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Thursday, October 10, 2002Musicat
Cats have nine lives, but few know that each life has its own personality. For the past couple of days, JD has been wearing the musical one.
When I try to call him, he’s just like other cats; he looks at me and thinks, ‘Hell, no. You come here.’ But I recently learned that when I whistle, he comes to see what it’s about. Maybe he thinks it’s some kind of weird bird.
Last night, I found my old recorder, the baroque flute sort, not tape. When I started blowing through it to see how much I could remember about playing, J must have thought it the strangest bird yet and came running. He jumped onto the piano, where my music was propped, and started rubbing his face on the flute like he was pushing his way through his siblings to get to mama’s nipple. He wanted to make some music in the worst way. I couldn't play and laugh at the same time.
Then, I sat down at the piano and he jumped onto the bench beside me. That was strange because he never shows affection like that, or any other way.
Chopsticks fascinated him. He studied my hand as if it were some kind of lizard he had never seen before. When it was over, he looked at me, then back at the keyboard. He cautiously raised one of his Hemmingway paws and began to tap a key with it, jerking back when it finally made a sound. After a couple more trials with the same note, he looked back at me, obviously very pleased with himself. Satisfied that he, too, knew how to play, he jumped off the bench to go look for a real lizard.
He’s not up to Chopsticks yet, but it’s a start.
