I, Wonder
The naming of cats is a curious matter.—T. S. Eliot
Allow me to introduce myself. I came into this world a pale, mewling kitten 5 years ago, making me around 35 in your person years. We felines count the years as our canine counterparts do. Indeed, it was my furry counterpart, Belle, who suggested I put paw to pen regarding the happiest place on earth from my perspective.
But before we get to the “happiest place…” I must return to the beginning. I will save you the all-too-familiar details of my kittenhood: absent Tomcat father, consistently bare-pawed and pregnant mother with too many sharp-toothed mouths to feed, neglectful humans – yada, meowda, yada – you get the idea. By 4.75 years of age I ended up on the mean streets and back alleys of a prairie metropolis. And when I say ‘mean’: I mean Winnipeg winter-freeze-the-tips-off-your-ears mean.
One of your well-meaning species scooped me in mittened hands from the snow bank where I was carefully quinzied in the first significant city snowfall one year ago. Being all white as I am, I thought I was the ‘cat from Glad.’ In point of fact, against the snowy blanket, I appeared a dawg-awful beige and was whiskered off to the local cat rescue.
Now I cannot complain about this shelter Shangri-la. Food, warmth, a blanket to knead, and sleep with no fear of ‘youth in asia.’ Most of us spend our days lounging, grooming, yoga-stretching, boxing, napping, and claw sharpening in the jungle-gym-laden rec room where all the wooden trees, boxes, shelves, and perches grow carpet. In this rug-remnant heaven brews the odd cat-fight and an occasional ear splitting choir practice (for though I am white, I am not as many all-white felines are, deaf).
But I, for one, am not cut out to live a ‘sheltered’ life. I was, am, and always shall be so purr-sonality-filled that I require a human person to call my own. In my early days I inspired names such as: Snowball, Whitey, Snow, and the abysmal: Cat. It is little wonder I was in need of rescue and wound up at the cat shelter. I was in search of a human person who would appreciate the wonderful, wondrous, wonder that is me. Poet T. S. Eliot was one such person. He understood that all cats have 3 names: the common, the fancy, and the name known only to the cat. This is how ‘I, Wonder’ was won over.
Being as attractive as I am, the human helpers moved me to and fro from play room to cage for closer inspection. Human persons were on the hunt: I anxiously watched a mother and child bob from cage to cage. I caught the whiff of winter on their coats. The small human person (HP) saw the movement of my pink velvet nose and shrieked, “A snowball that moves!” Egad – another insufferable naming. To my relief, the taller HP diagonalled into the mini-HP, “We want a kitten, dear.”
Then, from behind this duo stepped a young woman who peered into my cage. Our eyes zip-locked. Our inner kittens connected and her eyes spoke the words: “I wonder…?”
This human person opened the cage, plunked down on the floor and placed me in her lap. Looking into her eyes, my front paws began to rock back and forth into her heavy wool coat. She stroked my back and began to hum,a-la Anne Murray, “You kneaded me, you kneaded me…” and then I was enfolded in her arms. I was called Wonder-ful, Wonder – her Wonder. I had found my human person and she knew my real name.
And so my happiest place on earth, to return to Belle’s question, is in the lap of my human in the purrrrrfect contentment of belonging. I have a human person to knead who needs me. And my HP’s happiest place? No doubt anywhere that I am. Wouldn’t she say that? I wonder….
The Naming of Cats
T.S. Eliot
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter–
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.