If yesterday was a whoop, today is a whisper.
If yesterday let it all hang out, today tucks in tight, pondering in its heart.
But let’s be real: the cats can’t choose not to tell the difference.
Even our most religiously observant felines will not be fasting this Ash Wednesday, to say nothing of feasty beasts like Cheela (“YOU SHALL CALL ME DIONYSUS”). While cats do have a certain sense of reverence, it does not follow our calendars, liturgical or otherwise.
But we lesser creatures need things like symbols and seasons, so we rope our residents into our rhythms. Kind of.
On Ash Wednesday, I need to repent. On utterly no Wednesday do cats need to repent. I need to remember my own mortality. We are already altogether too aware of cats’ mortality.
I would prefer not to focus on the fact that from dust they came, and to dust they shall return.
I would prefer to focus on the cats who are the color of dust, yet wildly alive to the tips of their whiskers.
Thus begins our annual adulation of the ashy:
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things”
– T.S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday”
…and Clarence, who is kind of intense
Wherever this Ash Wednesday finds you, remember that from love you came, and to love you shall return.
Adorable cat pictures. Actually laughed at the last caption! Yes, Ash Wednesday was a good time to show off some of the grey and soot splashed cats of Tabby’s Place. (Any day is a good day to show off the cats of Tabby’s Place.)