Cat Lady Musings Not for the Faint of Heart

Because Cat Ladies Have Some Things to Say

“I have had the privilege for nearly half a century of making films about the U.S., but I have also made films about us. That is to say, the two letter, lowercase, plural pronoun. All of the intimacy of "us" and also "we" and "our" and all of the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the U.S. And if I have learned anything over those years, it's that there's only us. There is no them. And whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life, that there's a them, run away. Othering is the simplistic binary way to make and identify enemies, but it is also the surest way to your own self imprisonment . . .”

— Ken Burns, 2024 graduation address at Brandeis University.

---

If you take a nap where the butter dish is within reach, your dreams will be all the sweeter.

Yes, those are my arms. More importantly, that is Little Stevie, the cat who runs our house. Sweet little guy, isn’t he? Funny picture, too. This would be the moment to tell you this post delves into some difficult and painful things. I need to do that before I get to my “one good thing.” If you don’t want to go through that journey with me, stop here and contemplate the picture of Little Stevie instead. Maybe he is all the one good thing you need right now. I will understand.

A couple of earlier posts established I am a cat lady. I am pretty sure I wrote at least one of those posts back before JD Vance turned “childless cat ladies” into an abusive epithet, which, in opposition, then spawned about a million cat lady jokes, memes, t-shirts, and even lawn signs. (Here’s that earlier post, if you are interested: (8) Last Burrito at 10 - by Sylvia Stocker - One Good Thing... (substack.com))

Actually, I am not a childless cat lady. I had one successful pregnancy, followed by three pregnancy losses, one of which was a simple miscarriage and two of which were serious, complicated, and life threatening. Were it not for the intervention of medical procedures no longer legal in some states (and, therefore, no longer even taught in some medical schools, as I understand it), I would be dead. I would have been the young woman bleeding out in the hospital parking lot, the young woman with sepsis. My son would have grown up without a mother. My husband would have soldiered on as a single parent. There is so much I, personally, and my family, collectively, would have missed.

The pain of those times has stirred within me these last weeks, as women — especially women who haven’t conformed to the “traditional” wife/mother trajectory some insist they follow — have been bearing a particular kind of hurtful focus. The “childless cat lady” insult. The false superiority evoked when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders smugly bragged, with no apparent awareness of incongruity or hypocrisy, that her children keep her humble.

Women aren’t the only recipients of invective and ill will, of course. Hateful attacks hurt immigrants in general and, at the moment, Haitians in particular. Vitriol continues to be heaped on LGBTQ+ people, with transgender people under particularly vicious assault.

And more. People of color. Indigenous people. Hispanic people. Asian people. Differently abled people. Jews. Muslims. Fat People. Women who never give birth to children. Adults who are not parents.

People with tattoos. People without tattoos. (Remember The Sneetches, one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books? “Now the star-bellied Sneetches had bellies with stars. But the plain-bellied Sneetches had none upon thars…” You can get the book out of the library, or you can watch a video of the story here: Bing Videos Leave it to Sylvester McMonkey McBean to teach us how ridiculous we are!)

It’s easy to point a finger at a certain group of people and proclaim, “them.” I lean in on women’s experiences in this blog post, because I am one. That’s where I feel this “othering” issue in a personal way. That’s where I can speak from experience.

When I heard Gov. Huckabee-Sanders speak, I was reminded of an exchange I had long, long ago at my child’s preschool when I was grieving my first pregnancy loss. One of the other mothers, who had three birth children, had just adopted a fourth. As I admired the new baby she held in her arms, I must have commented that I imagined her life must be very busy, caring for four young children. She fixed me with a gaze and answered, with all due seriousness (and complete insensitivity and disregard), “Mothers who have just one child are not real mothers.” No smile or chuckle. She wasn’t joking. She really meant it.

I am surprised my jaw didn’t shatter when it hit the floor. I backed away, dumbfounded. I wanted to weep then. I want to weep now.

Why the impulse to elevate oneself by putting someone else down? We hurt each other when we set certain groups apart and assign worthiness based on our own internal biases. We hurt each other when we call names and castigate others. We hurt each other when we make assumptions that put others down. I know it is an election year, and tempers flare as nerves get tested. But just as we have the capacity to behave badly, we also have the capacity to choose well and do good. That’s why Ken Burns’s words mean so much to me. He speaks the truth: “. . . [T]here's only us. There is no them.”

There is only us. There is no them.

Ken Burns tells us to run away the minute someone suggests there’s a “them.” Because we get to choose where to align our hearts. And because whoever suggests there is a “them” is lying. Whoever suggests such a thing is sowing the seeds of division and rancor. If we believe in some kind of false hierarchy of worthiness and goodness, we imprison ourselves in a cage of bars constructed with that rancor. We hurt each other, and we hurt ourselves.

Years ago, I heard a wonderful wisdom story that, to me, exemplifies the challenge before us and the beauty that can await us if we take up the challenge. Over the ensuing years, I am sure my mind has scrambled a lot of the story’s details, but the basic message endures.

A wise man gathered his students around him and asked them a simple question: “How can you tell when night has ended and morning has come?” The seeming simplicity of the question initially gave rise to answers focused on celestial events.

“Is it when the first light appears on the horizon?” asked one student.

“Is it when the sky starts to glow red?” asked another.

“Is it when you can see well enough to navigate without lighting your lamp?” yet another wondered.

“Is it when the morning star appears overhead?”

With each answer, the wise man gently shook his head. No. The students then turned to other potential cues.

“Is it when the first bird sings?”

“Is it when we hear village bell?”

“Is it when we are called to prayer?”

Some even turned to humor. “Is it when my dog starts licking my face to wake me up?”

“Is it when my cat stands on top of me to let me know he is hungry?”

The wise man smiled with each answer to his question, but he gently shook his head every time. No.

Eventually the students exhausted their ideas, and the room fell silent. Then the wise man spoke. “Morning comes when a stranger approaches you along the path and you see in the stranger’s face a brother, a sister, a sibling, a friend. Until that happens, darkness prevails.”

There is only us. There is no them. Here in America. In our neighborhoods and towns. In Springfield, Ohio. In every swing state. Even in Congress.

But also, in the Middle East. In Sudan. In Ukraine and Russia. In Congo, Haiti, Angola. In all the torn up, frightened, angry, weary parts of the world where human beings have chosen hatred, oppression, and division, have chosen to see enemies instead of brothers, sisters, siblings, friends.

Only us. No them.

That doesn’t mean we have to agree on every issue or even any issue. That’s not possible. And anyway, differing perspectives can often yield better, fairer, more sophisticated outcomes. But choosing to see there is only us does mean recognizing the humanity in every person we encounter. It means treating people with the respect they deserve and we would want for ourselves. It means remembering we are all orbiting on this planet together, none of us with the faintest clue of where things are going and how it will all end up, but all of us hoping for the best.

As Jewish sage Philo of Alexandria said, "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle."

Now, I have the same capacity to “other” people as anyone else has, and I often have to remind myself of the words I am writing here. Sometimes, the wider world brings me the reminder. That’s what happened this past week, and it’s my one good thing. You know the video of President Biden putting on a Trump hat? (See video here: Biden wears Trump hat as 9/11 unity gesture, says White House (bbc.com).)

The episode takes place in Pennsylvania at a 9/11 memorial event. President Biden, in a roomful of people, approaches a man wearing a Trump hat, and he offers him a presidential hat as an alternative.

“Will you sign it?” the man asks.

“Sure, I’ll sign it,” the President answers.

And in the moments while an aide brings the President a pen and the President writes his name on the inner brim of the hat, the two men engage in friendly, teasing, humorous banter, mostly about being old guys. Hat signed, the President hands it to the man and then says, “Now I need your hat.” In the end, President Biden briefly sets the Trump hat on his head.

Now some have claimed the video shows President Biden endorsing Trump. I don’t see that at all. Here’s what I see: two men who may not otherwise agree on much of anything endorsing humor, kindness, and connection. Two men laughing together and sharing a warm repartee, despite their many differences. Two men building a bridge together. Two men embracing — even if for just a few moments — a world of us, not them. Because, at the end of the day, all we have is each other.

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle," Philo said. Everyone means everyone. No them. Only us.

Love,

Sylvia