In This Corner, Weighing Four Pounds

It’s an epic battle, high stakes and hard-fought, with a suspenseful and surprising outcome.

In this corner, weighing four pounds and change, is our new kitty.  Her name’s Pebbles, since we already have a Bam-Bam.  She’s a tortoise-shell (black, brown and ginger) with two light feet and two dark feet, and a face like speckled midnight.  She runs so fast she’s nearly invisible, like a black, brown and ginger blur.  Our other cats are terrified of her, despite being triple her size, because Pebbles will attack anyone and anything without provocation, like a little furry Vladimir Putin.  (Is that funny?  I can never tell.)

In the other corner…well, it’s hard to explain.

Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall was not originally called Annie Hall.  The original title was Anhedonia, which we can all agree is a terrible title, and it focused not on Diane Keaton but on Woody’s mental state.  Because Woody (prior to Diane’s influence) had reached a state where all the fun, all the joy, all the meaning had drained out of his life, making it impossible to experience happiness.  Hence the name, Anhedonia, derived from the Greek an- (without) and hëdonë(pleasure).  Woody changed the focus of the film to his relationship with ultra-preppy Annie Hall, making a much lighter and more watchable film, but its original darker focus struck a chord with me.

Anyone prone to depression knows this feeling – the sense that nothing is new, nothing’s exciting, everything’s old and familiar and drudgingly tedious.  You reach an age where you’re closer to the end than the beginning, when that once-sprawling canvas of infinite possibility now has an endpoint, when the totality of personal experience will simply stop, with every ambition fulfilled or denied but none changing, ever again.  Maybe there’s an afterlife or maybe not, but at some point this one will grind to a halt.

It’s the difference between knowing you’ll die and feeling you’ll die, and that threshold once crossed isn’t easily uncrossed.

Until a four-pound contender steps up to dispute that.

Pebbles the cat knows no depression.  Pebbles the cat finds nothing boring.  Pebbles views everything with a wide-eyed sense of discovery and wonder, a constant series of hunt-and-pounce opportunities.  No rodents or insects to track down?  No worries, she’ll find substitutes.  Buttons, wrappers, twist-ties, scraps of paper, anything that moves or seems to move becomes a target for her hunter’s instinct.

I don’t share Pebbles’ desire to attack whatever she finds, viewing the entire planet as prey.  But I admire her commitment to exploring her environment, poking her nose into every odd crevice just to see what’s there.  Of course, she’s had only five months to find her way on this planet, while I’ve had sixty-nine years.  Still, watching her gallop and swerve and leap and pounce evokes a joie de vie that I’d nearly forgotten.

Because here’s the thing: I haven’t seen it all.  No one has.  This world is so rich and diverse, so rife with the chance of jaw-drop discovery, that consigning everything to the realm of the familiar seems shortsighted, a reductionist fallacy.  I’m bored so everyone else should be doesn’t follow, the fault isn’t with the Earth but with me.

They say depressed people have an accurate view of the world, while the optimistic see through rose-colored lenses.  But now – thanks to a four-footed mammal chasing a crumpled paper napkin – I’m wondering if the opposite is true, that the farthest-seeing among us are the cheeriest, the most open to joyful discovery.  You can be happy without self-delusion, just by seeing things as they really are – or could be.

A revelation, from a critter I can carry in one hand.

Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, also suffered from depression, but he didn’t let it rule him.  In an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross shortly before his death, Sendak offered this advice: “Live your life, live your life, live your life!”  Something kittens don’t need to be told, though some of us could use a refresher.

Thanks, Pebbles.  I salute your feline wisdom.

Who wants some Fancy Feast?