When I was a kid, Mom, Dad and I would travel each summer to the little town of Gordon, Georgia, to spend some time with Daddy's rather large family ... he had 13 brothers and sisters, and at least back then, Daddy was the only one who didn't live in Gordon. I have so many fond memories of those visits ... staying at my Uncle Harrell and Aunt Louise's house and riding horses on the dirt roads around their place with my cousin Ted. I can close my eyes and see their house and the sandy Georgia dirt where Daddy always parked his car. I can see my Uncle W.C. and Aunt Richie's house directly across from Uncle Harrell and Aunt Louise's, and I can smell the sugar cookies Aunt Richie always baked for me when we arrived. I remember biscuits and gravy and grits and bacon and sausage for breakfast, served, of course, with homemade butter and jam ... my Aunt Louise and Aunt Richie were, in my opinion, the best cooks ever.
Along with those fun visits, though, always came an event that made me nervous and anxious ... every single time we went there, the whole family would get together, all of Daddy's brothers and sisters ... well, the ones who were still living ... and their whole families and the children of their families and in some cases, the children of their families. I don't even know what level of cousin that made those folks to me, but I do know that I was beyond intimidated as a child when they would pepper me with questions and ask me to recall all of their names. I would hide behind Daddy's legs and wouldn't speak at all, and invariably I would hear the following words over and over and over ... "Whatsa matter, Terrie? Cat got your tongue?"
I never thought much about it back then, but now that my job involves reading words all day, I began to wonder about that phrase and where it originated. So I did what any good researcher does ... I Googled it and discovered that, much to my surprise, the phrase dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. In those days, it was most often used to address a child who was shy around adults or one who refused to answer a parent's questions after being caught in an act of mischief. Over the years, it has become a common phrase used among adults and its meaning is somewhat different ... it's a question asked of someone who is either 1) rendered speechless and the one asking the question wishes to emphasize the questionee's inability to speak, or 2) not speaking when the person asking the "cat" question thinks the questionee should be. It struck me as I read the present-day contexts of the question that they are kind of ... well ... kind of ... well ... snotty is really the only word that comes to mind. I mean think about it, if a person is rendered speechless for some reason, should someone else draw that to everyone's attention? And is it really the questioner's place to determine that a person should be speaking when they aren't? I mean seriously ... really?
The whole cat getting my tongue thing is on my mind because lately I've had more than one person pop the cat question to me. I'm more quiet than I used to be, except when it comes to putting words on paper I suppose, and there are days now ... lots of them, in fact ... when I simply have nothing to say. There are days when I am rendered speechless, when the effort of communication takes more energy than I can muster, when I am painfully aware of how futile and unimportant my words really are. There are days when it doesn't matter if someone else thinks I should be talking more or talking like I used to ... there are days when I ... just ... can't.
So I guess that means there are days when the cat most definitely has got my tongue, and maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it's time for me to be more quiet ... to listen more and talk less. Maybe I talked way too much for way too long ... maybe I needed the muzzle of depression to silence me and make me pay more attention to what God is saying. Maybe the cat should keep my tongue and I should keep quiet.
"You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak." Psalm 77:4
"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." 1 Corinthians 13:1
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer." Psalm 19:14
No comments:
Post a Comment