My creativity is a cat

My creativity is a cat. It comes and goes as it pleases.

I, it turns out, am more of a dog person. I quite enjoy the slurpy greetings, the PDAs, being waited for, being wanted.

My creativity is like a cat. One moment it is sleeping curled up in a corner while you’re doing your thing, the next moment it does a nice stretch and casually walks over to you and into your lap, making you feel like the luckiest person alive.

If there are things on your lap, like a laptop, a book , a plate of food or your child’s head, and you take two seconds too long to clear them out, it will go away.

If you try and get into a more comfortable position for a long snuggle, it will go away.

If you stroke it too much, or too little, it will go away.

Wouldn’t a dog be nicer? Fixed times for walks, just whistle and it comes wagging its tail. Imagine a story idea that lies in wait for you to come home, slurps all over your face, licks you untill you give in, drop everything and play with it.

The cat on the other hand, ignores me the whole day and then walks over my chest at 3 am. It purrs, it taps me gently with its padded paws on the cheek and if I still don’t wake up, the claws come out. What for? Not because there’s no food in the bowl, but because it wants me to watch it eat.

So I do.

I sit and watch; groggy, irritated, scratched and bleeding, woken up by an a new story idea, watching it feed itself.

On some days, however, it comes exactly when I am ready for it. There are no conflicting deadlines, nothing crowding my lap. Those days are rare, but they are magic.

So, the thing to do, as far as I have figured out, is to be ready for the cat at all times. Dramatically swipe away whatever is on your lap for whenever the cat, or a new idea, decides to hang out with you.

Though like I said, a dog would’ve been much easier.

What’s your creativity like?

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This piece was written during the Ochre Sky Stories writing circle with Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai, a gift that keeps giving, to a prompt from the amazing writer Roshni