Island Getaway— At West End Gallery
We are moving into a period of bewilderment, a curious moment in which people find light in the midst of despair, and vertigo at the summit of their hopes. It is a religious moment also, and here is the danger. People will want to obey the voice of Authority, and many strange constructs of just what Authority is will arise in every mind… The public yearning for Order will invite many stubborn uncompromising persons to impose it. The sadness of the zoo will fall upon society.
–Leonard Cohen, The Book of Longing (2006)
I recently came across this passage from the late Leonard Cohen, from a book comprised of poetry and writing primarily from the 1990’s. a period in which he lived for five years at a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy in California. I was moved by the prophetic nature of what he wrote, how it mirrored the events that have brought society to its current state of chaos and confusion. A period of bewilderment, as he called it.
In such periods people seek order and an Authority willing to impose this order as they see it. As he says, therein lies the danger. In seeking order, they will willingly move to acceptance that is extreme, one that they view as being sanctified with religious authority.
In doing so, their desire for their own sort of order creates even more chaos and confusion.
You see, one man’s sense of order is another man’s cage.
I could easily understand the parallels drawn in his words to our current situation. But it was the phrase in that final sentence that slayed me– the sadness of the zoo.
I knew exactly what he meant by those words. I have often felt that sadness of the zoo.
Growing up, I enjoyed zoos as most kids do. I have memories of time spent as a kid at the Bronx Zoo and the National Zoo in Washington. There are photos of a trip to the Buffalo Zoo with me at around three years old reaching out to touch the fingers of a chimpanzee who was extending his hand out of his cage. At the mere mention of a zoo, my mom used to laughingly recall how the hyenas at the National Zoo hungrily fixed their gaze on me and followed me from side to side as went around their enclosure.
The idea that these creatures were there in cages for us to stare in wonder at them seemed perfectly natural to me at the time. It was my experience then.
But that changed over time. As I grew older, I began to more and more see animals as the sentient being that they are. I saw them as being little different in their feelings than us. They feared. They loved. They played.
They had an intelligence and perceptiveness that was different than our own but often deeper. They had to have this in order to survive in the wild, something that is well beyond the abilities of most of us.
I began to see myself in them and them in myself.
The idea of finding myself in a cage seemed horrific to me, as it would be for any feeling human. Why would it be any different for an animal?
I can no longer go to zoos now. Nor can I go in pet stores with pets stacked in cages. There used to be a pet store at our local mall– it might still be there for all I know– and when we needed something from it for our own pets, I refused to go in and would walk a distance away to wait while Cheri completed her transaction. The yips of the puppies and the blanks longing in the stares of the kittens were like knives to me, filling me with a deep angst and sadness.
The sadness of the zoo.
I now also feel it every morning when I come into the studio. Today marks a month since my three studio cats– Mom and her sons, Buttercup and Gary–became fulltime prisoners of mine. They were originally a true feral family when they first came to us when the Boys were tiny kittens. They lived the first couple of years completely outdoors, spending many nights in the protection of my studio’s garage, especially in the cold of winter.
About two years ago, my beloved Hobie, passed away after having spent twelve years as the sole inmate in my little prison. After enduring a number of years in the wild, she was at first a part-time prisoner, coming and going as she pleased during the day. But after being chased into the screen room of the studio by another nasty stray cat, she became a willing prisoner. That attack and her prior hardships had made her willing to trade her freedom for security, food, and my affection.
When Hobie died, the family moved in. They were part-timers then, spending most days outside terrorizing the wild creatures around our place. They were extremely happy to come and go during the day then come to the protection and comfort of the studio each night. But four weeks ago, as I noted here then, the boys were attacked by a stray cat. We believe it was their father but that’s another story. I intervened as Gary was being pursued with the other cat on his tail but Buttercup had already been injured. As I wrote then, this incident sent the whole family to the vet and me, subsequently, to Urgent Care.
At that point, we made the decision to revoke their roaming privileges. They would be fulltime from then on. This decision really bothered me then as it does still, though to a lesser degree. Most mornings are spent with Buttercup slowly trudging around the studio meowing in a most forlorn manner. Gary does this a bit, as well. But he settles down quickly and finds a spot to sleep or look out the window.
Mom seems the most content of the three, most likely since she spent most of her life fighting to survive and is simply satisfied to be safe and warm with plenty to eat and a prison guard who will lay on the floor with her to pet her while she grinds out a deep purr while she gazes at me with a most pleased look in her eyes.
I know that they are safe and sound, that they will not be harmed or killed by another wild critter in these woods. We’ve had that happen before and it is crushing. I spend time with each of them and try to make things good for them. I put up one of those big ugly cat towers in my studio’s front window, for god’s sake, which they still look at with suspicion and refuse to climb on.
Yes, they are my pets now. But even so, as Buttercup protests as I write this, I can’t help but feel that same sorrow for them and the loss of their wild selves.
They are my prisoners now. I am their warden and their zookeeper.
And in many moments, that sadness of the zoo permeates my being. Just this very moment, I had to stop and pick up Buttercup. Cradling him for a few minutes bring an audible purr up that satisfies him– and me– for a bit.
I could be mistaken but I think the guards do that for anxious inmates in most prisons.
I don’t know that I will ever be free of the sadness of the zoo– here in the studio, in a pet store, or in our society in general. Maybe it is the remnant of some wild creature from which I am descended that makes the idea of being restricted in a cage or in any way so alarming.
I don’t know. But it often feels that their cage often becomes my own.
I must stop. Though I could easily continue, especially about how we as a society are experiencing the sadness of the zoo, I have went on far too long. Again, I blame the damn hormones. But what are you going to do?
I couldn’t figure out what image to pair with this and settled on the painting at the top, Island Getaway. My thinking is that though I see being alone on a remote island as an idyllic setting, some might see it as a nightmare.
One man’s heaven is another man’s hell.
One man’s contentment is another’s cage.
That’s it. Done. Get out of my cage now or I swear to god I’ll keep writing.
And that is not an idle threat…
Redtree Times 