Feral Hearts

I couldn’t quite make out what it was I was seeing. Plastered against the back of the steel mesh cage was a variegated mass of white, tan, orange, black and brown fur. I reached in and removed the young cat. As I brought her to my chest, she rigidly extended her front legs and delicate paws to gently push away. Her ears were pinned back, her pupils wide; she strained to keep her head as far away from my face as possible. She was a shy, gentle, frightened thing.

I brought the orphan home. She is the most flamboyantly exotic-looking feline I’ve ever known. She is a longhaired tortie of "Asian-cat" lineage. She has that elongated wedge of a face; long sharp ears perched high on head, and the limbs of a prima ballerina. With her long coat billowing, it appears as if her legs are encased in pantaloons (...it's Hammer time!). She is visually striking in a cheerful, goofy sort of way. She is also the gentlest creature I’ve ever known. In the fifteen years we’ve been together, she has never once scratched me, clawed at me, nipped or bit me. She has never hissed. She's an unkempt, true blue pacifist...my own funky, furry little Ghandi.

Yet, for the first six years of our relationship, she would push away in fear whenever I picked her up. It was always the same: front legs stiffly pushing away, back arched backwards, head averted, pupils wild with fear.

It was her feral heart that made her push away.

Fast-forward fifteen years…her behavior has changed. She no longer pushes away. In fact, quite the contrary. In her plump dowager years, she presses close at every opportunity. Her feral heart is finally tame. She basks in pleasure. She lives enveloped in tender raptures.

* * *

We have feral hearts, too, you know. Oh, sure, I've read that scientists postulate that we have, at root, a reptilian brain. Hail, the primitive hippocampus and amygdala that serve to recognize danger and trigger an emotional response! I have no reason to argue with the experts. It's just that...work with me here...I simply prefer to think of us as having feral hearts.

Our fears (our worst ones, anyway) are not something innate. No, they are acquired (or shall I say...bestowed?). I was pretty lucky. My upbringing and family life were mostly benign. My childhood wasn’t a bed of roses, but it wasn’t Hell, either.

Others are not so lucky. Too many young hearts are made feral by countless cruelties. Mental or physical abuse, isolation, abandonment, ridicule or violence…the list of childhood experiences that lead to primal fears is lengthy, far too lengthy.

We strive hard to live with these feral hearts of ours. We do. I don’t know about you, but I’ve encountered people who push away from love, people who literally run from intimacy…I’ve even fallen in love with a few. I’ve been wounded in the process, left abandoned and perplexed. Don't get me wrong, I’m not pointing fingers. Not at all. I feel my own heart growing skittish, becoming more feral. I'm just struggling to survive myself.

Why do people push away and turn their face from the love, security and intimacy they crave above all else?

Blame it on the feral heart.

* * *

As my now insanely trusting and loving cat has taught me, a feral heart needs time (perhaps even a lifetime), and a constant, tender, loving devotion to quell its fears. We humans are in too much of a rush. The feral heart we come to love may push away and, all too often (sadly), it all simply (albeit, painfully) ends right there.

We give each other so little time to become brave.

I, myself, adore the untamed heart. It is fierce, smoldering, passionate, tempestuous, needy and scared. I only wish the beloved feral heart would stick around long enough and stay close enough to someday feel its primal fears fading…slowly surrendering to pleasure and serenity...slowly surrendering to love.

* * *