Just moments before, I was enjoying a peaceful time writing in my journal using an old-fashioned dip pen and a bottle of German ink. My desk (one of three!) sits at the front of the house where I can admire the lake in all her moods and changes. The day had included a beautiful if somewhat squelchy hike in a nearby meadow and a thermos of tea sipped outdoors with the sun on my face. I was truly happy, topped up, celebrating. I was in the Honey Flow.

And then – Mish, my cat.

It was coming up on four o’clock when the “food campaign” (as I think of it) tends to commence.

He spooled himself up onto my desk, winding his body over and around journals and pencil cups, planting his snowy white feet in the middle of my journal, and presenting his face for adoration. I took the precaution of moving the cap of the open bottle of ink, knowing that he would not be able to resist it, and gave in to his demand. A moment later he was purring, his face close to mine, and I was assuring him that he is the best cat in the world.

I don’t know why I turned away, but I did. For one second, I turned my head.

Then came the crash and the splatter. A nearly-full bottle of scarlet red fountain pen ink flung joyfully onto the white tiles. The glorious color sank instantly into the grout. It had splashed off the hard tiles at least four feet up the wall. It stained: a bookcase, a number of books, a broom, the chair leg, some journals, the wall, my boots, and one of my favorite proverb paintings (pictured above). Scarlet everywhere. It looked like a crime scene.

For a moment, I was too shocked to feel anything. Then I was furious. At the time it seemed so capricious, so wasteful, so mean. I said words to Mish that very few people have ever heard me use. I kicked the hassock and shouted. All my peace had evaporated in an instant.

It took at least a half hour of determined scrubbing to clean it up.

An hour later I was still nursing a grudge. Mish, of course, had long since moved on. Even as I was soaking up the ink in yet another wad of paper towels, he offered me the slow blink of love. I did not return it. I fed him shortly afterwards but with none of the praise and playfulness of our usual routine.

The next morning, he presented himself to be picked up and carried downstairs as is our habit. I realized that I had a choice to make: stay mad or let it go.

I didn’t just have to let go my anger over what he’d done, or the huge waste of time, or the way it had disrupted a beautiful writing session. I had to let go of feeling ashamed of myself for losing my composure so quickly and so easily. I had to forgive not just him but also myself. That was actually harder for me, but I wanted to get back to the loving and to enjoy the day, and so I did.

Why does this matter?

It matters because love is not about loving a perfected version of anyone; it’s about loving who he or she is right now – and that includes ourselves.

It’s in Mish’s nature to knock things off shelves and desks. It’s not badness: it’s instinct, and it’s hard-wired into him.

Recently, someone I love and trusted shared with others something I’d told in confidence. I was hurt and angry, and I’ve circled around that feeling, unhappy to feel at odds with my friend, and wishing for a way to let it go.

Mish, teacher that he is, helped me with that. Just as Mish is “configured” to fling small objects to the ground, so my friend is configured to talk, to divulge, to share. It should not come as a surprise that my confidence was not kept.  There’s a great Irish proverb on this topic:

Briseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait.

Nature breaks through the eyes of the cat.

Meaning: we are what we are. Our nature is right there for all to see.

When someone does something that hurts us, it must be because it is currently in his or her “nature.”

But can’t we change, you might ask?

Of course we can, and we do, all the time.

But I for one do not want to delay my loving until someone changes or even until I change. In some cases, that change will likely never come (Mish is proud to be in this category) and in others, it may take years and decades.

What can we do in the meantime?

We can love AND. Let me explain.

I am not suggesting for a second that we let ourselves be abused, walked over, taken for granted, or spilled out needlessly to gratify someone else’s whims. Love does not mean either all access OR holding out for perfection. (And sometimes, truth be told, the loving thing is indeed to decide to love at a distance, as my wise friend Robin Hallett often says).

Instead, we can take a clear-eyed look at our friend, our family member, our cat, ourselves, even, and choose to love them as is, right now, AND take their nature into account. We can take steps to avoid messes of all kinds, even as we know that we will never be able to completely prevent them. Mess is one ingredient in the stew that is life on earth.

So is love.

From now on, cats will be shooed off the desk when ink bottles are open.

And from now on, I’ll be more thoughtful about what I share and with whom.

And thank heavens, friends and those who love me forgive me my faults and love me now rather than when I have become a perfected Kate (which is, alas, not going to happen).

I would rather love than not love.

If love is the point, and I believe it is, then it is worth our while to develop the wisdom, the tolerance, the pragmatism, and the compassionate vision that makes it possible to keep loving in a world of mess and imperfection.

To say nothing of fountain pen ink!

Ink? What ink? That must have been some other cat, Kate.