One of my
favorite things about sitting in the park last week was my chance to
participate in squirrel watching in addition to people watching. Back at my old
apartment I had a feeder right outside the window of my office where I wrote
and I spent many hours watching the antics of the squirrels, as well as the
birds. I even wrote a few blog posts about some of them, immortalizing them in
print. Alas, since I have moved way out to the country and am, indeed,
surrounded by trees, I have yet to see a squirrel. I’m told that it might be
because there are so many predators around. I have seen for myself the hawks
that make their rounds twice a day right over the fields that surround where I
live, not to mention the parade of barn cats, plus the eagles that hang out just
down the hill from me. So it does my heart good to be able to spend some time
in their presence by watching them in the park when I go to town. They are
industrious little creatures, very focused and determined as anyone who has
ever watched one at a bird feeder can attest to. They are also awesome to watch
at play, with such abandon and joy.
On the day
that I was last there (the day of the famous adventure of the girl, the guy, the
tree and the note from last week’s post) it was apparent as I watched my little
furry friends at work and play that they are quite used to having humans
around. With the courthouse right there and all those benches to sit on, I can
imagine people feeding them, or dropping food for them to find. One squirrel in
particular was sitting very quietly a short distance from me chewing on what
looked like a branch. It certainly looked like he was watching me as intently
as I was watching him even though I had long finished my lunch. So I started a
conversation with him. I told him I was sorry to bother him while he was having
his lunch, but I was wondering if squirrels had a way of contacting relatives
who lived in other towns, sort of like squirrel tweeting or something. I told
him how I missed my squirrels back home and that I wanted them to know that I
thought about them often and hoped they were well.
I looked
around to make sure no one had actually heard that exchange and thought
security should be called. It’s just that, being a very creative and whimsical
kind of girl, in addition to all of my Native American studies, it never occurred
to me that I couldn’t communicate with my relatives in the animal kingdom. So I
just did.
I took out
my phone to check the time and when I looked up, that very same squirrel had
come right over to me and was sitting in front of me, as if it wanted to
continue the conversation. Suddenly I felt all Dr. Doolittle, as if I could
actually talk to an animal – well, besides my cats who are way too human, if
you know what I mean. So I continued, and the squirrel moved closer.
He sat
looking at me for a few more moments as I shared this and that with him. When I was done he ran around behind the bench I was sitting on and scurried up the nearest tree
where he sat at a junction of branches and continued to simply keep me company
for the duration of my visit.
How many times in our day-to-day lives do we
not allow ourselves to communicate with someone because we believe they are
different from us? How often do we tell ourselves that someone’s
race/religion/ethnic origin/gender/politics puts them in one half of the “them
or us” equation and ourselves in the other, thus making us unwilling to
overlook the differences and, instead, look for common ground with which to get
the conversation started? We make assumptions about people based on these
categories, or hold on to long held beliefs about “those people” that probably
weren’t even ours to begin with but were passed down by family and culture. Why don’t we take the time to actually test the waters with a moment of kindness and
attention? Even a simple thing like, “Good Morning,” or, “Nice weather, isn’t it?”
can begin to open doors to new and myth-changing conversations. Kindness and
compassion, together with a willingness to simply be open to listen, doesn’t
cost us anything but can reward us many times over with new friends, new ideas
and beliefs that are our own creation and not someone else’s.
As for my
belief that I can actually talk to animals, I had another occasion to test that the other day when a very short and very fat robin landed on the branch of a tree in the
garden. I was out for my morning stroll where it is my custom to greet the day
and say good morning to the birds, the cows and anyone else who is within ear
shot. I told the robin that he looked very much like a character in a story
that I am working on. I invited him to come and visit me often so that I could
learn all about robins from him as part of my research. He sang the prettiest
song for me before he took off. He’s been back every day since. Communication
is a beautiful thing.
And so it
is.
