Hamlet in the Litter Box

Talking with friends about cats, of all things, I said, I kind of enjoy scooping the litter box. This raised doubting eyebrows. No, really, I said. It's like a Zen garden.

One of my friends told me, "scooping litter is not like a Zen garden" full stop.

I didn't protest, didn't know how to press my case, and was in no mood to argue with friends. But tonight, Hamlet came to me: "for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." I felt immediately better though not about litter.

I was scooping litter, but I was thinking about the big project my work partner and I have taken on. The number of people who have told me I'm crazy, I might as well be Hamlet tearing pages from the books. "Words, words, words."

This afternoon, I believed them. Madness for sure, a project simply too large. Impossible. Hopeless. I'm not making any progress. My conclusions have been off the mark. I don't deserve the trust others have invested in me. I was almost set to pack it in, declare it a failure, declare me a failure. I could have called the whole thing a prison were I thinking of Hamlet then. But it didn't come until I was sifting the litter.

That's when the words came. Some of them. I've memorized less Shakespeare than I'd like. Scooping litter, my mind remembered, nothing either good but thinking makes it so.

I smiled at a clump of litter. Shook my head and laughed a little thinking what my friends might think watching me. I scooped the litter clean, smoothed it, drew a curve in it with the edge of the scoop, and smoothed it away.

Thinking makes it so. Nothing bad or good but thinking makes it so.

Perhaps the work project will prove more than I'm able. This afternoon, thinking made it seem so. Tonight, the litter box clean, a small grin still at play on my face, I'm thinking it otherwise. Denmark may have been Hamlet's prison. A litter box may not be a Zen garden. But the wind has just turned southerly and, mad as I may seem to have taken this project on, I just may yet know a hawk from a handsaw.