By Samantha Ducloux Waltz
Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
~Robertson Davies
Nothing motivates a writer like an accountability partner. Right now, mine sits on my desk two feet from my elbow. From her spot, she has a lovely view out my office window to woods across the street. The sun gleams on her black fur, and I pause in my writing to admire her.
"Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?" I ask Naomi.
She blinks her round yellow eyes. "Meow," she says, which might mean "certainly," but more likely, "Get back to your writing." Or maybe, "Finish that story so you can read it to me."
Naomi, as foreman of our morning routine, is a harsh taskmaster. When the first summer light slips through the vertical blinds of the bedroom, she pads up my chest and presses her nose to mine. Never mind what time I got to bed the night before. "Mrrow."
I open one eye. I've been known, after a particularly late night, to tell her, "Not now, Naomi."
She answers by leaping off the bed and playing with her toys in a shoebox nearby for two or three minutes, jangling bells and scratching cardboard boxes. Then she springs back up. "Rrrrrrrow," she insists in her raspy voice.
I snake one hand out from under the covers, and stroke her cheeks and the length of her back. This is my miracle kitty, seventeen years old and an eighteen-month cancer survivor. I can't possibly be cross with her. "Okay," I murmur, slip out of bed and tie on my robe.
"Meow, meow, meow." Naomi runs down the hall to stand outside my office door.
"Can I brush my teeth first?"
"Rrrrrow." Evidently not. Naomi stalks through the door and over to my desk. She's a drill sergeant disguised as a seven-pound feline. She's also right. The house will be quiet for another hour or two before my retired husband gets up. It's a perfect time to work on the story circling in my head.
I sit at my computer, and she leaps up to the water and food bowls I've put to my right. With a different accountability partner, one might offer coffee and donuts. My gift to her is an unlimited supply of kibbles and fresh water.
I'm tempted to start with e-mails. You know, warm up the brain. She glances at my computer. Can she actually see my inbox? She paces the length of my desk. "Meow, meow," she scolds in her imitation Siamese cat voice.
"You're a slave driver, you know." I stroke her silky cheeks. She's such a smart cat. I can do e-mails along with laundry when my husband is up. He'll be offering to make oatmeal, wanting to review plans for the day, suggesting a walk or a hike. Now is my opportunity for uninterrupted writing time.
When I am steadily working, Naomi jumps from the desk and takes up residence on the heater grate. Understandable. It's one of those damp, gray mornings in Portland. I've worked fifteen minutes when she gets up, arches her back in a cat pose perfect for a yoga calendar, and settles into the empty file-folder box near my chair. A few weeks earlier, I'd used the last of the folders and set aside the box for recycling. Naomi stepped delicately into it and snuggled down. The box is hers now. She especially favors it for morning naps.
She turns her head lazily toward me. "Meow," she says. I think she means, "Isn't this nice? You working away, me keeping you on track?"
It is nice. The ideas come easily, and my fingers dance on the keyboard for an hour. Then a story that started out charming turns into drivel. I'm not sure what to do next. Rethink the plot? Add a bit of spicy dialogue? "This is so not working," I tell Naomi, stretching my arms in front of me, fingers curled together.
She lifts her head to look at me. I see no sympathy in her eyes.
"I need a break," I tell her and head into the kitchen. Maybe if I spend a few minutes with the newspaper and a cup of tea, ideas will come to me.
As quickly as I'm out of my chair, Naomi is out of her box. She scolds me with a haughty flick of her tail and walks from the room. The word "quitter" reverberates in the air.
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"I'm only going to take five minutes," I call over my shoulder as I retrieve the newspaper. I plug in the electric teakettle, spread the newspaper on the dining-room table, and open it to the crossword puzzle. Naomi sits alert on a chair beside me. "Every writer should do crossword puzzles," I explain to her. "Keeps the mind sharp."
"Rrrrrrr." She flattens her ears.
"What a commando." I fill in a couple of words that quickly come to mind, then abruptly hit a snag. I look at Naomi. "8 across, 'carries things too far.' What do you think? 'Provokes'? That isn't quite right. 'Exaggerates'? Too many letters. 'Overdo'?"
"Mrrrow." She isn't helpful.
"I'm going with 'overdo.'" As I'm penciling in the word, Naomi leaps on the table and walks onto the paper, crinkling it with every step. She sits squarely on the crossword puzzle and lifts one hind leg to begin her morning ablutions.
"I had three more minutes to relax." There's a slight whine in my voice.
She lifts her other hind leg and continues to clean herself.
I think of the advice a writing teacher gave me in a workshop recently. "When you hit an obstacle, stay with it. The bigger the obstacle, the greater the triumph. Stay with it, and you'll get a major breakthrough."
He didn't mean a blank in a crossword puzzle. He meant that issue I'm having with my story. "Okay, sweetie. You win." I sigh and chuck Naomi under her chin, take my cup of tea, and return to my office and my story. If Naomi can fight cancer, I can fight writer's block.
She follows me in and jumps on my desk with a throaty whir. "This is where we belong, isn't it?" she seems to say.
"Here's to a major breakthrough. And to the world's best accountability partner." I lift my teacup to her and catch her eye.
She stretches out a paw, softly touches my forearm, and purrs her agreement.
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