There is a precisely tender line in Jackie Morris's heart-mending picture book of poetry where a snow bear holds a sleeping woman. Morris writes: "Curled close in the curves of creatures. She rests now. Warm." It's a dreamlike surrender to home, to safety. That which is familiar.

Alice Walker's literature, like her National Book Award-winning novel The Color Purple (1982), has always explored the power of familiarity, alienation, belonging, and betrayal. She explored the connection between people in excruciating hardship, our deep, resonant need for familiarity, and what it means—home, space, and safety. 

Walker's sweet words about her patient and humorous life with cats unexpectedly parallel her literature. She speaks of the maturity needed to reckon with their existence and the playful way they creep into and hold our hearts and make us feel home.

Purring, she stretches her considerable length - she is quite a big cat - and before falling asleep she always reaches up, with calm purpose, to touch my face. ‘Watch those claws,' I always say.” When it is bedtime I, pick her up, cuddle her, whisper what a sweet creature she is, how beautiful and wonderful, how lucky I am to have her in my life and that I will love her always.

That physical contact, in our space - cats! Their lithe movements, soft like lambs, with teeth and claws that cut. They chisel an opening with that single tail tip flip (you know the one) and wiggle into our souls. Their intimacies become ours. Whether cleaning or stretching, yawning, or pawing a space to sleep for the night, they are welcome in the sanctuary of our feelings. 

Inagaki Tomoo's "Cat Making Up" 1952. Inagaki was a self-taught Japanese artist who made numerous woodcut prints of cats when he was in his fifties. Learn more.

I saw a miniature ‘lion’ lying in the grass as I walked up the hill to my studio. I knew it was time to invite into my life another cat. My partner was skeptical, reminding me of my poor track record. That I was often on the road; that I can abide by only a certain amount of responsibility or noise. The yearning persisted. I was only too aware of my limitations and hesitated a year or more. I asked my daughter what she thought: was I mature enough to have this anticipated companion in my life? She thought yes.

Walker's beloved cat came to her through the thin membrane that barely separates the adult world from that of the child, eager to piece its divide, to write and to access the remote ancestors who speak across species. The animals around us, the cat familiar.

We woke her up and took her home. Alas, like Willis, Frida was afraid of everything, even of caresses. She jumped at the slightest noise. For months she ran and hid whenever anyone, including me, came into the house. Brushing her was difficult because she could not abide being firmly held. Her long hair became shaggy and full of burrs. The guests who tried to pet her were scurried from; to show her dislike of them, she pooped on their bed. Much of her day was spent on the top shelf of a remote closet, sleeping.

I named her Frida, after Frida Kahlo.

Alice Walker in 2015.

Nobel laureate and novelist Doris Lessing left her young children to pursue a writing career and, in later adulthood, often remarked on how the threatened absence of the family cat affected her waking days. Ironic but certainly possible for a cat is more a writer's companion than child. Walker equally realises the relationship with the cat is one of catch and release. Where we fall in their lives is not equal to where they are in ours, their demanded - and granted freedom - can be impossible for humans to fathom. They might leave and never return, every single night they might do this. We could never live like this with another human. And yet in cats we accept the relationship, while different, is strong and profound. 

Sometimes when I came home, she’d be hiding in the oak tree by the drive, or in the bay tree off the deck. If I brought anyone with me, she’d sit and watch us but never deign to appear. Sometimes when I returned, she’d simply cry. And cry and cry. It was a sound that went straight to my heart. And yet, this was my life. I thought perhaps Frida would one day simply get tired of it and leave me. She is very beautiful, very smart; I didn’t think it impossible that she would, on her own, find a more suitable home. There were also times, after cleaning poop off the rug or the guest bed, that I wanted to help her relocate. More time passed.

With any intimacy, there is a heaviness of loss, fear of loss. This is ultimately because there is a relationship with those that share home. A relationship that must be seen, nurtured, loved and tended. And with cat, with human, we find our own special, intimate, even humorous way to do that. 

Walker admits "We were the companion each of us had found, and I began to see that, in fact, we had a relationship."

Today Frida recognizes the sound of my car, a sluggish black Saab convertible that chugs up the hill to our house, and on whose warm cloth top she likes to sleep. When I approach our gate, after the long drive from the city. I see her huge yellow eyes staring out beneath it. By the time I am out of the car she is at my side, chatting away. She accompanies me into the house, asking for milk, and as soon as I’ve put my things away, she stretches out on the rug in anticipation of a cuddle and a brush. If I’m not into her yet, she understands, and goes back to her milk or, with a querulous complaint, ‘Where were you, anyhow? What took you so long?’ she claims her favourite spot on the couch – which is everybody else’s favorite too. When she sees me putting on boots and grabbing my walking stick, she leaps up, tail like a bushy flag, and beats me to the door.

I have had more than a few feline relationships. In memoriam, I contribute more posts about cats than any other living thing (although snails, and corvids feature prominently) For more from On Cats: An Anthology read Edward Gorey's outrageous tolerance for cat shenanigans, or curl into Ursula Le Guin's absolutely wonderful musings on what cats teach us about beauty.

Walker rejoices in her feline companion: "When it is bedtime I pick her up, cuddle her, whisper what a sweet creature she is, how beautiful and wonderful, how lucky I am to have her in my life and that I will love her always... In the morning when I wake up, she is already outside, quietly sitting on the railing, eyes closed, meditating."