mi casa es su casa

Much of the time I live (as I think most people do) focused on work, or on friends, or on deciding what I need to pick up at the grocery store tonight so that I’ll have all the necessary ingredients to make that soup for dinner tomorrow.

But sometimes (and more and more often the older I get), the world seems to invert in my mind; all its assumptions and consistencies overturned. And then, for a short time, even the most mundane of daily things seems suddenly strange and wondrous.

I just experienced one of those turn-overs. I was lying on the couch, watching the cat lick his paws, watching his ears go back as he heard a car go by on the street; seeing his pupils narrow and his posture stiffen ever-so-slightly. And I thought – how bizarre that I share my life with an animal. An animal; a small thing with claws and fur and a rough tongue and a non-human brain, no ability to speak a language; a wild thing. There is a wild thing living in my apartment! Why is he here? And what does he make of it? Why is he so complacent? Doesn’t he find it strange to live high in the air, on the second floor, and have his food come in uniformly-shaped pellets? Doesn’t he think it odd to look out on houses and cars instead of jungle or forest? To hear church bells ring every hour? Has he memorized all of the Christian hymns they play?

And then… suddenly it seemed even stranger that I should be human, living in a humanly-constructed box, surrounded by humanly-constructed things. Not living outside with the trees, like all the other beings on this planet. I mean, it’s a simple thought, but doesn’t it ever strike you as odd that we live in houses? Or, maybe what I mean is, doesn’t it strike you as incredible that other animals don’t?! I was in New Jersey visiting Mark and Janice, watching these huge turkey vultures circle over their house and thinking – wow, those enormous birds just live out here! They’re not in a zoo, they don’t belong to the neighbors, they’re not on loan by the Chinese government as part of an educational exchange*; they actually live out here, in these trees! And when it rains, and snows – they’re just out there. They don’t ever go home and turn up the thermostat and take a nice hot shower and throw their sopping clothes in the dryer. They don’t pay rent, or property tax. They don’t own dishes, or clothing, or have boxes of Christmas ornaments stashed away in cupboards. They’re completely comfortable being just themselves, with no possessions but their own bodies, sitting out in the weather, all day and all night, every moment of their lives. Isn’t that the strangest and most amazing thing you’ve ever heard of?