An Inspiring Way to Start the Week

Above, a Maru video. If the embedded video doesn't play, please see "Maru—Many Too Small Boxes" on YouTube.

Ever since the beginning of September when I watched all the videos from the Walker's Internet Cat Video Film Festival (I wasn't able to attend in person but you can see the videos online) I have been in love with Maru.

The cats I have loved in my life are few. (And do not include, for friends who have heard me talk about him, Little Boy who was psycho.) Maru looks like a cat I would enjoy being around—he is beautiful (she? I don't even know if it is a girl or boy cat). He is always making the most wonderful negative space. His face, his eyes—it's all lovely. The pattern on his back. You get it. If I were in a room with him I couldn't help but sketch him. 

But mostly I enjoy his antics. And the fact that he has a person who sees the value in those antics and records them to share with us. That person also encourages those antics with additions of her own in the way of props. (I'm not even sure if the filmmaker is male or female because I don't read Japanese.)

One of the things that really strikes me about Maru is his attitude towards boxes. I've never lived with a cat but I've known other cats who also enjoy boxes. Maru's encounters with boxes, edited down and presented crisply for those of us without cats, become short little poems of effort, intent, focus, and determination. These collaborative and creative little films become more than just a cat getting into a box—though they are about that as well.

Because of this I find a Maru video is often the perfect way to start a week that already seems backed up beyond do-ability. And so today I'm watching "Maru—Many Too Small Boxes" to start my day. I encourage you to do the same. My week is going to be great.