{"product_id":"the-craggy-hole-in-my-heart-and-the-cat-who-fixed-it-isbn-9781400083190","title":"The Craggy Hole in My Heart and the Cat Who Fixed It","description":"In this inspiring and joyous book, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author Geneen Roth introduces her remarkable twenty-pound cat, Mister Blanche, and her beloved father, Bernard, as she takes readers deep into the story of how each finally taught her to love without reservation and accept that she might someday lose those whom she believed she couldn’t live without. Told with warmth and wit, \u003ci\u003eThe Craggy Hole in My Heart and The Cat Who Fixed It\u003c\/i\u003e is a poignant and funny story about how to live with love—and never live without it.“A totally brilliant book—beautiful and fierce and sweet and, at times, very funny. I was utterly blown away.” —Anne Lamott, author of \u003ci\u003eOperating Instructions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wise, loving, tough, and tender. A beautiful book. Geneen knows how to nourish the heart!” —Jack Kornfield, author of\u003ci\u003e A Path with Heart \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Read it, laugh with it, and become a little more of a human being.” —Thomas Moore, author of \u003ci\u003eCare of the Soul \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eDark Nights of the Soul\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Roth takes us on a deep, joyful, provocative, and ultimately nourishing journey. I couldn’t put it down from beginning to end.” —Justine Willis Toms, New Dimensions Radio, coauthor of\u003ci\u003e True Work\u003c\/i\u003eGeneen Roth is the author of seven books, including the\u003ci\u003e New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eWhen Food Is Love\u003c\/i\u003e. She has appeared on \u003ci\u003eThe Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, 20\/20\u003c\/i\u003e, and many other national television shows, and her work has been featured in numerous publications. She lives in northern California, writes a column for \u003ci\u003ePrevention\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, and maintains an active lecture and workshop schedule.\u003cb\u003eOne\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen my friend Sally called to tell me that I needed a kitten, and   fortunately, her cat Pumpkin was pregnant, I said no, absolutely not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn't want a pet, I didn't like cats, and I didn't want to love   anything that could die before me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was thirty-three years old, single, and living alone in a house with   a garden, three leaky skylights, and a crooked path to a sheltered   beach in Santa Cruz, California. After seventeen years of struggling   madly with emotional eating, and being as insane as anyone I'd ever   met-I'd gained and lost over a thousand pounds-I'd finally crawled out   of the compulsion by giving up dieting altogether. More recently, I'd   settled at my natural weight, written two books, and begun teaching   national workshops about breaking free from emotional eating.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut my obsession with food was a walk in the park compared to the chaos   that ensued whenever the possibility of love walked into my life. At   the time of Sally's call, I was in a \"relationship\"-I use that term   loosely-with Harry-the-Rake, a self-confessed lothario, who alternated   between wanting to move in with me and telling me I was too fat. I was   convinced that my heart was either on permanent sabbatical or missing   some essential ingredients-the ones that allowed normal people to take   risks, to discern the bad guys from the good, to say come closer, hold   me, go away. And I was wary of opening to anyone or anything that would   depend on me to come through. I didn't trust myself to show up. I   didn't think I had the capacity for big love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePumpkin gave birth to two kittens whom Sally immediately named Blanche   and June. My mother, visiting from New York at the time, wanted to see   them. At two hours old, they looked like wet weasels, and I wasn't   impressed. My mother went straight for the white kitten. Take this one,   she crooned, as she stroked the slicked-back fur of the shut-eyed   rodent, but I wasn't taking anything so fast.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few weeks later, Sally called and said her husband didn't want a   white cat, and so Blanche was mine. Usually, I am the one who bosses   people around, but Sally was completely sure of herself, absolutely   positive that having this pet was a precursor to having a life. So I   told her I would take the kitten on one condition: if I didn't like   being a cat mother, I could return it in two weeks, like a pair of   gloves from Macy's. She agreed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's not that I'd never had a pet. My grandmother gave me a parakeet   named Cookie when I was seven. She rode around the house on my   shoulder, sat on the desk while I did homework, and pecked at my   eyelashes when I closed my eyes. One day, my brother opened the front   door and Cookie flew out of the house. I cried for weeks. I decided   then that the next thing I loved was not going to be able to fly away.   We settled on goldfish, but the one we called Tallulah got out of the   bowl somehow and flipped around the house. My mother and I ran after   her with a strainer, but we couldn't catch her, and she died under the   brown paisley couch. Then there was a puppy named Cocoa, who pooped in   my father's slipper right before he stepped into it one Sunday morning,   and by Monday, she had gone to live somewhere else.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen she heard that Sally wanted to give me a kitten, my friend Sophie   told me her pet story. After her mother died and her husband left her   for another woman, she thought she was going crazy-the kind of crazy   where a psychotic break was two weeks away. On a particularly rough   day, a group of friends tried to make her feel better, but she sensed   their fear. The fact that her best friends couldn't be with her sorrow   made her feel even more frightened, more alone. Then her dog, Squeak,   jumped in her lap and fell asleep. In that moment, she says Squeak   saved her life. He cut through the drama, walked directly on the fiber   of feelings, and stayed there, as if pain and grief were no big deal-as   natural as chasing squirrels. His relaxation dissolved her fears of   going crazy. After that, she was left with a broken heart, and as much   as that hurt, she knew it would mend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough I was glad Sophie had her dog, I'd heard these sappy tales   before-a boy and his dog, a girl and her parrot, the wolf who saved the   family from a fire-and didn't see what they had to do with me. I still   didn't want a cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring our first few days together I refuse to be charmed by Blanche,   although every time I turn a corner, she is there, crouching behind   philodendron leaves, or stalking an ant or a dust mote or my big toe.   When I say no, she doesn't hold a grudge. When I push her away, she   comes back. Blanche's affection doesn't waver if my hair sticks   straight up in the mornings or if I am having a fat day. She seems to   be looking beneath the surface of things at some backward-spreading   light I am not aware of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA week after Blanche arrives, my two-year relationship with   Harry-the-Rake ends when he falls in love with another woman. Flinging   myself on the bed in a paroxysm of sorrow-what will I do, where will I   go, who will ever want me-I notice a cloud of fluff inching across the   quilt until it settles on my heaving chest, wheezing a low, gravelly   purr. It's difficult not to be melted by such total acceptance; it's   hard to keep insisting that the world is a terrible place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the eleventh day, I admit I am smitten and tell Sally I will keep   the cat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnce I cross over, every single thing about Blanche enchants me, and I   am positive that no one has ever had a cat this adorable. Then I start   to worry that I love her because all kittens are irresistible, but when   she gets older, I won't love her anymore. I still believe love depends   on what you look like.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin a month, Blanche has about ten thousand nicknames: Pooters,   Banana, Wig-Wig, Moochy-Mooch, Fuzzy-Wuzz, Petunia, Mr. Guy and a Half,   Sweet Potato, Booch Pie, Blue, Moo, Dandelion, Blanchebananche, Peachy   Canoe and Tyler Too, Curly-Whirl, and on and on. Every day, a different   name.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin two months, I can't imagine that I've ever lived without her.   She seems to be exactly the same shape as the craggy hole in my heart,   so when I see her, all my stick-out edges and weird crazy ways smooth   down. I feel as if I've been dreaming her for years and now she is   here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt never occurs to me to question my choice of love objects or wish   that Blanche was a person instead of a cat. When you've been famished   for decades and someone hands you a slice of warm pumpernickel raisin   bread and homemade jam, you don't ask for chocolate cake instead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first time she visits the vet, we discover that Blanche is a he.   Since I have been calling him her, and since he has a girl's name, it   is perplexing to discover the truth about Blanche's gender. But there   is no question about changing his name; the being in this cat's body is   definitely a \"Blanche.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDr. Mike reminds me of the popular sixties song by Johnny Cash called   \"A Boy Named Sue.\" I decide that since Blanche is going to be neutered,   he has transcended gender. He is neither cat nor person, neither boy   nor girl. Blanche is beyond definition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen friends walk into my house and see that\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have a kitten, they turn to mush immediately, talk baby talk, tell   Blanche they love him. My friend Nancy, a suit-clad district attorney,   crawls around on her knees, trying to lure him with a penguin stuffed   with catnip. My painfully shy friend Louis pulls a string on the floor,   from room to room, letting Blanche pounce on it. My hip, edgy friend   Maria picks him up, cuddles him, and coos, ignoring me altogether.   People change around him, the way they do around babies. Blanche seems   to provide an opening from which their love, coiled like a rope at the   bottom of a basket, can wave its vulnerable, tender head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time he is two years old Blanche weighs twenty pounds. He looks   like a furry pyramid or a goat with curly stomach hair. Since my books   are about emotional eating, everyone who walks in the house has a   comment about his size. They all say the same things:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYour cat needs to read one of your books.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYour cat needs to come to your workshops.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYour cat needs to go on a diet, but oh yeah,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI forgot, you don't believe in dieting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt doesn't help that Blanche has a girl's name and I have to keep   correcting everyone that she is a he. They take it as an opportunity   for further speculation: Does he eat because he's confused about his   identity?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I know this is Blanche's real shape, his natural weight, since I   only feed him half a cup of dry food a day, plus little bits of   butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and dried sardines. Blanche is a   nibbler, a delicate eater, an epicure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe is also the kind of cat you can dress up in a bonnet and wheel   around in a baby carriage, which my eleven-year-old neighbor, Rosie,   does several times a week. As soon as you pick him up, he relaxes his   body and purrs; when Rosie isn't out wheeling him up and down the   block, I walk with Blanche around my neck like a monkey, like a second   heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI feel like a cliché. For the first time in my life, I am not afraid of   being too intense, too effusive, too needy. No matter how many times I   kiss him, hug him, pull his tail, and turn him upside down, he doesn't   turn away. Blanche is a love sponge with a thousand petal-pink lipstick   marks on his head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree months after Blanche's second birthday,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI meet Matt at the Association for Humanistic Psychology conference,   where we are both speakers. Though he is sexy, funny, kind-and here's   the linchpin: AVAILABLE-he needs to pass the Blanche test before I let   him into my life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Matt comes to my house on our first date, Blanche is out carousing   in the neighborhood. Matt and I sit in the blue striped chairs on the   deck and tell each other about our lives, the usual first-time stories.   We discover that we had been to movies at the same theater in Fresh   Meadows, New York, and must have passed each other on the lines for Dr.   Zhivago and A Hard Day's Night when we were in high school. I tell him   I didn't think I would have liked him, though-he is too nice, and I   only liked boys who were mean and loved someone else. He happens to   mention that he doesn't like chocolate, and I wonder whether I can ever   love him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few seconds later, Blanche comes hopping over the fence, swaggers to   Matt, and jumps on his lap. I am sorry I haven't asked Matt if he has a   hernia, because when Blanche lands on you, it feels as if a truck has   crashed on your legs. Matt doesn't flinch. He begins to talk baby talk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen, looking at me, he says, \"You know, I really don't like cats.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI glance at my watch to see when I can kick him out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"But there is something very unusual about you, Blanche,\" he continues,   stroking him under the chin. \"You seem to be more than a cat.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI decide to wait a few weeks before I ask him to marry me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter our first date, Matt flies off to Hawaii on a business trip, and   I get ready to go to New York to teach. As a treat for Blanche, and   because I feel guilty about leaving him the next day, I open a can of   tuna fish, and when he doesn't come tearing to my side, I know that   something is wrong. I call the vet to tell him that Blanche is dragging   his bottom across the deck and won't eat his favorite food. Dr. Mike   tells me to bring him in immediately; he says it sounds as if Blanche   has a blocked kidney.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFortunately, my assistant, Maureen, who is working in the house, has a   three-year-old child and is practiced at being calm in emergencies,   because I am suddenly hysterical and can't remember where I put the cat   carrier. We end up wrapping Blanche in a towel, tearing out of the   house, honking through red lights, and running into the vet's office.   Dr. Mike feels Blanche's kidneys, asks me when he peed last (I have no   idea), and confirms the diagnosis: feline urinary disorder, a condition   common in male cats.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A few more hours and you would have lost him,\" he says, \"his kidneys   would have burst.\" Since by now I cannot imagine life without Blanche,   I put all my emotional energy into setting up a visiting schedule for   Blanche's upcoming week in the hospital. Each day a different friend   will read or sing to him, bring a stuffed toy or catnip, and call me in   New York so Blanche can hear my voice. It is the calling-me-in-New-York   part that makes it apparent I've gone over the top.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBack at home, my feelings for Matt grow stronger, which is becoming a   problem. Not only am I, a self-proclaimed curmudgeon, unexpectedly and   boundlessly attached to a cat who is probably going to die before me, I   am now falling for a human as well, and it scares me. I worry I'll get   soft around the edges, begin getting used to his smell, the lilt of his   voice, the crinkles around his eyes-and then wham! I could lose him. He   could meet someone else (someone nicer, someone less intense, someone   with big hair and long legs) on the street, in an airplane, at the   grocery store, and break my heart. Or he could die in a plane crash, or   a car accident, or from cancer. The statistical odds are against us.   Men die before women. I feel utterly exposed, as if I am peeling back   my skin and opening myself to the center where wounds are born.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAvoiding this state is the very reason I was obsessed with food for   seventeen years, the reason I used to zing up and down the scales by   ten pounds every few weeks. It seemed to me that being thin was like   wearing my insides on my outside, while being fat gave me protection.   People thought they were seeing me but I knew they were seeing my fat;   I was safely inside, watching, waiting, assessing the situation. When   they rejected me, they were only rejecting my fat. The real truth was,   they couldn't touch me, which was exactly what I wanted. I was able to   stop eating compulsively, in part, by telling myself that being thin   didn't have to mean relinquishing my control about who touched me, who   hurt me, who came close, and who stayed away.National Bestseller","brand":"Harmony","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300471886053,"sku":"NP9781400083190","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400083190.jpg?v=1767738859","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-craggy-hole-in-my-heart-and-the-cat-who-fixed-it-isbn-9781400083190","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}