crying about it
This Week in Reading
From The Belly of the Cat
My dear friend Jenny, who now lives in Singapore, gave me this anthology of short stories about cats by Singaporean writers, and I just now got around to reading it. Singapore is a city that is also a country, and as far as I can tell from Jenny and Justin’s instagram accounts, it is overrun with stray cats.
My favorite story is titled “Laundromat,” by Amanda Lee Koe. It begins: “It started out as a 24-hour Laundromat, really, and then he saw from his little CCTV that the people in there lingered, wanting to talk to one another, wondering if they were both the same kind of lonely, but they were Asian and it was difficult.” The owner acquires two cats for his business and watches as people start staying longer at the laundromat, quietly beginning to make conversation as they pet the kitties together. In many of the stories, cats allow the characters to project their fears and desires upon them. As passive, primarily silent creatures, cats become whatever we need them to be, a place for us to pour our anxieties and affection.
Following each story is a brief author bio and a paragraph or two about the writer’s relationships with cats. The author of my favorite story wrote: “She had a collar and I understood she belonged to someone else. Even so, I’d thought I was special to Smoky, but one day I saw her with a Malay man and she was going through the same motions she would with me. What I thought was: She must have ten names, and she answers to them all.”
Cats are simple animals, generally appeased with a good rub or a dish of food, but are also impenetrable. We invite them into our domestic spaces, let them live with us for years, yet they remain a mystery.
My cat died yesterday. She was beautiful and stupid and I loved her very much.
Many of my friends have described to me how their pets act as a proxy for their families to show affection through. My family has never had a hard time saying I love you, but still, our cat became a vessel for our adoration. We would argue about which of us she loved more, each claiming that we were the only one she really loved. My cat would look on unfeelingly. Especially once I moved out of the house, Mittens (forgive me, I was eight and thought that naming a cat with white paws Mittens was clever) became the fixed point around which my parents’ domestic life orbited. My mother was fanatical about cleaning her ears, clipped her nails nearly every other day. “Mittens does not miss you at all,” they would tell me when I called home. “Nicole who?” The amount of grief three grown adults can feel over a creature with the IQ of a potato is remarkable.
No one tells you this when you get a cat! They tell you that cats are cute and fun and cuddly, but no one tells you that one day your cat is going to DIE and that you will be DEVASTATED.
I came home from work early today because I couldn’t hold it together and it is inadvisable to use power tools while crying. I made brownies from the emergency brownie mix I keep stashed in my cupboard. I finished this book of short stories about cats. My dad told me that she is in a better place now, but I can’t help but think that I would rather her be here.
Studio-ing
Advice for Crying, 2018
I have been crying a lot this year. Which is to say that I have been crying more than usual, because I always cry a lot. I have been crying about my cat and about a girl that hurt my feelings, and about wanting things I cannot have. I have been very sad these past few months in ways both specific and vague. There are ways of writing those reasons that sound less stupid, but no one wants to read a list of my miseries, and more importantly, I do not want to write it.
(things are fine)
People are often surprised when they find out that I cry a lot. I am surprised by their surprise because it seems like I cry constantly. But I suppose I can understand their confusion. I approach the world as a thinker, not a feeler. I am rational and measured and analytical, quick to reflect and synthesize and articulate. I let my brain make my decisions for me. I’m not quite sure what to do with my emotions-- they seem so disorderly and inefficient. I don’t give them much leeway in my day-to-day life. And then, my emotions unable to be expressed in any other way, I’ll burst into tears. I am not the most emotional person, but I am the weepiest. When I cry, cratered by my own sadness, the emotion that bubbles to the surface is bafflement. Where did these emotions come from? Who could have expected how deeply I could feel?
(things are fine)
I have always been like this. I was a placid, well-behaved child for the most part, who played quietly and followed rules. And then, with no prior warning, I would have a complete meltdown. My mom tells this story about taking me to swim lessons when I was little. The whole class lined up at the edge of the pool and jumped in. Except for me, who stood there and sobbed. She rushed to my side. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong," she asked, but I was too distraught to formulate a sentence. Eventually she realized that I was still wearing my flip-flops. “Do you want to take your shoes off?” she asked me. She carefully removed the sandals and immediately, I stopped crying and hopped into the pool. I am someone who has a tendency to snap. I am so fine, until I am not. I can’t imagine how terrifying that is to parent, to have no warning signs until everything is already on fire.
In many ways I feel like writing and crying are essentially the same thing. Both are forms of expression, a means of catharsis. They are both a way of making sense of our experiences, a way of communicating the way we feel. And they are both deeply embarrassing.
Writing, like running a start up, and playing the guitar, is a totally acceptable thing to do, but if you must, you should at least have the decency to feel abashed about it.
Writing and crying are both private moments. They are instances of personal vulnerability, but they manifest themselves in ways less private than where they originate. Isn’t writing, and crying, just a desperate plea for attention? Instead of keeping these feelings inside (where they belong), we have been compelled to project them outwards, into a display that can been seen and heard and read by a broader public. I used to never cry in public, instead locking myself in a bathroom until I was contained again. It is incredibly vulnerable to cry in the open, but also powerful. You are making everyone else so uncomfortable, and they just have to stand there and deal with you. Again, not unlike writing. They say you aren't a real New Yorker until you cry on the subway. Perhaps you don't really live in LA until you sob while driving on the highway. This year I have cried on the 101, on the 10, on the 5.
All the classic advice people give writers can be seamlessly applied to crying. Cry everyday! Cry about what you know! Cry even when you don’t feel like crying! I recently made a book of writing advice by famous authors where I crossed out every instance of the word “writing” and replaced it with crying. A few of my favorite quotes:
“I [cry] because in 1962 I put in my application for a job working in the children’s department at Sears, and they never called me back." -- Sue Grafton
“When I’m not [crying] I feel an awareness that something’s missing. If I go a long time, it becomes worse. I become depressed. There’s something vital that’s not happening. A certain damage starts to occur.” -- Jennifer Egan
Anyways, why would you cry when you could write? Why would you bother writing when you could just cry instead?
Further Reading
I am having trouble thinking of any other books about cats off the top of my head but a few of my favorite short story collections are Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans and Other People We Married by Emma Straub
p.s. my cat, who was the prettiest and fattest cat in the world