I’ve been thinking a lot about animals lately. No surprises there, you might say, when I live with five cats and our recently acquired canine terrorist, Arki. But that’s not the only reason.
Last week I started a new course, Eco-fictions and Non-fictions, as part of the Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing I’m studying by distance. This course has a lot to say about animals, land, trees, water ... virtually everything you can think of that comes under the broad umbrella of “nature” or “the environment”. And that includes humans, although in this course we are not referred to as human beings, but as human animals. More on that later.
These days, you can be sure that any course focusing on the environment will include some sobering reading material. And so it has come to pass. The very first paragraph of our first reading reported that between 1970 and 2012, almost 60 per cent of the world’s wildlife had disappeared, according to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report.
My 96-year-old uncle believes climate change is a myth. How I wish I lived in his world. But I’ve seen too much evidence to dispute that view, especially in New Zealand where we seem to get another “100-year-flood” every five minutes.
On a happier note, nature still has the ability to bring much joy and affection into our lives. I’m referring, of course, to the many diverse creatures we human animals are privileged to call pets. So let me introduce to you the five feline fur babies of 19 Johnston Street. (The terrorist has probably earned a post of his own, but he can wait.)
There’s no doubt who the Captain of our household is. Axel (named after Axl Rose) is our big ginger fluffy boy. He’s sociable and talkative, and if you come to visit us he’s the one who will greet you in the driveway.
Unfortunately when it comes to other non-human animals, Axel has no social skills. He’d love to make friends, but doesn’t know how to. He’s also a doofus. One evening, Axel attempted to jump off the fence, around a corner, and into the window of our bedroom in a single leap. It ended badly. So did the time he tried to clear a vast chasm between the coffee table and the couch, instead falling into the space between the two. Luckily, Axel has so much padding that he rarely gets injured.
Every Captain needs a Lieutenant. I’m not sure Axel would have selected Jukka (pronounced ‘Yoo-ka’) if he had a choice, but that’s who he’s got. Jukka is a tabby and is incredibly timid. If we ever brought a lizard or other small creature inside, I’m sure he would make a run for it. But Jukka is also incredibly sweet and loves attention. He sits on the desk next to Barnard and reaches out his paw to pat his master’s nose if the required level of adoration is not forthcoming. He meows like a girl (Barnard’s words).
Jukka declined to be photographed for this article.
That’s the boy cats. Now the girls. First up, Willow. She’s small and thin (but incredibly bolshy). She’s black and white. She’s our recalcitrant teenager. Willow stays out most nights and often disappears for days at a time. When she eventually returns she demands food and attention forthwith. She really doesn’t need us, except when she does. We love her just the same.
Willow also declined to be photographed for this article.
Next we have Eleanor, or Ellie for short. Ellie is our princess. She’s a calico cat (a mix of black, white and ginger). She’s slim, elegant and beautiful. She flirts with Axel mercilessly. She has refined culinary tastes, preferring chicken and tuna to dried Friskies. She likes to sleep on the bed at night.
Finally, Wanda. Wanda is complicated but delightful. She is black and white, with a black patch on her nose that I like to call her gang patch. She is neurotic and unpredictable. She sits on the desk and chats to me while I am working. She loves to eat. She sleeps on the ironing board.
Writing about my cats’ personalities is, my tutors would say, a form of eco non-fiction, or what used to be called nature writing.
One of the strong themes that is already coming through the course is a push for us to write about nature from a non-human point of view; to take ourselves out of the centre of the narrative.
In the first week’s writing exercise, we had to write down our first or strongest memory of a place, animal or season, and then write a fictional scene of that memory from the perspective of the place, animal or weather. As one of my strongest early memories is of being at Ōtaki Beach, I decided to write a short paragraph from the perspective of sand. Here’s what I came up with:
Pretty little pieces of colour are dancing across my hot skin. They touch its surface like a gentle breeze brushing the hairs on a wet arm. Each piece floats, dives, flutters and rises to its own particular tune. Some leave tiny imprints or pieces of dust behind. These are mostly taken care of by the wind or the rain, whichever comes first. Others will leave a permanent stain which I must learn to live with.
It felt a bit weird, and the idea of spending several months writing as if I am a tree, river, mountain or bird doesn’t fill me with enthusiasm. But in today’s world, writing about nature or the environment is often a political statement, and in the same way I think our tutors are making a political statement in the way they teach this course. And that statement is: Human beings/animals are not the centre of the universe.
I don’t have a problem with that philosophy. In fact, I applaud it. As those of us with pets well know, humans are not the only creatures to have personalities or experience emotions. This point was well made in a touching reading this week. It told of a man who was annoyed by a possum that had started living under his house. The possum kept running round the backyard, as if it was searching for something. The man eventually discovered a litter of possum babies that had drowned in a bucket in the basement.
It’s all very thought-provoking stuff, which is not a bad thing. But it’s also good to have Axel around to provide some light relief when I need it.
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