Cat washing its face
Cats often wash their faces right after a fright or a clumsy fall, which makes the habit worth borrowing when you need to compose yourself. Old English lore read a paw passed over the ears as a sign of rain.
What it may mean
Watch a cat misjudge a jump and slide off the kitchen shelf, and the very next thing it does is settle and wash. People joke that it is pretending nothing happened, and in a sense it is: grooming is how cats calm themselves after a startle, a scuffle or an embarrassing moment. A few licks of the paw, a sweep over the ears, and the world is back in order. A cat washing its face invites a look at your own ways of regaining composure. What do you do in the minute after a fumble, a curt remark or a public mistake? Some people need a small ritual of their own (a deep breath, a glass of water, straightening a desk) before they can carry on with dignity.
Depending on how you saw it
Washing right after a meal
Most cats clean their face and whiskers within minutes of eating, a tidy end to every meal. It closes one activity before the next begins. Do you have a small way of finishing one stretch of your day before you start the next?
Grooming after a fall or a fright
A cat that has just been startled by a noise or fallen off the sofa often grooms at once, a habit animal behaviorists call displacement grooming. It is resetting, not ignoring. What is your own reset after an awkward moment?
Washing behind the ears
Old weather sayings paid special attention to a cat that passed its paw over its ears. Behind the ears is the hardest place for a cat to reach, so it takes the most effort. Which part of looking after yourself is hardest to reach, and gets left for last?
Washing in front of guests
Some cats settle on the rug in full view and wash while visitors watch. They are not shy about their routines. Which of your own small rituals do you hide when others are around, and why?
Why it happens in nature
Cats spend a large part of their waking hours grooming. To clean the face, a cat licks a front paw and wipes it over the face and behind the ears, places its tongue cannot reach. Grooming also spreads the cat's own scent, helps cool it on warm days and seems to calm it after a stressful moment.
What folk beliefs say
England
Melton's Astrologaster, an early English book quoted by Brand, lists among the superstitions of its day that when the cat washes her face over her ears, there will be great store of rain.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 3 (1849), vol. 3, p. 187. View the page
New England
In New England, people watched which paw a cat washed with and which way it faced, believing this showed the direction the wind was blowing from.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 596. View the page
Ireland
An Irish omen held that a cat looking straight at you while it washed itself foretold your death, unless you quickly made a wish.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 593. View the page
To reflect on
What do you do in the minute after a fumble to get your composure back?