Wisconsin.
November.
Northwest winds blustered my yesterday, tumbling me to this windless morning.
There is an 8 a.m. silence in my neighborhood.
Rare.
That special moment when everything around me stands still in silent motion.
Everything I see is removed enough to be witnessed, but not heard.
Temperature mild,
cool, crisp,
thawing.
It’s still —
yet drawing a shiver
on my skin.
Awakened to watch a convoy of V’s flying south,
so high I couldn’t hear their horns honking.
No thinking.
Just watching.
Observing.
Squirrels — one in every backyard four houses down, including my own.
And then — this thought:
Squirrels — oh how I love them, hate them.
How they make me smile when I see them bounce
across yard to curb,
to street,
to my curb,
my yard,
my porch,
my flower pots.
Like *Frogger.*
Only squirrels are better at this game.
They are mostly silent, which I adore.
Unless they’re above me.
Then I eavesdrop on their chittering,
their chipmunk whispers,
plotting next spring,
twitching their tail at my attempts to proof my bird feeders.
Come to think of it, squirrels are the same as New York City sewer rats —
other than that poofy tail and dainty hop of evolution.
And why such separation in perception from their close cousin?
I nod —
not so much in my eyes.
I see their clever disguise,
hiding under labels and preferences we prefer as the dominant species.
They are — and in this, my reality, remain — cute rodents to me.
Yet… I gaze upon these rodents,
because there is a grace upon them I can’t deny.
A witnessing.
They choose light of day,
not the shadows of night as their place to be.
They choose to not ransack the garbage,
not spread disease.
In fact, watching a squirrel’s playful, smooth moves can put you at ease.
It can bring a smile that’s warm,
that anciently assures you life is moving,
and all is safe.
Yet bare eyes on a rat and you begin to think differently —
defensively, on a DNA level.
What is that doing here?
Disgusting?
There must be more!
We have a rat problem.
A rodent problem.
Catch them. Trap them. Remove them.
Eradicate them all.
Yet squirrels abound here and move on amongst neighbors,
with their little front paws kneading matted, overgrown lawn,
massaging the earth for nuts —
foraging for survival no different than the rat would.
However, the cute rodents forage in sun and sea of sleepy grass
and leaves that have let go,
not the buried trash and sewage of man.
A squirrel is not a rat because it chose to evolve —
to want to see the sun,
to want to be among us,
and not be seen as a villain.
(Though hungry birds everywhere might protest.)
A squirrel chose to be different. How?
One rat — long ago — lifted its head.
Chose the light.
Chose open air over rot.
Chose to climb.
To belong.
To imagine itself elsewhere,
else-how,
else-everything.
It didn’t know the future.
But it felt something.
It felt a direction.
A pull within.
A maybe.
It must have been brutal —
those first rats gone rogue,
leaving gutters behind,
risking the unknown,
betting on a life not yet proven.
Forward anyway.
Faith as instinct.
Instinct as faith.
And here it is now —
tail flicking, body bouncing away,
leaving the rat behind,
leaping into a different life,
and pulling my attention with it
until it’s gone.
Their choices, their decisions —
they define them,
as something better than what they were
when they were known as a rat.
And just like that, I know it’s time.
Time to shift my head,
lift it toward the light,
move forward,
move past this moment,
and into my next.