21

Eso Es Mojo

STANDING ON THAT stage in Buenos Aires a few years ago, slowly realizing that nobody knew what the hell I was talking about, I vaguely remember poking my head above the smog of my public speaking nightmare to think to myself, “I should write a book about Cat Mojo. That might keep me out of this kind of trouble, at least.”

Whether it comes to Saturday Night Fever or your beloved Mojito Cat, hopefully you now got the mojo in you—and in your cat. I also hope that your number of “aha!” moments far outweigh the “WTF?!” moments. Along with that turnaround comes the banishment of words like “randomly,” phrases like “out of nowhere” to describe your cat’s behavior, and misguided anthropomorphisms about your cat hating you, your husband, wife, or kids.

When I was alone, usually late at night, in my old shelter stomping grounds, surrounded by scores of these . . . beings, I would often find myself frustratingly at the end of my human reasoning abilities. Cats, it seems, were taunting me with their inaccessibility; just like many of you, I found myself feeling resentful of the four-legged firewall staring back at me.

I had been a pretty lousy student at school. From beginning to end, my school years were pock-marked with wild inconsistencies. If the topic was purely theoretical, book-bound—forget about it. I was gone, daydreaming and clock-watching. If, however, the topic gave my creative side room to roam, that’s when I was hooked . . . and happy.

In the case of cats, there were twin engines that roared to life, propelling me to the present moment—that creative side was fueled by learning about the Raw Cat. How absolutely miraculous it was that the ancestor was alive in front of me, parading their decidedly undomestic Mojo, trying with every passing day, every tick of the evolutionary clock, to fit into our world. It was a club that I didn’t just want to observe—I wanted to belong to it, and to pass that fascination along to everyone I met. Secondly, there was another clock ticking; if I couldn’t crack the code on a daily basis and help nudge the Raw Cat into the modern world of house cat, then he could die. I found myself, in spite of my best efforts, emotionally vulnerable as individual relationships were forged, realizing that these innocents were looking to me for their happiness and their very lives. That’s when everything changed.

As I’ve said throughout this journey, the goal has never been about solutions, “fixing a hole where the rain gets in,” as the song goes; it’s about your desire to protect your family from the rain. The building and strengthening of your Mojo Toolbox has been a consistent solution. The success you’ve found in committing to empathy has given you the permission, so to speak, to explore cat guardianship as a two-way street—a relationship of value where compromise, not a sense of dominion, achieves harmony.

Maybe you’ve just flipped through the book, looking fervently for a solution to a problem that’s been driving you mad. Of course that’s why I’ve provided you with recipes—achieving sanity in the short-term is often the only way to keep this family unit intact during those end-of-your-rope periods. That said, I hope that you take my instruction as nothing more than a springboard from the world of Cats with a capital C, and dive into your cat’s world. Recipes will get you only so far—if followed, they will keep you from starving (or at the very least from eating cold pizza and ramen for the rest of your life). But once you develop the intuition and imagination, you can build something that is yours, something that you can be proud of because you poured your heart into it. That’s why I hope that at some point after the crisis passes, you’ll take the time to explore all of the nooks and crannies of your cat’s world; it’s there that the one-time lousy student is waiting to share all of the juicy details that turned curiosity into fascination, appreciation into passion, and that ultimately turned him stark-raving cat almost twenty-five years ago.

Just as with any relationship, there will be head-scratching (or head-banging) moments when smooth sailing turns suddenly into choppy seas. For those times, here are a few Mojo mantras to keep in the back of your mind as your journey of Total Cat Mojo continues for years to come:

First, when in doubt, go straight back to the ABCs of what builds Raw Cat confidence: the Three Rs, the Confident Where, and HCKE. These tools will always unlock Mojo, no matter how old or young the cat is, the degree of trauma they may have had to endure, or any special needs that may inform their everyday life. And second, take a moment, as often as you can, to remember that you will never have it all figured out. Thinking that you have control over the outcome of any relationship will absolutely destroy it. Stay humble to, and remain a student of, the relationship itself. That was the hardest lesson I had to learn in the past, and the source of the most joy in my present.

As a last note, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that as members of Team Cat Mojo, we all have the obligation to pay it forward. There are too many cats, millions of them, that would do anything just to have a family like yours and a base camp to call their own. There are also so many humans who say they don’t like cats, are afraid of them, or are just “dog people.” Quite simply, we need them all. While we can continue to take sides in the matter, the solution resides in our ability to compassionately educate, dispel myths, and in doing so, create a larger pool of adopters to give all of the homeless a home. Further, we need to spread the word even more aggressively about how spaying and neutering for house cats and TNR for feral cats can, for the first time, bring about a reality where we don’t have to kill cats because there are just too many.

The human side of Cat Mojo is defined by those who realize that their guardianship extends well past the walls of their own home and into their community. Feral cats are our cats. Homeless cats are ours, also. And ultimately, so is the exponential joy we can feel and spread as we help shape a world that mirrors the love and familial protection we feel for all cats.

Now, go forth and Mojo-fy the world!