were actual kids, and we went to the local Humane Society and each kid picked out a kitten, and, wa lah, our family expanded to include the newly named Scooter and Ashley.

1. Now, we’re all older because if you don’t die, that’s what happens.

2. Our sex is female because we were biologically born that way. I don’t know how Scooter and Ashley gender themselves, so for this essay, I’ll stick with our biological sex. We’re chicks.

3. We’re single for different reasons. I’m single because my marriage did not work. This wondering essay isn’t about that. My cats are single because they’ve lived inside all their lives and they view one another as family, not romantic partners (if such a thing even exists in the cat world).

4. I’m not childless. My cats are. They don’t have children because a) they’ve never been sexually partnered, and b) as rescue kittens their reproductive systems were medically interrupted. This took place before the nation started taking away female birth control (albeit not from cats, though based on the sheer number of adoptable rescue dogs streaming into Vermont from the south and Texas, this belief in the sacredness of getting pregnant as the sperm flies may also apply to animals, not just women, at least in certain parts of the nation) (another wondering). 

Anyway. I am single and have cats. My cats are single and childless. We’re all in the midst of a honkin’ long life. This summer we were told we’re miserable in our pathetic lives. And we’re inflicting it on you. What does a person do with messaging like this when it comes from a leader of one’s nation?

Social wonderings about being a single, childless, biologically female woman or cat

Culturally and individually, us humans spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about getting unsingle. Who will be at the party? Does this outfit look appealing on me? Do I need to dehair, resculpture, lose weight, gain weight, adorn, change the way I naturally behave, change the things I like to do, etc? Is my life a failure because I haven’t found true love? Should I take up golf? What’s wrong with me?

But do my female cats care that they haven’t had a romantic partner? Cats don’t seem to get married, unless us humans involve them in some weird ass thing (which I think we do more with dogs, having been invited to a corgi wedding in my old neighborhood which was put on by tweens, so very cute, but I digress). 

Romantic partner or being unsingle may mean something different for them. Maybe the appropriate question is, would my cats’ lives have been better if they had that one night of hair raising, screaming sex (maybe consensual though it surely doesn’t sound like it), where all the unneutered males in the neighborhood circle round them, crying unearthly cries and fighting for their ‘honor’? Is anyone falling for the word ‘honor’ in that last sentence? (Ok, besides the people who are currently making decisions about my body for me? Or who give a police officer convicted of raping a child two months probation yet make simply trespassing on oil property a felony? Oops. I digress, again.)

My cats do not appear to give a rat’s ass that they’re single. Sorry about my English. Here’s the thing: I’m not even sure they know what the word single means. Only we wonder how in the world my cats have survived being female and not having a man. 

But. 

Do my cats care that they are childless? It’s a wondering. Are they less cat because of this? Is our world worse because of it? Do they care? It surely doesn’t seem so.

You with me on all this?

Sidenote 

My cats have always seemed truly happy. This is not Amythromorphising. It’s simply true. I have not witnessed existential melancholy, ennui, or agitated wandering about the house. Not even occasional far away yearning looks in their eyes (except at meals)(this is different). 

Back to cats being partnered

There are broad questions, of course, around the impact of social messaging my cats don’t receive. I mean, would my cats be less happy if they had an industry that made million dollar rom com movies to remind them they would not be whole unless they mated with a Tom? Or if they were continually advertised to about their physique, so they could catch every Tom’s eye? Would this rom com industry show them an idealized, photoshopped cat body and in a cat life that is actually impossible to achieve? What would a photoshopped cat look like? What would a cat Barbie look like? (uffdah)

What about how they smell? Should they smell like a spring flower? Should their fur look and smell like a kitten? Should they alter their bodies to look like kittens to appeal to the Toms? Should they buy cat douches to smell fresh like flowers? (Goodness, isn’t this sick?)

If this industry existed, would my cats spend all my money until we were all deep in debt? Would their life-enhancing possessions fill up their closets, their garages, their basements? Would they rent storage units? Would kittens and female cats in other countries subsequently live essentially enslaved lives as they worked to produce throw away cat products that my cats buy and buy and buy yet never wonder about how a product could be so inexpensive, and if they do wonder, still not change their behavior? Would my cats need therapy because the life they’re supposed to inhabit is impossible? Would they find the forbiddenness of billboards in Vermont a subconscious soothing balm, too?

Can I get a God Bless Vermont?

Purring

So, the root wondering of this essay is on the value of a purring cat. Let’s go back there for a moment and then return again later. A cat purrs because it’s happy (sometimes it’s nervous, but primarily it is just so damn happy).

In my house there is a lot of purring. In fact, the shyer of the two cats, Ashley, will come and sit, facing me, stare at my face, and purr. She simply sits and gazes at me and purrs and purrs and purrs. Can I tell you how amazing it is? How cute? How funny? Sometimes she’s so happy, little spit drops appear at the side of her mouth. It's actually not gross. It’s hilarious. It’s unfettered. 

When I consider a benefit of a purring cat, I will tell you this: aside from when my kids were young, (plus one out of body experience - no drugs, honest), I have never been gazed at with such love. This is one benefit, hard and fast. It cannot be underestimated.

You might wonder if my cats themselves are truly happy? Well, there is a proliferation of purring in my house. That and body language and general life-long good health and play and interactivity, well, all signs point to yes. What I witness in my cats (aside from meal times and when grandma Scooter doesn’t know where I’ve gone) (and though admittedly I will never be inside their brains), is a deep, calm happiness that human people pay so much money to try to find.

That gazing Ashley does? It’s quite a thing. It makes me wonder: Do cats love? You should see it Sure feels like it. This wondering offers the bigger question of what is love? Interestingly, as I sit here imagining the way they each can gaze at me sometimes, what I wonder is, Do we humans know how to truly love? How often do we step into such vulnerability and unconditionally look at another human with full scale, open adoration? Without a care that it will be returned? How often are we looked at in this way? When was the last time you were looked at in this way? 

Makes you pause, yes?

Why this topic

When I did a brainstorm of the I wonders for this book, What is the value of a purring cat wouldn’t let me go. To be honest, I had no idea why, let alone how the question would segue into deeper wonderings. Because, of course, the obvious answer is companionship. A two sentence essay – the question and the answer (a cat provides true companionship which is vital to human wellbeing) –  that at this point you may be wishing I wrote. But despite my hesitance, I felt it asking to lead somewhere beyond, and wherever this was, you will see, I’ve done my best to go.

Kick starting some wonders about the social stigma of cats 

What in the world is wrong with having a cat? I did briefly date a guy who was afraid of cats. That met its end. So, some people are afraid of cats. And some are allergic. But there are also people who are afraid of and/or allergic to dogs, too. So, why are dogs considered great pets and cats not? In this country, why does having a dog make you more of, and having a cat make you less of? Why did I feel shy to admit I was a woman with two cats when I would have bragged if my 80 pound dog was still alive? Why are we so binary about this when human beings and their budgets, living situations, and preferences are so varied? 

I mean, consider it: you live in an apartment. Does it make sense to have a dog who needs to be taken outside every time they need to pee? Their warm poop scooped up by your hand inside a plastic bag? That needs long walks outside twice a day regardless of weather? That barks and annoys the neighbors? 

Or you’re an older human or a professional human who needs to leave home for the entire day to go to work. Or or or. 

Why is one pet socially valued and one not? Why do people say I’m a dog person with such pride, a pride the world reflects back upon them? Whatever your answers, are they really answers you want to keep? Are they as important as we portray them to be? Do they attach a value to another human for you? Should they? Really?

Let’s take a little gender walk here 

Right at the start of this essay, I shared I was a bit ashamed to admit I owned two cats and was single. I didn’t even wonder about this at the time, I simply accepted the cultural aspersions cast upon me, owned my embarrassment, and limped in bravely enough to tell the truth anyway. 

But what the fuck? Why did I not question the hows and the whys of our culture and the way it paints me and makes me feel about being a woman who has cats? Why have I felt it necessary to make sure people know I’ve had dogs, 23 straight years of dogs (two amazing beloved dogs back to back), big dogs, when I admit to them I have cats? Goodness we are such STRANGE CREATURES. 

But back to the question: why did I drink this kool aid? 

I mean, I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with me because I have two cats, I don’t believe it reduces my sensuality and sexuality and viability and strength and maternal instincts and intellect and non-hordingness and coolness of my cardigans, etc. But I also know that I have the potential to be perceived as lacking in these ways, and mocked because of it, and I let this affect my … what … self image? My ability to just stand up tall and flip everyone the bird? Not give a rat’s ass? 

Why are women disparaged (and let’s be clear, in this instance disparaged means that women are considered to be less) for having a cat or cats? I’m going to ask you to not race past this question but take a pause, a walk, consider. Really. Why?

Even though I think the stigma is stupid, so stupid, still, I felt shame. It was me who had to wrap my arms around owning two cats (and being single and female) and proclaim it out loud simply to walk into this essay. WHY? (I’m over that, by the way, thanks to this wondering journey.)

Cultural Shaming and the Cat Lady 

There is such power in this stereotype. And yet, we mainly don’t even see it. 

Wonder about that for a minute.

While the cat lady shaming has existed for a long time, it was Vance’s statement that let this shaming out of the closet and put it on center stage. If we don’t see our dark side, it will rule us. So, again, I thank him for unleashing the potential to look at and underneath this on-the-surface humorous statement (and yes, I laughed, in disbelief, in joy, at him, at it, and yet).

Let’s start by admitting it: Socially, being a cat lady is BAD. There are all sorts of things that are implied about a lady in possession of cats. (Note: she’s not even called a woman, why is that?) 

Here are a few of her implied characteristics: unlovable, lonely, unsexy, dried up, spinster, weird, sad, loser, unkempt, ugly, can’t get a man, can’t keep a man, has no sex, can’t have a normal social life, dirty home, cardigans (and not the good kind), possible horder. What others would you add? (Please don’t do this in writing, just consider it, I’m sure everyone knows this stereotype). Why does this exist? Who created this cultural kool aid? AND WHY?

The actual statement made by a leader of our country

Here’s what JD said about women with cats in an interview with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson (another great admirer of women as equal human beings) (omg) (not):“We are effectively run in this country … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

Since then he’s had countless opportunities to walk this statement back, but instead has doubled down, over and over. His comments have been spoofed, vilified, mocked, though not by the people who support him. 

For a moment, here, and hopefully for longer than a moment, I would like to offer what he said as a wondering.

Wondering about the different parts of Vance’s statement

• Is it true? Are single and female cat owners miserable?

• Why would being female, single and having a cat mean you are miserable?

• Are single men with cats happy? Why don’t they come up?

• Why do we use gender as an insult? Correction, why do we use the female gender as an insult?

• Why is owning a cat an insult?

• What is misery?

• What does it look like in action?

• Why does being single, female, and owning a cat mean you will take out your misery on others?

• What does that look like in action?

• What does it mean to take your misery out on your nation? 

Is this wondering political?

I’m not going to wonder about this. It is not. 

Yes, it was a politician who said it, and keeps saying it, but to look at a statement about a childless woman with a cat and wonder about it isn’t political. If a doctor said this, would it be medical to wonder about it? If a business leader said it, would it be business?

Most of my family doesn’t read my writing. Many of them write it off with broad quick strokes as political, as in Oh, that Amy likes to write about politics. This lets them off the hook because they don’t like to read about politics, I guess. 

Sidenote: I have written about abortion, marginalized groups, misogyny, racism, to name a few mild topics, but are these political? Let yourself do a quick unreflective followed by reflective wondering here.

To me, to say that writing about these topics is political is a little bit fascinating. In fact, it feels a little bit manipulative. No shade on my family. But it dismisses it. It implies that you feel that way because of the party you vote for. This means, if I’m a Republican and a Progressive says something political, I can say, I don’t want to talk politics and don’t have to listen if I don’t want to. Is this making sense? I think it’s a brilliant smokescreen that keeps us from having to inspect our own opinions and actions and who we support.

But let’s pause here and look hard. Is mocking a woman who is single and has no children and has a cat political? If you said yes, How is it political?

If you’re Republican (in this case, because JD said it and he’s Republican and all the other Republicans didn’t object), does this mean you must not like or respect or trust single childless women with cats? Or be unwilling to discuss the meaning of such a statement because to discuss it is political?

OMG, balderdash.

I would like to offer the thought that this cat lady claim is values-based, not political. I mean, JD didn’t switch to the Republican party just so he had a party that supported his feeling about women with cats. (I don’t think, I actually did not research this.)

I’m kind of (ok, I’m totally) going down a rabbit hole here, but stay with me for a moment. To call writing about this (or most of the things I write about) political is to take away the importance of wondering about culture and its impact, gender messaging and its impact, the -isms and their impact, the ways we are manipulated and sometimes shamed into thinking, the ways some groups are devalued and others are elevated. 

To devalue the importance of a human being because of their gender, whether or not they’ve had or been able to have children, found a healthy partner, or have a cat is a values-based choice. 

It is not political.

Politics is the party you vote for. Issues are the values and morals we use to navigate life and those around us. Wonder about where these have become invisibly intertwined for you. Where are you not speaking out, or even thinking about, an issue because it is part of your political party and yet, closely inspected, hits differently with a very core value for you? Don’t let someone gaslight you in this way. 

Politics vs. values, why does this matter?

To me, it matters because we absolutely must be able to have values-based discussions. We must be able to individually inspect and reflect upon how we feel about human beings, the environment, and the issues of keeping both healthy and treated with respect. We can’t let a person on a podium wearing our colors tell us what our values are. Should there even be colors? What happens to us when we take on someone else’s values just because of party loyalty? What happens when we treat our political party like our favorite team vs a group that is making decisions to run the country?

I have learned to become very aware of times people say something is political, and they don’t want to talk politics, when it’s really not about politics at all but the very issues that will impact how we see others, treat others, what all of our lives will or will not be like as a result. 

That’s politics is a way to hide from the hard conversations.

Wonder here: What happens to us when we avoid those?

A cat lady lifts up her cats

Three years ago, I moved across the country to live for a year and return to my writing. Here’s what people said regarding my cats, Are you taking them?

Huh? I’d lived with my cats for 13 years. Would they have said that about my dogs? I don’t think so.

Suffice it to say, the three of us loaded into the car and drove across the country. Trust me, that was big. My friend, imagining the journey from her home in California, rendered our trip like this:

It’s not an actual representation (I jerry rigged a dog gate, and Scooter only broke out a couple times and joined me up front), but moving cats and all their accouterments in and out of hotels has deep similarities to traveling with two toddlers. It’s a thing. We were all exhausted before we began, and we did great.

I still wonder though. What did the people who asked if I was bringing my cats think I was going to do if not? Leave them in the yard, these indoor creatures who’ve relied on me for everything? Take them to the pound?

So, yes, I took them. It was never a question. We are family. They make my life better. It was not just my responsibility to them, and yes, it was that, it was also my heart. And it was not just my heart, it was my responsibility to them. In relationship, the two can be interchangeable. 

Lifting up the people who own cats

So, perhaps that’s another value of a purring cat: they teach you to stand with your responsibilities of the heart. 

In the weeks that I work on this first draft, the purringist of my cats, the one who sits and stares at me and purrs to beat the band, then later lays across my chest and purrs straight into my heart, my literal heart, like one of those beds you put a quarter in, is struggling with her health. She lost two pounds while I was away, sorting through California-based boxes holding my entire life because the three of us are going to stay here. Ashley is an eight pound cat. Two pounds is a lot.

Over these last couple of months, it’s become clear that something is deeply wrong. See, at first we thought she’d simply hid from the house sitter and lost all that weight, then that it was a cold and eye infection, but no, it turns out she has something invisible happening in that tiny cat head, probably in her sinuses, that is making things go south. 

I’m trying all I can reasonably do. We go to the vet, we’re experimenting with different meds, I’m buying nutrient rich foods. And all the while this cat, this purring cat, still sends her purrs deep into my physical and emotional and potentially spiritual body. Without asking for a thing back, she teaches me how to care for an ailing creature, wipe her nose of the boogie that won’t come out, put drops in her reluctant left eye, wipe food along the side of her mouth with the hope she’ll begin to eat again, wrestle and caress and check on (over and over and over) and talk to and take to the vet (what is the right balance between opportunity and stress?) and say, to the invitation to stay with some of my besties in a condo (free!) in Florida during the bleakness of March, I have a thing here I must do, and not care a bit if any of them say to one another, for God’s sake, it’s just a cat.

Because Ashley is indeed just a cat, which is so much more and yet exactly what we realize, and she relies on me for food and a clean litter box and comfort, and in turn she gazes at me with all the assurance that I am more than I realize and also exactly that. And in this understanding, she purrs and purrs and purrs and I am beholden in the way that, if we all could be even half beholden to one another in this way, would save the world. 

A value of a purring cat is that each single purr is like a bubble of unadulterated love, and it’s given without being asked for, and it drips into your body and offers you the chance to be powered by love as well. 

Part two of the miserable cat lady statement

So, this next quote could be construed as political, but really, I’m asking us all (as I’ve done since I myself first read it) to look underneath the words and wonder. Forget the labels we throw on each other, many of which most of us don’t even truly understand, forget the actual people and your allergy or allegiance to them, and just think about the message itself. Wonder. Do the kind that involves risk.

Ok.

After the miserable childless cat lady wreaking misery on our country statement, Vance went on to tell Carlson, ”...it's just a basic fact if you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it.” When journalist Paul Krugman criticized this statement, JD called him “one of many weird cat ladies who have too much power in our country”(2).

Sometimes creating false names can make it easier to wonder cleanly. Like, change JD to Bill and each of the other folks to some generic same-sex name. Like Bill told Chip in the interview,“It’s a basic fact if you look at Lily Smith, Brian Thai, Alli…”  Somehow, we have to separate the message from the people to be able to look straight at it, under it, behind it, ahead of it; to really see it and its immediate and unfolding impact. So, name changing is an option. Or party flipping. Or whatever allows you to simply consider the message, with all emotional allegiance and abhorrence disconnected. 

Ok, here we go. There is much to wonder about here. Here are a few:

• Lily Smith is not single but in a deeply committed marriage. She’s a step mother who has not given birth to her own children (we don’t know why). She has no cat. So, why are step mothers, even beloved step mothers, miserable childless cat ladies? 

• Brian Thai is married, a father, and a man, for goodness sake. So, why does Bill consider a man who has a legal life partner and children a miserable childless cat lady? 

• Why is Alli, a young single married woman who doesn’t have cats and does have a dog, a miserable childless cat lady?

• Why is a twice married straight man without children a miserable childless cat lady?

(And this has nothing to do with the focus of this wondering – cats –but I can’t leave it just standing there:) 

• Why does not having children make you care less about the world? Is my cousin who fought in the Vietnam War and is one of the most deeply committed Americans I know someone who has no direct stake in the country? Does Alli, who has chosen to give her life to public service on our behalf, and who receives regular death threats but keeps on working, have no stake in our future because so far she has no children (though we don’t know why, and I don’t wonder if it’s our business because it’s not).

• Aren’t there many parents out there who only care about their children and not our country? Or who only care about themselves, forget the children? 

• And, to be crystal clear, and I may be wrong about this: Jesus didn’t have kids, did he?

Why is cat lady used to diminish your masculinity?

When Bill part-implied, part-called Brian a childless miserable single cat lady, I simply had to pause. I mean. Brian is married. He has children. HE’S A MAN. All of these make him the same production model as Bill. What is that all about?

There is one difference. Brian is gay. 

So, is Bill’s labeling of Brian as a childless cat lady meant to imply that Brian is not a man? Or a real man? 

Personal wondering inventory time. Do you feel this way? That a gay man is not a man? 

Who taught people to feel this way? (Nope, not the Bible. God does not say that a gay man is not a man.) So, why this teaching? Who does it serve? In terms of the thinking you do here, take time to look at, under, behind, ahead. 

Do you have any gay men in your life? (Spoiler: you do, whether you know it or not, just as you have women in  your life who have had an abortion and been raped, etc, but I digress). 

I do, and guess what? They are real men. They live, they love, they celebrate, they create, they do great and small things, they are mean and kind and generous, weak and strong, brave and fearful, and they are human, and they are men. So, this I do not wonder about. And I know God is love. So God’s love I do not wonder about either.

What I do wonder is this:

Why are we so afraid of them that we must call them childless cat ladies?

(If anyone tells you horror stories about the danger of gay men, another propaganda piece by Bill and his folks, take them to my chapter in Neighbor, A Handbook, “The Weaponization of Sexuality.”

And then there’s this cat lady insult element WHICH SHOULD MATTER TO US ALL

• Why do we insult men by calling them women?

• Why don’t we insult women by calling them men?

• If accusing a man of being like a woman is considered the deepest of insults, what does this say about how we feel culturally about women ?

Really, come on.

• If a handsome fireman has a cat, do we call him a cat lady or do we make a calendar of him? What’s at the root of this?

• In the end, what does all of this say about how we truly feel about women?

• About how they should behave?

• Why are some men so concerned about women being single?

• Why do certain men feel entitled to women and their (forgive me) pussies?

• Does anyone see the violence here? Bullying? seizing? Abusiveness?

• People, what do we see going on here? 

• Is there something to be afraid of?

Is Bill just one guy?

Look, I wonder how far and how deep this attitude goes. Because it does go far and deep. It’s in the roots of our country. It’s in some men, and it’s in some women. I wonder this because it has stunned me how far it goes and that I haven’t yet found the end, and therefore, the answer. In part, the answer is revealed by how many men and women are not trouble by a man who makes fun of single women, or of men by calling them single women. In part, it is revealed by how many men and women are not trouble by a man who says a woman wants him to grab her by the pussy because he is powerful. In part it is revealed by a religious leader who just made the statement that both Harris and Trump are equally dangerous, killers even, and yet he has never ever mentioned the pussy statement and what it means for the sexual and emotional safety of women.

Do you have a daughter? Mother? Sister? Girlfriend? Granddaughter? Niece? If men thought it was ok to grab her by the pussy when he felt like it, regardless of her deep desire for this not to happen, is that ok with you? If it’s not ok, have you done anything about this? Or is it political? (yah, this pisses me off. because it scares me and makes me so deeply sad)

In some parts of the world, women are killed or maimed or dressed or jailed (literally or figuratively) to make sure they act a certain way. Here in the United States, right here and now, we are in a choice point as to whether or not we, too, want to be like this. Women’s correct behavior is now laid out in a public document that’s intended to guide one leader if he’s elected our President in 2025, a document called Project 2025. Since I’m writing about the value of a purring cat, and I’m a woman, and there’s much at stake regarding me (and all of us who don’t identify as male, whether single, married, childfull, childless, straight, gay, or any race or religion) in this one focus area of the document, I will say that yes, it’s pertinent to this wondering in that there is a strong movement afoot to address and correct women who consider themselves equal to men. And this movement intends to put them back in their place in the name of Christianity. Women back home in the bedroom and the kitchen, out of the world except to serve men as breeders and caretakers.

This is not hyperbole. 

It’s an actual plan, exists in an over 880 page document with specific guidelines for our government and the way it must be instantly changed and run, and there are very powerful people behind it. Yes, mostly men. And yes, mostly White men, and though some are assuredly gay, none of them admit to being anything but heterosexual.

This is an imperative for active wondering, today, this minute, and the kind that involves homework. There are so many solid articles that will take you into understanding Project 2025. If you haven’t gone there, please GO. Choose articles that show you whole quotes from text. When reading, pay attention to words like ‘requires’ (as in a child requires a male and a female parent) because this document is intended to change our laws, and in laws language really matters. Make sure to choose some articles that are unbiased, and also some that are not in support of the project’s mandate, so you can see the parts that people take issue with, and also avoid these issues being glossed over by a source that supports the document and doesn’t want you to see what’s there. You can do your own wondering from there.

Is the view and treatment of women in Project 2025 political? I wonder about this. Is defining the role of a woman based on one version of one religion’s values political? Harkening back to the earlier discussion, I find it much more to be values-based. So, regardless of your political party, I urge you to explore what it’s proposing to see if it truly upholds your values. If this plan is enacted, the values of our nation regarding women and their role will be decided for us all and legally enforced. And a life for women will be one-stop shopping. And if you wonder how this could possibly happen, well, that’s what people wondered about the overturning of Roe vs Wade, too. And here we are.

Beyond this, I’m not going to enter 2025 any further because it would be a huge freeway from which we may not return, and my cats want me to return to the subject at hand. It’s clear from Vance’s many interviews and statements that he supports Project 2025. I suppose he frames it as a means of making us unmiserable. But reading excerpts of it make me want to cry, I mean it really crumbles the walls of my soul, because for me, cat lady that I am, Project 2025 undoes everything I value about being an American, a woman, and a human, in a way that would make me miserable. I mean Miserable. Because I was raised by a father who knew women and men were equal in their humanity, and this is how I live and the air I breathe and the way I have raised my children and taught my students and… I do not wonder about this.

And I do not think I’m alone. Even in the The Handmaid’s Tale, where a U.S. that looks much like what’s intended in Project 2025 is going strong, even the women who ‘benefit’ from this new world (the very women who supported the rise of the religious movement that now governs their part of the U.S.) actually discover they are miserable, despite being at the social top and having big homes and people to cook and clean and have sex with their husbands and bear their children. They discover that they hate having absolutely no agency except to be a rib of a man, while the man can do what he pleases.

Why do we keep trying to do this women?

Why, with all evidence to the contrary, do we keep putting women in their places, demeaning their value unless they live as supportive helpmates to men?

Why are Taylor Swift and her fans being literally and dangerously attacked by conservative men of varying religions? Knife attacks, gun attacks, bombs, suicide attacks? What is so threatening to these men about one of the most successful singers in the world that they would try to kill her and her fans? Why does the U.S. conservative movement call her the devil? Why not say and do this about Mick Jagger, Matt Daemon, Spike Lee, John Legend, George Clooney?

What is so terrifying about a powerful woman who has cats, no children, and is unmarried? What are they so afraid of?

So, back to the heart: what is a cat lady really and truly?

As I was ending the first draft of this wondering, Ashley was coming to the end of her life. Here’s what I wrote. 

Even as I work, she lies near me, curled on the white wicker chair, exhausted and so thin, still a white beard of the medicine she foamed from her mouth before throwing up three times, a new thing this throwing up, but clear, oh so clear. We’re heading into the vet today at 4:30. There I will seek his counsel, but I am as certain as an uncertain person can be that this is the final path. What I want to know is what the vet thinks is best: if we come home and journey more together because that is best for her, or if we say goodbye there. I’ve told her she can go. I’ve told her our dog is there and Billy is probably a much improved cat. I’ve told her that I have already seen her magnificence there in the place she’s going, mighty, painted, and winged, with a strong almost ferocious serenity. I have seen it, there she is a queen. 

The kids are checking in frequently. Next to her, I’m on the couch with Scooter on my legs, sad, just sad, because as much as Ashley is a queen where she’s going, she is beloved here and will be a hole we must learn to navigate in the fabric of our lives. 

Why do people make fun of me for having cats? How am I less of a woman for loving these creatures?

These cat ladies we mock, well, here’s the truth. Traveling with their cats, these women learn how to love and they learn how to companion and they learn how nurture and they learn how to put someone else’s needs above their own and they learn how to let go. They choose this. They don’t get a cat because of a wild night out in a bar (usually). They don’t get it because God said it’s their role. They don’t get it because their marriage contract said this was a responsibility. Getting a cat is not a social convention. Cat women choose to love.

And then there’s the depth.

Our pets teach us to grieve. They close the gap between us and the sadness of the world by allowing us to feel it in its purer form and walking alongside us as we do. They bring us closer to others.

Ashley is now awkwardly standing, circling to settle, not really comfortable. There, better now. If I know she’ll be ok, what is this pain in my heart? What is this involuntary crying? What is the value of a purring cat? What is the value of love motoring into your heart? Of the somatic soothing of a steady happy drum beat? What is the value of learning to love cleanly? What is the value of sacrifice? What is the value of cracking open? 

Come on, isn’t it obvious?

Soon, in an hour forty five, I’ll lift her gently in and shut the metal door to her carrier and we will head to the vet. And because now I’m writing this final draft in September, I know we will not both head home again. This, too, is part of love. The companioning of my children through this loss. The companioning of Scooter who is losing her sister and will need, with me, to establish a new normal in the face of the new emptiness. The decision, when it’s asked of me, to be willing to let go because the other is suffering on a trajectory that holds only increased suffering ahead. Accepting that yes, this small beloved boney creature who has continued to purr in front of me and also in my arms over these months and who is now taking refuge in the circle of my arms, yes, it’s time; give her the shot. 

You may make fun of me, go ahead. But here’s to all of us CAT WOMEN: female, male, nonbinary. 

We know how to love. We know the truth of the Rumi quote, In the end, we are all walking each other home. What is more womanly (or human, for goodness sakes) and less miserable than that? 

I have walked her this far. Now something greater will take her the rest of the way while I hold my arms around her, releasing her to wherever it is the sculpted winged version of Ashley lifts from this earth to fly in only the way that something, someone, who loves and has loved unconditionally can fly.

What does it mean when we make fun of people for loving? Is that who we want to be?