This week I've been looking after a friend's cat while she's been away. It's amazing how much you can learn just by spending a week with a kitten Not to mention how many challenges I had to overcome each day, possibly the greatest of all being tying my shoelaces in the morning! Of course I learnt a few tricks and developed some new skills to help me on my way, the most commonly used being the art of distraction. For whilst kittens are tenacious and abounding in energy, and despite being able to chase the same piece of string for hours on end, they have very little focus. In fact, with the slightest noise or movement, they will completely forget what it was that they were doing. Struggling to leave the house without them sneaking out too? Simple, just pick up their favorite toy, hurl it into the adjacent room as though it was a hand grenade and then sneak away like a ninja in the night whilst your cat is distracted.
As I watch this kitten chase it's tail whilst precariously balanced atop a scratching post I can't help wondering if I need to be more kitten or less kitten. I wonder if my own tendencies to get distracted by the slightest thing are preventing me from achieving the things I want to our are taking my time away from the people I care most about. And yet by equal measure I can't help admire something about her enthusiasm about everything. Perhaps I've lost something. Even the most plane and boring things seem full of joy to a kitten. Perhaps the mundane things in my life are only so because I fail to see the joy that are hidden within them?
