Exploding Doormats

the rage issue

One icy morning, a few weeks ago, I let my kitchen sink run until the water reached a touchable temperature. My one-and-a-half-year-old chomped on toast in his high chair as my mind wandered out the window to admire the busy winter birds. Suddenly, breaking my detachment, my sweet son screeched with venom, “E-naine! DOWN!!!”

I whipped my head towards him to see that our cat Elaine had jumped up onto the kitchen table. Her black fuzzy ears back flat, she was just as surprised as I was, not knowing sweet little Claude was capable of scolding her so viciously.

I couldn’t believe how mean my baby sounded. How the snappiness of his normally angelic voice cut through our peaceful morning like a rusty bread knife. Jeez! Where did he learn to speak like that?

…

Oh.

I’ve snapped at Elaine like that. He sounded exactly like me. I needed to hear my tone through his chipmunk voice for me to register how unpleasant it is, and how often I must be speaking that way without clocking my behavior in front of my kid.

Jon and I rescued Elaine when she was a three week old handful of fluff, in October of 2020. We did the whole foster thing to make sure she was a good fit for our home. Jon and I kept her one pound body in our bathtub, coating the cold ceramic in plush towels and a heating pad. I knew fully well we’d be keeping Elaine from the start, but I also knew that my husband needed to “foster” first, to feel like he was part of the decision making process. I also knew that Jon, my vegetarian, refuses-to-kill-spiders husband, would not be sending an orphaned kitten back to a shelter. Duh. Got ‘em!

Elaine’s early life happened to be the perfect recipe for creating a total brat. She was apparently separated from her feral mom and siblings, tragically, before her teeny eyes were open. Kittens learn appropriate play boundaries from their littermates, so a kitten separated from family too early is at risk of growing up to be bitey whenever their honest instincts are simply to play. And, Elaine’s nervous system has zero memories without some human presence. In the beginning, she always had me and Jon close by, working from home and avoiding travel in the year 2020. A Covid baby, she was never without a human lap in her first formative year of life. So, she’s also needy, constantly looking for our touch or affection. Elaine is always close by, and often biting for fun. Not an ideal combo for an indoor house pet. Also, did I mention her mom was feral? Elaine is massive.

According to cat experts, Elaine is psychologically broken because of her lack of healthy relationships with her family of origin. And every time my temper takes over my tongue and volume I’m reminded of my own family of origin. My dad’s capacity for cruelty and explosivity, no doubt passed down by his own father, has at times unearthed part of itself in my instincts to get Elaine off the fucking kitchen table, that I just fucking cleaned, so that we can eat one goddamn meal without cat hair fucking everywhere. I’ll fight my own billowing temper, and try gently moving her off the table. But sometimes she misunderstands, and bites, and the rage surges just under my dad’s olive skin. A me I do not like or understand shouts, “Elaine, DOWN!” Elaine runs away scared, and I immediately feel the humiliating emptiness of having uncaged almighty thunder in the direction of a helpless animal, wondering if the human experts would say I’m broken too.

In 2021, my friends threw me a precious, intimate sister-themed bachelorette/sleepover in Palm Springs with overwhelmingly brilliant details. Knowing me well, they organized a paint train inspired by Dennis Oppenheim’s transfer drawings; the exercise is to visualize and paint what you feel on your back by the person behind you, painting it on the person or paper in front of you.

I stood at the very back of my line of friends as I painted an intentional design on the friend in front of me, then I essentially watched them play a game of tactile telephone, seeing my art transform through their interpretations until it landed on a canvas at the front of the line.

note: we did an equally fun, mess-free version, with clean brushes on our backs, and real paint on the canvas

I remember watching my artistic vision disappear through my friends’ delineations, no matter how simple and clear I tried to keep my brush strokes, my plan for the canvas got lost in translation piece by piece. An exercise that might’ve been frustration-inducing, but was, instead, a curiosity’s delight, controlled by no one. The result was better than what I’d planned, the lesson obvious.

We collectively painted two canvases this way. And they were both gifts for me to take home! I was completely in love with these finished works of art, truly perfect souvenirs from a sweet, once-in-a-lifetime celebration of me, made communally by old and new friends, by hands I’ve held and shoulders I’ve cried on. How often does one person have that many friends contributing to one, no two, pieces of art in the name of their love for her? I brought my prized twin canvases home and my first thought was, I must keep these far from Elaine, that destructive psychopath.

I took the art pieces into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. Planning to write my friends’ names and the sleepover date on the back of the prints, I made space on my desk to lay them face-up, first trying to make sure these abstract artworks weren’t upside down. I heard a tiny squeak, and turned to see that my bedroom door hadn’t latched behind me. Elaine had let herself in and was already mid sprint to launch herself onto my desk, desperate to be right beside me. I could see her trajectory in slow motion, about to land herself onto my one-of-a-kind gifts. I grabbed her mid air, but her front paws had already graced the canvas, and my startling grip drew out her claws, tearing the surface of my prized possession. As the whole thing unfolded, I snapped and raged, “Nooooooo!!! God DAMMNIT!!!”

I somehow knew she’d ruin this art, and was still powerless to stop it— the combination of those two facts broke a dam containing childhood wounds, because I was replaced by a monster, panting and slamming the door. I buried my eyes into my palms and growled out a scream that stripped the skin off my throat. I looked up, and Elaine was nowhere in sight. Left alone with my unwanted tantrum, I could not calm down.

How am I capable of erupting over something so insignificant? Two months ago I posted about how hard it is for me to speak up, and shared my story of a dental hygienist inadvertently putting used, foul smelling gloves in my mouth during a cleaning. In that essay I detailed how I couldn’t bring myself to confront the hygienist, how I desperately needed me to speak up for me, but just could not do it. I could not risk embarrassing or disappointing a woman I barely knew, even at the cost of my dignity.

How is the people-pleasing patient who choked on dirty gloves in her dentist’s chair the same person melting down over a little cat scratch? Do I have a hard time speaking up or a hard time keeping it in? Which one is it?

Hearing my uncharacteristic tantrum, my husband came in to see if I was okay. And in response I whined like a teenager, pointing at the art and bitching about how Elaine ruined something priceless.

After a minute of taking in my anger, without taking it on, Jon walked over to the painting to examine it. He took a breath in through his exposed teeth, acknowledging the unfortunate mark, “Ugh, that really sucks. I’m sorry.”

Jon then goes, “We still gotta frame these. One day when Elaine’s gone, you’ll be so glad she added to them.”

And with that sentiment, the clarity and triviality of the whole situation confronted me. The tired beast in my blood took a seat, and folded its arms. I looked down at it, the beast, knowing it wasn’t me but that we’ve always shared clothes. The separation of it and me allowed the obvious to seem obvious; kitty was not the problem. I had something bigger to look at, and to take responsibility for.

A child witnessing rage but never allowed to rage will fall inappropriately silent when she’s needlessly tortured in a dentist’s chair. The weight and fear and grief of not having had it better will store itself somewhere and take new malicious shapes. Most doormats don’t explode, until they’re brought inside where they’re safe to do so. Stuffing my basic needs comes at a price: unexpected dynamite in the comfort of my home.

The gift is this; my home is a place of comfort. A safe place to fuck up, a loving place that inspires me to do better. Elaine would never rat me out, she doesn’t shame or punish me. She doesn’t treat me like I’m broken. She actually quickly forgives, returning to my lap and purring hours before she’s onto the next pain in the ass thing- scratching the furniture, biting Jon’s toes, howling by the bedroom door when we’re trying to get some god damn sleep.

Elaine has arguably done more to make me a better parent than anyone else on Earth. She, with her impeccable knack for throwing a wrench in my false sense of control, has been my greatest teacher, a plan killer, a temper illuminator, a relentlessly bad bitch in a tortoiseshell fur coat reminding me that my ability to both go with the flow and speak up honestly will keep me from letting the beast in my blood raise my beautiful child. Elaine teaches patience better than anyone. The day she tore my canvas, she gave me the opportunity to address my relationship to anger, to have new conversations with my therapist. Elaine allowed me to heal generational pain before I gave birth, before I began raising the next generation. Having once believed I was irreparably broken, I’d assumed that that type of change for me was an impossible task. But Elaine, the cutest of beasts, played a part in making it possible. My feral little genius, a true artist, fully worthy of contributing to a painting by soul sisters.

I haven’t raged in front of my son, but I’ve clearly snapped at Elaine at least two or three times in front of him without realizing it. Enough to make an impression, enough to have it reflected back at me by my little twin. Another little teacher in my home.

Lately, if I catch Elaine on the counter licking the plate I’ve just fixed for myself, after a long day of solo juggling a toddler, work, and schoolwork, I make sure to shove the word “please” out of my mouth before any beast can spit fire. Gritting my teeth, my absolute best, I chirp, “Down please, Elainey.”

She gets down immediately.

I speak both to her and myself, “Good girl, Benainey Naine. Good girl.”

Then I clock that my temper was looming, and literally take out my phone to schedule gentleness on my calendar app. After putting Claude down, I get in a bubble bath with a book, or I privately call a friend and say, “Can I bitch for a second?” These actions of slowing-down and speaking-up work for me in rewriting an old story.

Yesterday, while roasting seasonal veggies, I overheard a soft praise coming from the highchair, “Goo girl, Nainey. Down, pleez.”

♥