From time to time, I sit on my couch reading a book or listening to Northern Public Radio. Every now and then my cat jumps into my lap and nestles there.
You may think she’s looking for a warm place to snuggle. You’d be wrong. She is acknowledging my superb intelligence and extreme good looks.
However, most of the time she does not jump into my lap. Most of the time she ignores me. On occasion she will bite my hand -- not hard -- but just enough to let me know that she is indeed a cousin to tigers and lions.
You see, my cat teaches me everything I need to know about life. When she leaps into my lap in order to compliment me, she reveals that, every now and then, life -- when you least expect it -- will pay you some tribute. But most of the time, life just ignores you, just as she does when she remains implacably passive about my mere existence.
And then sometimes life can become, unexpectedly, catastrophic. My cat hasn’t bitten me hard -- not yet anyhow. One of these days she may get around to it. Meanwhile, I live for those moments when she praises me.
I’ve learned to love those moments, and find that I love them all the more because I don’t expect them or seek them out.
So life is occasionally good, mostly meh, and sometimes disastrous.
I’m Tom McBride, and that’s meow Perspective.