Fergie enjoys being enjoyed.
So do I, when I’m honest.
You only get to be a Valentine when you’re honest.
Fergie must have been knit together by an exhilarated weaver. Happy hands selected yarn marled with all the shades of sunrise. They stuffed an honorable pumpkin head with philosophy, comedy, and the grace reserved for those who believe in themselves.
But they were so excited about this gift that they left out a few regulation earthling accoutrements.
They got distracted by Fergie’s music, and stopped after adding 57% of the standard-issue quantity of ears.
They fully failed to install the standard-issue ability to play it cool.
As a result, even in a sanctuary where one hundred fifteen cats tie for the title of Most Valuable Valentine, Fergie Rosenberg may receive the highest number of fuzzy hearts and fish nuggets in her mailbox.
Fergie will receive, because she asks. She asks because she believes in herself.
But she also believes herself, which is different and perhaps more important.
She believes herself when she glimpses her wobbling, wombat-shaped body in the solarium glass and says, “I behold a masterpiece of celestial splendor.” She believes herself when she curls in her cubby and says, “I am the dream.”
She believes much larger creatures when we knit our lives into hers. Even if we have kissed Fergie’s forehead a thousand times, dawn comes and we kiss her again, with the awe reserved for those who have just learned what kissing is for. Fergie lifts her head. “I deserve this. I am Fergie.”
The more we enjoy Fergie, the more Fergie enjoys life. The more Fergie asks, the more Fergie receives.
We do not trust this arithmetic outside Tabby’s Place. We would rather be lonely than needy. We would rather lose our inalienable right to nougat than ask the world to kiss our forehead. We are architects of our own igloos. We are dignified and dishonest.
Meanwhile, Fergie blazes every shade of bonfire. She burns the contract with cool. She openly exults in praise, cheese, and compliments. She wants to be our Valentine. She rolls in her solarium like the world’s noblest nutmeg nugget when she sees a heart unfurl its red carpet.
She has known pain, and it has singed off her doubt. Warming ourselves in her greedy presence, we forget. We forget that Fergie was the cat who arrived with a necrotic — literally, deceased — jawbone. We forget that saving Fergie’s life meant scorching her with treatments that were not for the faint of heart. We forget that Fergie lost 43% of her total ear assets somehow, and Fergie acquired FIV somehow, and somehow it all made her bolder and sunnier.
We forget, because we are still Valentines-in-progress.
Meanwhile, Fergie enjoys being enjoyed. She accepts affection as her birthright. When you slip into her suite and meet her musical eyes, you hear “I’ve been expecting you!” She nuzzles her entire head into the nougat of our love. Even when she tires of kisses, heeding the call to gallop laps around the solarium or accost a jingle ball, she gazes back frequently. “Are you watching? Are you as tickled by me as I am tickled by me? Are you enjoying this?”
She is honest enough to adore being adored.
Are we?
I know we’re enjoying Fergie. Fergie, incapable of keeping fondness under her hat (and wise enough to shun any attire that would hide the excellence of her ears), makes it clear that she is enjoying us. But are we enjoying being enjoyed?
Are we brave and lovely and little enough to ask and receive?
“Will you read my poetry?”
“Will you hug me tight?”
“Will you watch me do some rad wheelies on my unicycle?”
“Will you remember the way I sip my tea, and sign my name, and still point at the full moon after all these years?”
“Will you enjoy me?”
Ask, and you will receive.
You don’t even need a full supply of ears to hear.
On behalf of Fergie and the other 114 cats who are brave enough to want your love: Happy Valentine’s Day, kittens.