The Inside of Portraiture

The Portrait of a Cat

A woman sits at her breakfast table enjoying the early sun. A sudden movement in the bush attracts her attention. Out of the concealing shrubbery steps a beautiful calico cat, slinking through the woman's garden with a sense of curiosity and possessiveness that the woman immediately recognizes as the innate qualities of all felines. She admires the fur, the color, the stealth. She wonders where the cat will go next. She has a choice. She can follow this cat on four soft moving, stealth paws of her own (and in doing so take on the grace, beauty, and elegance of feline as well as the rapid fresh meat breath and slanted, calculating eye), or the woman can stay seated at her warm breakfast table enjoying the rest of her cereal and, oh, look! Such lovely birds are now flying overhead. Robins have one of the most melodious of spring songs, she recalls. Perhaps she is hearing a song now.