When we are small, people on stilts speak in shortcuts. They mean well. They know we face a world of bewilderments. They try to keep it bite sized.
Cats don’t bite.
Even the ones who do.
Alessia came into this world skeptical. She was not about to accept platitudes and pats on the head simply because they were offered with authority.
People say a lot of things to children and kittens. Alessia evaluated them all.
“There are plenty of fish in the sea.” Alessiaccuracy Rating: Positive. Growing up in Lebanon, she was close enough to the sea to smell a world of swimming edibles.
“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Alessiaccuracy Rating: Negative. Every good relationship requires honest, earnest communication. Teeth are fine implements of emotional intelligence.
“All good things must come to an end.” Alessiaccuracy Rating: Preposterous.
You might say Alessia has made a career of disproving this last “truism.” The pensive Beirut kitten grew into a snowstorm streaked with wildfire. She crossed the Atlantic, acquiring titles: Most Beautiful Cat in Two Hemispheres. World’s Preeminent Poultry Scholar.
Truth-Teller of a Thousand Teeth.
We were warned of Alessia’s aggression. We were theoretically prepared. We have exquisite, extensive experience with cats who bite, and shred, and speak exclusively in Samuel L. Jackson dialogue.
We were disarmed on impact.
Alessia is a Disney princess. Alessia is beauty, multiplied by enchantment. Alessia is the Sugar Plum Fairy dressed as Galadriel. Alessia is a wedding cake of white chocolate majesty.
Alessia is happily married to her ego and her sharp implements.
Alessia attacked, and we did what we do. We empathized. We let our tears fall in fat, foolish drops on her storybook.
After all, she had been a mother once. She had defended her kittens from a vicious attack by street dogs, surviving serious injuries. She had survived flight and fright and nights when she didn’t know which side of the Atlantic she was on.
She had known moments of transcendence and turkey pate. She had nuzzled her nursing kittens, and then they had left her.
She must have wondered if all her joy was behind her. She must have wondered if her life had front-loaded all its hope. She must have wept into the rear-view mirror, wondering if the days ahead were painted solid bleak.
We said all of this, and Alessia said, “you must be joking.”
And then she bit us. Repeatedly.
She went on atomic rampages through Suite E, pretending every living cat was a shrimp in need of kebab-bing. She moved into our Adoptions Team’s office for gentle socialization, then rearranged the letters of the word “gentle” until they somehow read “I Am Genghis Khan.”
She rolled snow and fire across laps and laptops and delighted in delicate affection. She pressed her pristine face against our foreheads and melted into a Psalm. She loved her life with every fiber of her being, which is saying a lot, given her galumphing hordes of fibers.
She took us in her teeth, and took us where she lives.
Alessia lives in the exact instant we are experiencing now — no, now — no, now.
Alessia retains the title to every single good thing that has ever happened to her. None of them have come to an end. All of them fit inside today. All of them make her the most beautiful, baffling cat ever to love her life.
Which she does, even when impersonating severe weather.
She does, even when melting into a river of happy whey.
She does, even when she does not know what she is doing, other than doing what feels right in the moment.
All good things snowball into more good things. Sometimes they pick up heartbreaking things along the way. But the snowball rolls. The sum total of beauty grows.
The loveliest cat knows: you just have to take life by the teeth.
“Someday you will find the ones who cherish you exactly as you are.” Alessiaccuracy Rating: True as love.