Maybe Bella needs us to listen because she’s used to being “beautiful.”
Maybe Bella listens so well because she really is beautiful.
Certain expectations attach to a name like “Bella.”
There is a reason she was not called “Volcano,” or “Brunhilde,” or “The Nuclear Nougat.” She may have preferred any of those names, but someone said “Bella,” and her ears have had to accept it ever since.
Bella maintains an uneasy peace with her predicament. She rolls her eyes at the song “Imagine.” If you make her a flower crown, she will eat it. She has a sweet tooth for reality. She never asked to be a roving Renoir.
She thinks her beauty is the least interesting thing about her.
We learned many things about Bella when she came to Tabby’s Place. She had a reputation for sinking her teeth into life and limbs. She was exasperated with cats, and enraged by the specific sound of speakerphone conversation. (I am not making this up. Bella has no appetite for allegory.)
She had been left behind like an Art History 101 textbook. Her fairy-tale locks and her emerald eyes could not save her from sadness.
But Bella has never put much stock in mere beauty.
Tabby’s Place is the studio where every cat gets to admire her own self-portrait. No sharp edges shock us here. You cannot lose a love that is not based on “beautiful” behavior.
It takes time to trust this. Leery that she would once again lose her loveliness, Bella glopped giclee grievances all over the canvas. She was angry. She was anxious. She had a lot to tell us.
Tabby’s Place is the Louvre of listeners.
Bella’s doting curators gathered her needs into a gallery. Trained, tender staff painted with environmental enrichment and fine-tuned medication. There were motorized toys and salmon stars.
Bella examined forearms etched by her own claws, still reaching for her in love. This time, her anger would not sketch a roadmap to rejection.
This time, Bella would be both seen and heard.
In every museum, there are certain works of art so precious, they must be displayed without distractions. One will not find the Mona Lisa jammed between dioramas of Blake Shelton. The Pieta is not tucked among watercolors of wombats.
Bella deserved our undivided attention.
At Tabby’s Place, the abstract art of anxiety is material for a masterpiece. We have an entire Behavior Team tasked with leaning in close until our cats tell us what they need.
At Tabby’s Place, love is always listening, no matter what the situation looks like.
Bella could see that she was no longer simply seen. She heard her needs land safely in our ears. She saw her full fresco in the light of un-loseable love.
She raised her sights and lowered her guard.
She became safe enough to be truly beautiful.
Bella was right all along. Her “beauty” is boring. She is fully alive under all that pretty plush. And now that love hangs on her every word, she can reveal her real loveliness.
Bella, it turns out, is one of the best listeners at Tabby’s Place.
There’s a reason she has no patience for the speakerphone. Bella wants you present, with all your pimples and powers. She wants your fingers under her chin, and your voice within earshot.
Her emeralds illuminate when you confess the kerfuffle with your neighbor, or the fear that you are getting too old to be an elite gymnast. She will not be distracted by the dragonfly on the windowsill, or her unfinished manifesto on Bellacentrism as a political philosophy.
She will look you in the eyes until she hears everything you want to tell her, and then some.
She will not look away because you are lopsided, or loud, or quiet, or on a quest that you can’t tell anyone about yet.
Bella, lovely and bellicose, is here to hear and be heard.
She is absolutely beautiful after all.