Speaker 1: This is pet Life Radio. Let's Talk pets.
Speaker 2: Hello, feline friends, Welcome to Katatude. I'm your show host,
Michelle Burn and today I have an amazing author who's
going to share her book with us, and I am
just very excited to have her on. It's a memoir
and I think all of us with cats can relate
to this book. We'll be right back.
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and helping community cats thrive. Give Them Ten is working
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Meet Scooter the Neoter Cat, and join the movement at
Give Them ten dot org.
Speaker 4: Let's talk pets on Petlifradio dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Louise Watts. She
is the author of Slow Blink, a memoir. Louise, welcome
the cautitude.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much, Michelle. That was a lovely introduction.
Speaker 2: Well, it's lovely to have you. I love your accent,
so you're worldly. So we were talking a bit before
the show, you're Australian, you're based in Portugal, you've lived
in the US. Do you find cats different in places
you've lived or they're pretty much all the same.
Speaker 5: You know, here in Portugal, well, particularly Lisbon where I live,
you never see them on the streets. They're indoors. And
probably the reason they're not on the streets so because
the streets are crazy, the traffic is crazy, the streets
are tiny and windy and cobblestones, so you know, presumably
people keep them indoors because they're safest. Whereas in the US,
of course they lived in Colorado, cats were indoor, outdoor
in the winter, mostly indoor. In Australia it's quite different
now because cats have decimated our bird life and Australians
are very into their environment now wildlife and now flora
and faunath So there are rules now about keeping your
cats indoors, and if they're outdoors, they need to wear
a bell around their neck so that they alert the
birds that they're coming, which you know, I think I
think is a good thing.
Speaker 2: You need to love that a goosebumps didn't know Australia
are so just did something. I think they stopped declining
nationwide or they did something nationwide, but I can't recall
what it is.
Speaker 5: You mean regarding cats.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 5: Michelle, but the one thing I'm very aware of is
the bells around next and the preference is that you
keep your cats in doors.
Speaker 2: I agree. I agree. I live in a warm climate
and my cats are indoors. They have a cadio, but
they could decide if they want to go in or out.
In some areas that's more rural, yeah, they could be outside.
But mostly I say keep them indoors. Okay, Yeah, so
let's talk about slow blink. Okay, first, I'm so curious
what made you decide to write the memoir? What inspired you?
Speaker 5: It sat with me for thirty five years, this story
because it happened when I was probably around thirty I'm
sixty six now, when I was nearly married, living in
Boulder and color and this stray cat lived on the
premises of the townhouse complex where we lived. And the
story really happened over the course of about a year,
and it was quite extraordinary for me. And I'll fast
forward and say that it was quite magical, mystical, otherworldly.
Several of the experiences I had with this, with this
feral cat, so much so that when I shared some
of the things that had happened, people didn't believe me.
And when people don't believe you about mystical experiences that
you have, you tend to sort of shut down or
keep quiet about it, particularly back then that was nineteen
the late eighties, I think the late eighties, and as
a young person, as a thirty year old, perhaps I
still didn't have the kind of all the voice that
I have now, and so I just shuddered away. I
put the story away, the whole experience away. I did
actually initially write it on little Q cards, because that's
sort of what you did in those days as a writer.
If you had ideas, you journaled them or you put
them on que cards. And I kept those que cards
for years, even moving countries, and then finally at some
point I let them go. I let those que cards go,
but the story never left me. And I moved apartments
two and a half years ago. I used to live
out on the coast, and I decided, well, I'm going
to move into Lisbon and have a city experience. And
when I did that, I wasn't particularly comfortable in the
apartment in which I moved to. So I thought, I
really have to get into a creative project. I've got
to do some writing because that's what I tend to do.
And the story came back to me. And as happens,
I think sometimes just synchronous events occur and you feel compelled,
you pull off and experience perhaps that you put away
and do something with it. And that's what happened. Was
actually a movie I saw. It was the twenty twenty
five animated movie that won the Academy Award called Flow,
and it was about a black cat that goes through
some pretty harrowing experiences and because of its cross species
connections with other animals, it manages to survive a cataclysm.
And it was almost like I was seeing Archie, this
stray cat that had come into my life thirty five
years ago, on the big screen. And so that was
the synchronous event. Yeah. I came out of the movie
theater thinking it's time to write the story. So I
just sat down and I wrote it in about six months.
Speaker 2: That is quite a story about your story. Wow. Yeah,
I think times have changed. I don't know if times
have changed. I'm one of these people that I think
things happen sometimes that are unexplainable and coming from I
have my definitely have my left brain experience because I
have two business degrees, so you am. You know, in
grad school we actually had a class about a shaman
and crystals because you need to sometimes think differently than
you do. You know, you have to think open your mind,
and I think that's one thing cats do to us.
They make us open our mind. We don't have a choice.
With dogs, you don't have to be I don't think
and I'm a dog person too, I'm both. But you know,
dogs friendly pet on the nothing's gonna happen. Cats you
have to know them, yes, have that understanding with them.
You have to get them. Tell us about the straight
black cat that is the hero of the story.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, as I said, he appeared in the town
home complex where my husband and I lived, and he
was probably about two years old at this point. He
was in pretty good condition. He was living out of
the dumpster. Boss him and when I would come home
from work, I would approach her and approach him. He
wasn't He was very skittish, so he would sort of
run off, but I would always just say Hi kitty,
and I was always curious about where he was from.
Perhaps he lived close by, but increasingly I was aware
that he was always around the dumpster in the town
home complex. But there was a day when I was
upstairs working from home, and we had a balcony that
was abutting the upstairs one of the upstairs bedrooms, and
I was just at my desk, working away, and suddenly
there he was staring at me through the sliding glass door,
and I stared back at him, and we had this
moment where I realized he was just as curious about
me as I was about him. He was watching me,
and you know, I felt that he had sensed where
I was in the apartment because he had to climb
an apple tree in our front yard to get up
and jump over the balcony railing to be able to
stare in that glass door. And this was the this
was our first kind of close encounter. So that was
the beginning. That was the beginning of something.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's that's unusual for a feral cat. Having
had two very unusual Let's talk about the title. So
the title slow Blink has a special meaning. Can you
share that with our audience? Because not everybody knows about
cats and blinking.
Speaker 5: Really really well. That's interesting because back then I didn't either.
Of course, there was no internet, but I was very
aware that this cat would communicate with me lea slow blinks. So,
for instance, I was very chatty with him always in
order to try and you know, filled some kind of
friendship with him. He still wouldn't let me get close,
so I would sort of just talk to him.
Speaker 2: Did you know that cats? And I've heard this a
few times, so if I'm wrong, someone will send me
an email. But I've heard numerous places that when cats
me out, it's not so much for other cats, it's
for the humans. Yes, yes, so when you stay talking
to your cat, I said, yeah, it makes perfect sense,
because that's how they don't really mew for other cats.
It's for I mean, maybe in fights or something, but
that'll be more of a yal, But mostly when they're
mewing or telling us doing something, that's to tell us
do something for me whatever they're you know, willing to
figure out what they're doing.
Speaker 5: Yes, And I've actually since learned. Actually writing the book,
I did a little bit more research about feline communication
and feral cats don't me ow. They don't tend to
me out. They learn it from people. So you know,
once they become more domesticated, if you like, perhaps they're
spending more time with us and we're communicating with them
and talking. That is one of the ways they begin
to communicate with us. They meow, and of course they
do tell us in their meowing what it is that
they want. But the slow blink is similar. And again
I didn't know that this was part of feline communication
back then, but when I would chat away to Archie,
he would perhaps sit and he would just do this
very slow blink was almost as though it was a
blink in slow motion, and it was always so endearing.
It was just so sweet. And I've since learned that
feline behaviorist animal behaviorists understand this slow blinking as the
cat's way or their gesture of showing the trust and love.
So that's just so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it is too. When I first found
that out. My most stoic cat is Molly, so I
would look at her and tried doing blinks. Sometimes she
all blink back. It depends on the mood. It's worth
getting better we know each other. After ten years a
little better than we used to. Let's talk about also, now,
this barrel cat is black. I had shows on black cats,
several shows. I've heard about the Black Velvet Club, which
I don't know if that's just for dogs. When I adopted,
I saw there was a picture of a dog. But
that's for dogs, I believe, and cats, for some reason,
they're not adopted as much. Everyone that I've adopted. All
my dogs were black with markings. And Molly's tuxedo, well
she adopted us. What do you think is interesting about
this era of mystique or sometimes you know, there's a
lot of superstitions about black cats. Did that, you know,
deter you or have any Did you have any part
about that when you were, you know, communicating with their
barrel cat?
Speaker 5: No, not at all. I thought he was absolutely beautiful
because his coat was just raven black and he had
just exquisite green eyes. There's a picture of him on
the front cover. He's looking a little bit annoyed with
me because I was up close trying to take a
photo of him. But this superstition around black cats I
do find disturbing, and I do wonder if it's because
we associate the color black with the dark, with the night, danger,
the unknown, perhaps what lies beneath the surface of life,
and so perhaps it's association with the deep or the
mysterious parts of life and our existence simply yeah that
we can't see or fully rationalize that that causes or
generates some kind of mystique around them around black cats.
From a cultural perspective, sort of alluded to that too.
The black hats have been associated with the supernatural across
many cultures. In ancient Egypt, they were revered and harming
one was illegal. Killing a cat was punishable by death. Unbelieve.
In the Celtic tradition, the black cat arriving at your
home was a sign of prosperity. But in medieval Europe,
for instance, they became associated with witchcraft and the occult.
And I think that's one that particularly has infiltrated our
I don't know our psyche as somewhat damaging.
Speaker 2: In fact, I absolutely agree we need to take a
short break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 5: Talk to the par hid Amy Suing.
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Speaker 5: Hi.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. We're talking to Louise Watts. She is
the author of Slow Blink, a memoir. So, Louise, I
want to ask you about this. Your book is about
several things. I mean, it's about loss, it's about grief.
It's about loving something that you can't keep. I mean
a lot of people have experienced this, and I know
it's two different things. Grief, well maybe intertwine a little,
and then loving something you can keep. What do you
hope readers take away from your story that relates to
those feelings.
Speaker 5: Well, I think one of the things that I kind
of conclude the book with is this designed that love
doesn't end when letting go begins. It simply changes form.
And the grief is not linear. It doesn't follow a
tidy arc from loss to acceptance. It circles back, as
in my case, it ambushes you years later, and it
hides inside other losses, which I think I sort of
try and weave that through this story. You know, writing
Slow Blink thirty five years after Archie died, taught me
that grief has its own timing and that unprocessed grief
waits until we're ready to process it to meet it. Also,
animals give us permission to grieve. There's still a cultural
tendency to minimize the loss of an animal. It was
just a cat, which I know some people have thought
when I have shared something of archie story with them,
and this kind of really feels or leaves you feeling
isolated in your grief. And I hope Slow Blink gives
read permission to take their grief seriously and to honor
the depth of what they felt the connection they had
with their kiddy, because the bond was real and the
loss is real. So I suppose I hope readers take
away that your grief for your cat is not small,
it's not embarrassing. It's the resonance of something profound that
happened between two creatures some very different worlds who sound
each other.
Speaker 2: That's an amazing way to put it. That's how I
got amazing. Now, did you adopt other cats after Archie?
Speaker 5: You know, Michelle, I didn't. This also might sound I
don't know odd or not bizarre, but I loved him
so much, so profoundly, that when I lost him, I
thought I could never never have another cat. The pain
was just too great, and he was soul and so unusual,
and the experience was so otherworldly. I felt it surpassed
what I could ever give another cat. Now something is shifting.
I mean, thirty five years later, a lot has happened,
and I still have a sense that our chie is
around me, and I do think one day, yes, I'll
open my heart to another cat, because every now and
then I encounter friends cats and I just love them
so much. I think, Oh, I think I'm almost ready
for another one.
Speaker 2: Well, we each have our time, you know, we we do.
We do some people, you know, we need to adopt
right away. Some people just can never do another. That's
their cats, all made for life. Yeah, I don't know.
Mine find me, So I don't know what to say
about that one.
Speaker 5: Well, they do. I think that's one of the mysterious
things about cats is that they find us.
Speaker 2: Why do you think they do that? Is it food?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: How do the cats? I live in a warm climate,
so there are sometimes other cats and so forth. I
wonder how they know this is the house that will
feed you when there's just a we do have a
water fountain outside just for cats. Is that the giveaway?
Do they just know who to go to?
Speaker 5: No? I think that there might be something to that,
and of course the rational side of me always feels like, oh,
they're very much food driven. And as I understand it,
cats came out of Africa, that domestic cats are still
genetically are very much connected to wild cats of Africa,
and as communities and civilizations encroached on their space, they
sort of lived at the periphery, and of course living
on the periphery of villages, towns, cities that had access
to food. So it may well have been very food driven.
But of course, as all your listeners will know who
have cats, they're very independent and they have maintained that
sort of I don't know, African war wildness about them,
that African wild cap quality about them in their independence,
and so yes, perhaps there's an element of them being
food driven. But I think also over eons they've learned
that human companionship probably offers them more than food, and
I don't know what that is because there's something very
unknowable about cats again, and coming back to this idea,
there's something quite mysterious about them. I seem to sort
of observe and watch us, but from a very detached place,
unless they're ready to be stroked or comforted.
Speaker 2: Yes, in a way, I think that's smart, their way
of saying, leave me alone when they want you, I'll
let me know, let you know, I'll know exactly. That's
actually smart. Too bad that you're humans. We can really
do that sometimes. So what do you hope that readers
when they read Slow Blink take away from your book?
Speaker 5: I really do think it's as simple as love person,
even when we must let go, there's solace in this
persistence of having loved. However fleeting and how ever inexplicable
that connection is. It doesn't die with with the body.
It continues, and so in times of loss, I think
we can draw on that, and I think that that's
what I wish for for readers of Slow Blink.
Speaker 2: And what would you tell readers that read your book
and listening to you thinking about adopting a cat? You
know some people can hear how you know about you know,
with everything, there's joy and grief, there's there's happy. You
know there's contrasts. So for somebody reading and listening to
you saying, oh, I want to adopt a cat, but
it'll be hard if something happens, or you know, what
would you say to those listeners, Oh gosh.
Speaker 5: I think if you're drawn to caring for an animal,
go to a shelter, visit with the cats, see if
there's a particular cat that you're drawn to that's drawn
to you. I think, make genuine inquiries at the shelter
about what's involved in caring for a shelter cat, because
oftentimes I can be traumatized. They might have been abandoned,
they might have been abused, and there's a responsibility in
caring for a cap from a shelter. And I think, personally,
this is just my personal feeling that it's important that
we understand the responsibility of care, and so I think
just make inquiries. Open your heart and make inquiries. Go
to a shelter and investigate.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Luis. Where can our listeners find
your book Slow Blink a memoir?
Speaker 5: It is on Amazon That is actually the only place
that it's available for purchase. So you would just go
to Amazon and put in slow Blink a memoir by
Louise Ross, and it's all so available long kindle. So
that's the soft cover, all the paperback and the kindle version.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you so much again for coming on Catitude
and sharing your story with us and telling us more
about Slow Blink a Memoir.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Michelle.
Speaker 2: I hope everyone enjoyed the book again. It is called
slow Blink, a Memoir by Louise Ross. Thank you for
listening to our show today. I want to thank my
cat crew, Dennis, Charlotte and Mollie who I've had slow
blinks with all of them at one time or another,
mostly Dennis and Mollie. Thank you to my listeners of Catatude,
I appreciate you so much again. Thanks to my guest,
the author Louise Ross. Thank you, of course to my
amazing producer Mark Winter for all you do. He works
his magic and makes every shallow sound amazing. And always remember,
lose the attitude, have Catitude.
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