In an age of dubious news, it’s good to know you can always identify headlines not written by cats.
For instance: “Why does cheese give you nightmares?”
Even more chillingly: “Fifteen things making your home look outdated.”
Cats are constitutionally committed to the innocence of cheese, and they are prepared to prove it. (Flower is also prepared to pay you in bitcoin and/or head-bonks if you can locate an appropriate all-cheese Advent calendar, but I will let her contact you about that directly.)
But that commitment pales in comparison to another: the universal feline covenant with coziness. They did not invent fleece, but they coached it to its highest achievements. They have never designed a couch, but they have never scorned one.
Actually, that’s not true. Although they adore the Swedes for their meatballs, they consider IKEA an abomination. Why would any mammal choose clean, straight lines when overstuffed, plush-plump squish-seating exists?
Back to our point: why would anyone want their home to look “up-to-date”?
This is the question on Shelley’s mind as she surveys her realm. In the feline academy, she is the chancellor of cozy, the provost of plush. Do not move the beds. Do not inflict a new fabric where polar fleece belongs. Do not adjust the schedule, or re-choreograph the meals, or stop doing the dozen things you may not even realize you’re doing in a day.
Shelley loves her day, exactly as it is. Shelley loves her home at it’s homiest. Shelley loves her Gulliver and her Tux and all the furred furnishings of her heart’s chambers.
Shelley has called Tabby’s Place her home for nearly three years, and the less things change, the more she feels free.
Yes, “free” is the word. Like a trombonist who can only improvise when first given some notes on a page, Shelley can only live jazzily when the world has form and order. Routines don’t get stale; they form a golden patina over the years. Decor doesn’t get dated; it takes Shelley on a date with her own sense of safety.
Like all true sentimentalists, Shelley comes by her wistful ways honestly. Wandering the streets, every day was different, “exciting” with newness. There was no past to scoff over, no dorky home to snort at. No one could call Shelley’s old life humdrum or hokey.
Back then, no one called Shelley “mine.”
But then Shelley became a Tabby’s Place treasure, and the nostalgia began. You could see it in her eyes, syrupy with sentiment. Everything was exceedingly wonderful at all times. Everything made her a little emotional. No, a lot. Every memory was magnificent the moment it was made. Everyone was her favorite one.
Nothing and no one had better ever get “updated.” Shelley would not even countenance the concept. Shelley is still mourning the “update” that promoted her anam cara, Consetta, to heaven.
To Shelley, Tabby’s Place is the safest place on earth, and the safest place on earth can’t be out of date. Any visitor who says otherwise doesn’t know what it means to feel at home in the world.
To feel at home. The keys under my fingers sigh like grandmothers as I type those words. That’s what we’re all after, isn’t it, kittens? That’s why this time of year, when the trees grow thin and the memories grow thick, has us reaching for the cookie-crumbed hands of our child-selves.
That’s why the best ornaments and menorahs and sweaters and songs are the oldest. That’s why even the sharpest dive into the sleeping-bag of the sentimental every December.
That’s why cats think it’s a nightmare to wake up and find their world “updated.”
Every cat is a sentimentalist, a popcorn-garland of memory and habit. They are too warm to be cool.
They are too warm not to be the coolest creatures under the candelabra. (Baby will pay you in NFTs and/or laptime if you can procure a candelabra crafted entirely of cheddars. I will let him reach out to you directly.)
And even among our cool rulers, the Chancellor of Cozy is the warmest.
So have yourself a merry little Advent, rich in the adventure of the old. Shelley intends to light her wreath with the comfortable old faith, hope, joy, and love. (They happen to be named Gulliver, Tux, and Harvey.) She intends to entice you to her old kitchen table, piled high with the same old pies of 10am chin skritches and 4pm poultry nubbins.
She wants you to feel at home.
Tabby’s Place wants all its children to feel at home.
And maybe that starts with making our homes deliciously dated, transcendentally sentimental, shamelessly sweet.
Maybe it starts with heeding the feline headlines:
“Feeling all the feelings is excellent.”
“Celebrate your smushy-mushiness.”
“Old couches are gold couches.”
“THERE IS A FLUSHABILITY LAB THAT CREATES ‘FATBERGS.’ FATBERGS! I HAVE FOUND MY CAREER!” (Sorry, that one was Oram.)
“Make yourself at home. Make your home a haven. Make heaven lean down and kiss the earth.”
And for consideration in the next Paris Review: “Shelley loves you, you outdated, underrated little popcorn ball.”