Sunday, March 2, 2014

The Contemplation of a Squirrel

Thanks to this ceaseless polar vortex, it’s been months—more like years—since I’ve experienced the vibrations of the “vigor…rolling in from the fields” on a balmy “mid-September” morning, forever since I’ve heard anything like a moth’s enthused fluttering against a windowpane and had a deep existential crisis thinking about it.
            So, to still reuse Virginia Woolf’s idea of discovering the great truths of humanity in watching a simple animal, I’m going to discuss a picture we took on our family trip to the Grand Canyon a few summers ago.
            Of all the photos we snapped depicting the canyon’s majestic beauty and godly might, my favorite included a tiny squirrel—one of the kind that scuttle around hikers’ feet with energy from the very wellspring of life itself when they think the manna of trail mix crumbs will rain down upon them—sitting on the edge of the canyon. However, he was not skittering crazily along the path like his cousins, but meditating with his eyes closed, as still and stoic as the Buddha.
            There was this huge expanse of foreverness in front of him—orange canyon fading into cool purple and soft grey undertones, which melted into the endless clouds from which I know universes are born—and the squirrel was just calmly poised there on the precipice, not caring whether he fell into the abyss.
As I sit here gazing at the image and listening to Paul McCartney sing, “I’m a blue bird, I’m a blue bird…” backed by liberating Major 7 chords, I realize that the thing about the squirrel was that he was free. And truth be told, freedom scares me. Sometimes, when I have this massive panorama of canyon before me, and I’m free to hike where I please, I don’t know which trail to run down.
But perhaps, like the squirrel, I can free myself from this fear of freedom. I can meditate, give myself to the canyon, give myself to God, stand on the edge, and be content with whichever trail I may fall upon.
mail.jpg

2 comments:

  1. This is really good Katie!! I really like how you use so many descriptive words about the squirrel and your own experience. And I also fear freedom because it provides too many choices. Also, Bluebird is an awesome song.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, thanks, Shalini! :) And I know; isn't "Bluebird" great?

    ReplyDelete