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