Mixing It Up with “Joy”

I’ve been saving this photo of a cat (wheat pasted on a wall in Tio’tia:ke/Montréal) for one of those days when other people (usually not me) feel the necessity to post photos/videos of LOLcats or cute cats to chase away feelings. You know, those big feelings, like despair, depression, sorrow, or even plain-old weariness over how we humans treat each too often.

This cat gives me that complicated “joy” that maybe only another fellow rebel anarcha-queer Jew can understand, on this new month of 5779, called Adar (or actually two months in one, because the Jewish lunar calendar needs to play mouse with the moon every three years to catch up with it). “When Adar arrives, joy increases.” In February?!? In this fascistic, patriarchal, climate apocalyptic world of 2019?!? Joy, you say?!! No, not baby-kitten joy. But maybe a joy that is weather-worn; a joy found inside a messy-mix of emotions that one would never know without the messy-heartaches; a joy that has to be kept hidden, least one tempt fate that it will be taken away again by the dog-eat-dog world ever after you; a joy that one cannot separate from sorrow, because there is joy in sorrowful moments and moments of sorrow within joyful times; a joy, like all joys worth feeling, that is hard-won and ephemeral — all of which and more I read in this paper cat’s face.

No LOLs. Just another moon, another month, and another day when I wish I could curl up like a cat, dream sweet dreams, and make more of everyone’s pain go away.

#CatsAndCare #MutualMeows #AllCatsAreBeautiful

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