Monday, October 10, 2016

Fur-Weather Friends


Everywhere you look right now, you see my spirit animal. Fall decor has appropriated the squirrel, and I'm reclaiming them as year-round objects of my affection and admiration.

My middle name is Forrest. I feel closest to my primordial self when surrounded by trees - they populate my favorite stories and scriptures and art of all kinds. The woods are full of symbols and meaning that I don't think I could begin to touch in a light and fluffy blog post, but I can definitely touch on my feelings for light and fluffy squirrels.

Some people see squirrels as pests, and they can certainly live up to that expectation. They're tree rats who chew through your attic and leave unpleasant souvenirs - my mother once saw one peering into her kitchen through an air conditioner vent. She was not thrilled. I'm not thrilled by regular non-tree rats, incidentally - ten years ago one jumped from a shelf by my face onto my bare foot and I screamed and peed my pants as a full grown adult. Let's pretend that's the only time I've peed my pants as a full grown adult though - makes for a better story, I think.

Here's a brief list of reasons why squirrels are my best wild animal friends.

1. Big eyes, brown fur, fluffy. That's pretty much me.

2. They are everywhere. Squirrels live in almost every habitat on the planet, so anywhere you go, you can spot one, which means I can be easily delighted anywhere on earth. If your spirit animal is a giraffe or a katydid or a ring-tailed lemur, sucks to be you. Have fun at the zoo, my unfortunate friend. I'll be over here in this random parking lot communing with my symbol of selfhood.

3. They are inherently funny. Lions? Majestic. Dolphins? Adorable. Butterflies? Delicate and beautiful. Squirrels? Hilarious.

Exhibit A:


Exhibit B:

Need I go on? I CAN DO THIS ALL. DAY. LONG. (Don't think I haven't already, multiple times.)

4. They are brave, intrepid, enthusiastic, curious, hard-working, and ridiculously cute; and have a reputation for being overexcitable and somewhat flaky. Me all over. Except the 
hard-working part, but that's a topic for another post.

So the next time you see a squirrel (which, let's face it, will be pretty soon), give it a little wave in my honor, and imagine it in a sweater. See what I mean? Delightful.

2 comments:

  1. Caroline, your bare foot story made my day. I love how you can just lay it all on the table. 😅

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  2. Caroline, your bare foot story made my day. I love how you can just lay it all on the table. 😅

    ReplyDelete